Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel moved South Africa into the box seat in the 4th Test at the Wanderers.

Losing the toss, Graeme Smith wouldn’t have been disappointed to have a bowl first given the overhead conditions and nature of the pitch. The key to losing tosses like this is to ensure you don’t waste the new ball and lively wicket first up.

Dale Steyn produced the desired result with the first ball of the match removing the dangerous English captain, Andrew Strauss. I was pleased to see Steyn trying to attack the stumps more. He did get picked off at times when getting to close to leg stump, especially against the left handers, but he remained threatening all day.

Morne Morkel backed him up superbly and got results for pitching the ball up. It’s taken some time for Morkel to start to adapt this strategy more often, but the result was 3 key English wickets early on, and placing the pressure right on the English batsmen.

Paul Collingwood and Ian Bell threatened an English revivial with a 5th wicket stand of 76, before debutant Ryan McLaren claimed his first test wicket in breaking the partnership.

Jaques Kallis was a good supporting bowler, whilst the other debutant Wayne Parnell was more of a spectator.

However it was Dale Steyn who wrapped up proceedings as a steady flow of English wickets kept tumbling. Steyn has a knack of coming back to clean up the tail and earnt his 12th 5 wicket bag in an innings. Steyn now has the distinction of claiming 5 wicket bags against all the test playing nations.

England were dismissed for a paltry 180 in 47.5 overs.

In reply South Africa only got to face 12 overs as bad light and rain stopped play for the day. South Africa will resume on the second morning at 29/0.

The morning session as it has been all series will be crucial. If South Africa can see off the new ball, they can potentially score a large total and almost bat England out of the game. Early wickets and England will be right back in it.

There has been plenty of twists and turns in the series so far, tomorrow promises to be no different.