THE general expectation before this series began was that England held all the aces and that a South Africa side in a period of transition would do well to live with them. After two days of the third Test match in Cape Town, the reality is quite different. At Newlands, as at Kingsmead, it is England who are up against it, needing 147 more to avoid the follow-on with only six wickets left and looking once again to the mature skill of Graham Thorpe to restore equilibrium.

Lacking a proper playing-in period, England’s cricket in a quickfire series that is about to reach its halfway stage has been patchy. They are like hikers scrambling up Table Mountain in the wrong boots. Yesterday they were also tired-looking hikers. Andrew Flintoff gave his customary wholehearted performance with the ball, but he had to be protected by a nightwatchman when Makhaya Ntini took his second wicket, in the last over , and he will probably need to find his true form with the bat today if this game is to be turned as the last one was.

On a comfortably paced pitch, although it is offering some turn from the rough, England are still capable of matching South Africa’s 441, a total no better than par. They are 346 runs behind, however, and sooner or later they are going to find a peak too high for them.

Four wickets fell for 43 after an opening partnership of 52, the consequence of some good bowling but also some indiscreet strokes. Marcus Trescothick cut optimistically and was caught at backward point; Robert Key, thrust into the game after one innings in more than three months, gloved an attempted hook off his fifth ball; Michael Vaughan touched a good-length outswinger to the wicketkeeper; and Andrew Strauss, having reached 1,000 runs in his nineteenth Test innings, played on off his inside edge as he drove at a wideish ball in the hope of relieving the pressure.

None of them, in truth, was under any greater pressure than Jacques Kallis had been throughout his latest display of masterly self-control. His nineteenth Test century was his seventh in his past nine home Tests. Having failed to bounce him out, England tried instead to frustrate him by bowling to a packed offside field, but for more than eight hours in all he refused to be bent to their will.

Whereas Kallis has again lived up to high expectations and Shaun Pollock and Ntini are producing as anticipated, too many of the key England players are failing to deliver. In particular, Stephen Harmison, unable to find his optimum length, has taken six wickets at a cost of 62 runs each, while Vaughan has managed 64 runs at an average of less than 13. No doubt they will come good at The Wanderers next weekend, but that might be a match too late.

Both had an adventurous start yesterday. Before play began, Vaughan, batting against James Anderson in the nets, was hit on the middle finger of his right hand. He was sufficiently concerned to go to hospital for an X-ray that confirmed only a bruise. It left Trescothick to take charge in the field for the first eight overs as Harmison and Matthew Hoggard let rip with a ball that was still hard and shiny. Hoggard did not find a tight line at first, however, and Harmison’s exceptional first over turned out to be sound and fury signifying nothing.

Kallis, though, must still have felt extreme relief to have survived it. The first ball lifted to bruise his right index finger. The second, a fierce bouncer, forced him on to his back as he rocked out of harm’s way. He left the third, narrowly avoided another bouncer, played and missed at the fifth and took a leg bye from the last.

During the morning Kallis lost the company of Hashim Amla, given out leg-before to a nip-backer that would have climbed over the stumps, A. B. de Villiers, down the pitch driving but missing the spinning ball on the full, and Pollock, given out caught behind to a ball that bounced and left him.

In the combative and capable Nicky Boje, however, he found a partner of similar pride and determination. They put on 104 for the seventh wicket before Kallis succumbed at last to a forward push.