England should play the role of underdogs more often. Beforehand, South Africa were happy to talk up their ambitions to win their first series in England since readmission, and their opponents did not seem in any rush to demur. However their response has been like a series of heavy-weight blows to the solar plexus. South Africa are on the ropes. England have not played this well in any Test match since Duncan Fletcher left.

This first npower Test match may not yet be won - anyone who remembers how Sri Lanka wriggled off the hook on this ground two years ago would not want to jump to that conclusion just yet - but England are in a position of total command. However, they will have to stay on top of their game to force a win on a pitch slower than Thabo Mbeki’s foreign policy.

This game may be England’s best chance because South Africa will surely not be this rusty again. On a pacier pitch their attack will be more menacing and it is hard to believe their batsmen will so generously gift their wickets again.

If England had one hero, it was Monty Panesar, who finished with four wickets, but this was a collective effort and Stuart Broad in particular complemented Panesar with a hostile spell from the pavilion end when the ball was soft but South Africa’s lower order needed roughing up.

For South Africa to get into such dire straits after England had totalled almost 600 and on a day when the ball barely swung until the final hour was extraordinary. Ashwell Prince’s wonderful solo hand – his hundred was the first by a nonwhite South African in a Test at Lord’s – showed what was possible. There would have been recriminations in their camp last night.

They have long had problems with spin bowling, of course. Just a mention of Shane Warne’s name sent many into a cold sweat and although they recently returned from India with an honourable 1-1 draw, Har-bhajan Singh claimed 19 of their wickets in three matches. And this was the first time that they had encountered Panesar in a Test.

However, they were authors of their own misfortune. After the pace trio had claimed three wickets before lunch, Panesar kept up the momentum with a crucial blow shortly after lunch when he bowled Neil McKenzie round his legs.

It was a ball that was calculated by television to have turned 13 inches, not quite measuring up to a Warne super ball but still an impressive distance. There followed a long stand, lasting two hours and worth 78, between Prince and AB de Villiers that threatened to seriously frustrate England, but in the end De Villiers’s frustration against Panesar got the better of him. James Anderson had been dropped deep at mid on but De Villiers decided he could clear him nonetheless.

Against a lesser fielder he might have managed it, but Anderson leapt high to his left to pull off a fine catch.

Panesar bowled a beauty to breach the suspect defence of Morne Morkel but did not put Prince under enough pressure and was indebted to a fine diving catch by Anderson to remove Paul Harris. Panesar had a chance of a fifth wicket when the light deteriorated with the 10th-wicket pair together but Kevin Pietersen proved the beneficiary of Dale Steyn’s first yahoo. Panesar will have a key role to play in the follow-on, enforced after England took a lead of 346, but recent experience suggests Lord’s pitches do not break up and each of the last five Tests here have been drawn.

With the light still suspect, Panesar and Pietersen had the unusual pleasure of sharing the new ball when South Africa began their second innings shortly before 7pm with four overs left in the day.

England had a terrific day in the field - Andrew Strauss also took an excellent catch in the slips - but other catches might have gone to hand had they not stood so deep. Two chances fell just short of Tim Ambrose behind the stumps while another was inches away from reaching Ian Bell at a not-very-short leg.

Prince’s innings was a delight and fully deserved every regal adjective applied to him. He had a lucky escape at the start when an edge bisected slips and gully, and was struck a painful blow in the royal box on 95, but otherwise looked accomplished in his first Test innings against England. His celebrations after reaching his hundred were suit-ably euphoric but he chased an outswinger from Ryan Sidebottom soon after.

England enjoyed a terrific morning, plucking out the prized wickets of Smith, Hash-im Amla and Jacques Kallis before 50 was on the board. It was a terrific period of play for them and cemented the ascendant position they had established on the first two days, ensuring that South Africa would spend the rest of the day fighting for survival.

Graeme Smith, of course, was the key wicket. As captain, his style is to lead from the front and had he got his eye in he would have looked to score briskly and lead a counter-attack. But this is a man short of practice following injury and he never got started. In the third over of the day he went hard at a ball from Anderson and spliced a catch to gully. This was a welcome start because the ball was showing a reluctance to swing and England struggled to make the batsmen play as much as they would have liked. It had the makings of a long hard day but then, as the end of the first hour approached, Amla gifted his wicket with a nothing shot against Broad and feathered a catch through to the keeper.

Kallis arrived with an immense reputation at his disposal and a bizarre record at the home of cricket that needed putting right. In his only two previous innings for South Africa at Lord’s, Kallis had failed to score a run, and he looked like a man weighed down by the thought. After a couple of overs, he got off the mark with an unconvincing steer for four through gully.

Sidebottom had his own problems. He is enduring a difficult summer which a clutch of wickets on the final day of the Test series with New Zealand should not disguise. With little swing, he had to find other ways to make an impact and he began to hone in on McKenzie’s off stump. McKenzie shaped up well in the opener’s role but had a lucky escape when he edged a ball from Sidebottom onto his back foot. It could have cannoned into the stumps.

This incident may have been playing on Kallis’s mind when he faced Sidebottom moments later; but rather than coming back into him the ball left him fractionally and Kallis edged low to first slip’s right where Strauss - comfortingly for the father-to-be - cradled the ball like a baby.