Friday 7 July 2017 19:06, UK
Two players stood out, dramatically, on day two at Lord's.
Stuart Broad has run in superbly. No concerns over that heel injury of his that everyone was talking about before the Test; the lack of steam he had in the Royal London One-Day Cup final last week.
People keep trying to write off Broad, but today shows he's likely to be around for a long time yet.
He, along with Moeen Ali, was outstanding with the ball. Not only did they share four of the five wickets to fall, but they restricted the South African scoring rate too.
Quite the contrast to the England innings, which ended with a real flourish - Broad also smashing a beautiful fifty.
He has a great eye and a lovely, clean swing of the bat. It looks like he even taught his great old mate, Jimmy Anderson, a thing or two after he too swatted a staggering six over deep backward square-leg.
I thought the South African bowling against Broad, mind, was pretty naive. You can't just keep peppering a batsman with the short ball even if they clearly don't fancy it. You've got to be more selective.
Broad would have been given a massive boost by that swashbuckling innings of his; on cloud nine taking the new ball, with Anderson.
The ball didn't swing for him, so Broad realised 'right, the onus is on me to lead the attack' and he did that superbly. He bowled a great line and length, and at good pace.
Moeen, meanwhile, is the second fastest Englishman to 2,000 runs and 100 wickets. What a fantastic record!
He has always been a decent spinner of the ball, but the problem has been - as with Adil Rashid - there is so often a boundary ball around the corner.
It's why England picked two spinners for the Test. Liam Dawson got the first opportunity, and was meant to be that holding spinner. He couldn't do the job today; good on Dean Elgar, in particular, for taking him on.
Moeen got more spin when he came into the attack, though he was a little underbowled.
But the other problem with England spinners of recent times has come when they are expected to bowl sides out and the pressure is on them to perform in the fourth innings. That's when they tend to get very tense, and Moeen is a much better bowler when he is more relaxed.
That may well be the case in this Test, and you'd hope by now, given his experience, Moeen be able to better absorb that pressure. On this form, he looks to have improved fairly dramatically.
The match is pretty finely balanced after two days, though I'd still much prefer to be in England's position.
Temba Bavuma and Theunis de Bruyn did well, playing pretty cautiously in their 99-run stand but that late Anderson wicket will have been a blow.
South Africa will have to bat last on this pitch - which may not be easy; the pitch set to spin more and more - and are well aware that apart from Quinton de Kock, who can be explosive, they don't have much more batting to come.
South Africa have a lot of work to do, and we'll see just how aggressive of a captain Joe Root is if England get a 100-150 run first-innings lead.
Bob Willis and The Verdict will come live following the day's play at every Test match this summer, only on Sky Sports.
