South Africa v England: third Test, day two – live!

96th over: England 252-4 (Stokes 52, Pope 53) Vernon Philander replaces Kagiso Rabada. Pope late cuts him for four, bringing up his first century partnership with Stokes. Spoiler: it isn’t their last. He repeats the stroke later in the over to bring up another high-class fifty, his third in the last four innings. If you’re not excited about what Ollie Pope might achieve in the next decade, you should seek urgent medical advice.

This is a load of idealistic crap.

95th over: England 243-4 (Stokes 51, Pope 45) Stokes is beaten, flashing at a short ball from Nortje. Careful now. Those lapses of concentration are his biggest weakness as a batsman. He walks right across his stumps to the next ball, flicking it in the air on the leg side for a single. It was probably a safer shot than it looked.

“Morning Rob,” says Robert Ellson. “Would like to add to your list of great England middle-order partnerships: Graham Thorpe and anyone.”

Ha, yes. I’m trying to think who was his best partner. Nasser, maybe, though he also had some terrific partnerships with Freddie Flintoff in the second part of his career.

94th over: England 241-4 (Stokes 50, Pope 44) A short ball from Rabada does nothing off the pitch, which gives Stokes plenty of time to cart a pull to the midwicket boundary. He repeats the stroke later in the over to reach another masterful half-century from 102 balls. He has never batted better than in the last nine months, and his career average (36.62 and rising) is the highest it has been since he made that glorious hundred at Perth in only his second Test.

93rd over: England 231-4 (Stokes 40, Pope 44) Pope gets the first boundary of the day with a lovely stroke, flashing a shortish delivery from Nortje wide of gully. England have found a player, no point denying it. He’s class.

92nd over: England 225-4 (Stokes 39, Pope 39) In a surprising development, Kagiso Rabada will open the bowling from the Duckpond End. Stokes punches a couple of confident drives without piercing the field, and it’s a maiden.

91st over: England 225-4 (Stokes 39, Pope 39) Anrich Nortje opens the bowling to Ben Stokes, who turns a short ball off the hip for the first run of the day. Stokes has a good winter with the bat, with an average in excess of 50, though he’ll be annoyed that he hasn’t scored a century.

“Hi Rob,” says Jamie Gordon. “The sun’s just come out over Woking and the weather is heading in the direction of Port Elizabeth – we should be in for a fine day once we get started.”

This will be a two-hour morning session, despite the delayed start, with lunch put back to 12.45pm local time, 10.45pm in England.

There are rumours that Kagiso Rabada is in trouble for his celebration of Joe Root’s wicket yesterday. This ongoing attempt to impose the genteel ambience of a tea party upon international sport really is lamentable nonsense.

“It seems that subscription channels, with their big pockets, are hoovering up the Test series in different countries,” says Jim Todd. “My question is: how long before we have to subscribe and pay for OBO text commentary? And when that happens will the star OBO commentators be worth millions from all our subscription cash?”

Now that’s an IPL-style auction I’d like to see. ‘I have five over here, do I hear ten? Ten pence for Rob Smyth?’

The covers have come off, though there’s no scheduled start time yet.

It’s raining again. Play won’t be starting at 8.20am, that’s for sure. The upside of the delay is a fascinating chat about the minutiae of batting between Nick Knight, Dawid Malan and Rob Key in the Sky studio. Key, in particular, is a sensational pundit.

“Morning Rob,” says Guy Hornsby. “From an aptly very soggy and dark Salford, seems like it’s raining everywhere today. Hopefully Pope and Stokes can drip runs from a tired South African attack, the scoreboard will begin to flow and they’ll thunder us into a healthy 350+ total with a storm of boundaries. Or not.”

Play will start at 8.20am/10.20am local time, weather permitting.

If you need a live cricket fix, Jonathan Howcroft is your man.

Ach, it’s raining again and the covers are going back on. It looks like it could be an on-off morning, though the forecast is better after lunch.

There’s been a bit of rain in Port Elizabeth, so the start will be delayed by 10 minutes.

Hello. Middle-order partnerships are an underappreciated part of cricket. We know all about the great opening pairs, yet we rarely talk about those down the order. And while they don’t bat together as often as the openers, they can still rack up thousands of runs together.

There are a few things that help to make a good partnership: contrasts (left and right hand, tall and short, dasher and blocker), off-field friendship, telepathic running between the wickets. But perhaps the most important is an indefinable chemistry. You could sense it in England’s best middle-order partnerships of modern times: Lamb and Smith, Hussain and Butcher, Flintoff and Jones, Pietersen and Collingwood.

And now, perhaps, Stokes and Pope. It’s early in their relationship – you want me to grab a dictionary? – and they sound like a firm of funeral directors. But they look great together and could put on thousands of runs for the fifth wicket in the next few years. They are good readers of the game, naturally positive but not too proud or dumb to sit in when required, and have the age-old advantage of a left/right partnership.

They first batted together against India at Trent Bridge in 2018, a union that lasted precisely four balls. But since being reunited this winter, all three of their partnerships have exceeded fifty. They added 76 yesterday evening, calmly taking England to 224 for four at the close, and have the chance to bat South Africa out of the game today.

They messed up a similar opportunity in the first Test of the winter at Mount Manganui, when batting became a bit too easy, but the sluggish nature of this pitch should enhance their concentration.

And if Stokes carts the first ball of the day to midwicket, this preamble never happened.