South Africa vs England: ‘Old-school’ Nick Compton quick to defend pace of his batting

'Facing the new ball is something you need to practise and get used to mentally more than anything. So I do believe in specialist opening batters and top-order players.'

England batsman Nick Compton (Getty Images)

This series will be remembered for many things. They will live forever in the mind’s eye: Ben Stokes’ extraordinary innings of 258, his world- record partnership of 399 with Jonny Bairstow, Hashim Amla’s double century in the same match, Joe Root’s classic hundred, Stuart Broad’s remarkable spell of bowling.

Down the list is the upper-order batting of both sides, especially the openers. The highest first-wicket partnership on either side has been 64, for England, but six of the 11 have been 23 runs or fewer. It is hardly seeing off the new ball.

In England’s case this has been partly because they have been blooding yet another new partner for Alastair Cook in Alex Hales, who is coming to terms with Test cricket and how he should play it, partly because Cook has been in moderate form. As for South Africa, they have persisted with a non-specialist opener, Stiaan van Zyl, at the top of the order and have been rewarded with 69 runs in five innings.

Smell the leather? No thanks, Hansie

Centurion is a lovely, intimate cricket ground. But it is irrevocably tainted by what became known as the “leather jacket Test”. 

Sixteen years ago this week, rain washed out three days of the last match in a series South Africa had already won.

Only one innings had been possible and in what seemed a fit of common sense, both sides forfeited innings to give England a chase. But the South Africa captain, Hansie Cronje, had been bribed with cash and the aforementioned jacket to ensure the match had a positive result. He persuaded England that it was for sport’s good.

An abiding memory is not of the game – which England won – but of the late, lamented Mirror cricket correspondent Chris Lander railing about how it devalued Test cricket. He could not have begun to guess how correct he was.

Nick Compton, who has abundant experience of opening and No 3, was in no doubt where experimentation can lead. Of his 256 first-class innings in England, 99 have been as opener, 122 as No 3.

“I’m a bit old school,” he said yesterday. “I think it’s very tough to have makeshift guys opening the batting. Opening the batting is a specialist skill. Facing the new ball is something you need to practise and get used to mentally more than anything. So I do believe in specialist opening batters and top-order players.”

Benson retires hurt as one of the best

Sad news about Mark Benson’s enforced retirement as an umpire at the age of 57 after back surgery. When he retired from playing, I went to interview him as one of the best of the “one-cap wonders” and he was wondering what to do. “Be an umpire, you’ve got the eye as an opening batsman,” I said. We wrote to the ECB together. He became one of the world’s best.

But Compton, like Hales, is still coming to terms with the rhythms of Test cricket. Thanks to the selectors’ capriciousness he opened the batting in his first nine Tests before being dropped, and having been recalled after more than two years, has been at No 3 in the three matches in this series. Mostly, he has played his natural, diffident game, but twice at the Wanderers last week he tried to be more expansive.

In the first innings he all but matched Root shot for shot as they sought to repair early damage; in the second he went for glory by trying to hit a six to win the match, but produced a faintly embarrassing catch at mid-on.

Of the first innings he said: “You just play the best you can. That’s just about me being tougher on myself, it was nothing to do with ‘I need to bat quicker here’. Joe Root had just come in and I found a bit more balance, I hit a couple of nice shots and we got 50 quite quickly.

Umpires’ helmets? I’ll eat my hat

Benson might have got out at the right time. In yesterday’s one-day international in Melbourne, umpire Richard Kettleborough had to retire hurt after being hit on the shin by a brutal return drive; his colleague, John Ward, wore a helmet to protect himself. It will not be long before helmets replace umpires’ charming titfers. And the game will decline a little more.

“Having been behind in the game a bit, it was important we pushed on and engendered a good relationship. I perhaps got a little bit ahead of myself. From a personal position hopefully you get in and cash in. I think that’s something that needs to be worked on.”

The fourth Test which starts tomorrow in Centurion, dead rubber though it may be with England 2-0 ahead in the series, is probably important for Compton and Hales. As for Van Zyl he may have already paid the penalty, with specialist opener Stephen Cook called into the squad.

Compton and Hales have each scored one half-century, though Compton has more runs in total. It is possible to imagine a scenario where the selectors turn to Compton to open with Cook again, which is where they started when they first began looking to replace Andrew Strauss in 2012.

They have invited six others since with a collective average of 28.44. Hales can change the course of any such thinking in the final Test.