Good morning, thanks for joining us on our live blog of the Test match from the Oval. After the first day was lost due to rain and the second was canceled as a mark of respect for the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, the match began yesterday. England bowled out South Africa for 118 but missed the chance to take full control of what is now a de facto three-day match when they played some hasty and over-aggressive shots. Bad light slowed the game down. They will resume today at 154/7, with a lead of 36.
The men not out for England are Ben Foakes with 11* and Ollie Robinson, who had an excellent day with the ball picking up a five-for, with 3*. England are strong in the tail with this set-up, with only Jack Leach and James Anderson left to come. All eyes will then be on Foakes as he tries to guide the team to something like a total.
With football taking the raucous, and in the grassroots game’s, strange decision to cancel all games this weekend, there has been a lot of attention on events in south London. Cricket yesterday paid its tribute to the late monarch. and Oliver Brown was there to see this.
“It was as unbelievably beautiful a moment as any sports crowd had conjured up. For three and a half minutes, ended only by the tolling of a ship’s bell from HMS Illustrious, 27,000 people inside the Oval went united in an exquisite silence. Only the faint noise of industrial machinery, far above the ground, broke the feeling of sleep.
Until the tortured debate about whether sport could summon the decorum to reflect this time of national mourning. The cricket lovers who gathered here under the bright September skies were as peaceful and deferential as a congregation in St Paul’s Cathedral.
A number of spectators at the Vauxhall End wiped away tears. Ben Stokes, the England captain, stood with his head bowed, biting his lip. And when it came to his players singing God Save the King, the first national side to do so during the reign of Charles III, the anthem, led by soprano Laura Wright, echoed through every corner of the ground like a plaintive elegy”.