Sport 22-08-2003 Kirsten Century Rescues Bad Start who: England cricket team what: Take four wickets for 21 in first hour of fourth Test where: HEADINGLEY when: Yesterday snippet: South Africa "recovered admirably", says the BBC after the first day of the fourth Test in which Gary Kirsten and Monde Zondeki scored an unbeaten 118 in tandem - the highest eighth-wicket partnership ever established at Headingley. Until that unbroken stand after tea, "England looked like dismissing South Africa on the basis of good, tight, professional bowling by Bicknell and James Kirtley in the first hour," says The Times. South Africa had lost four wickets for just 21 runs but Kirsten`s 109 runs in six hours in his 92nd Test - first with Jacques Rudolph (55) and latterly with debutante Zondeki - put paid to an early England triumph. South Africa ended the day 260 for 7. 34 year-old England bowler Martin Bicknell was playing his first Test for ten years and proved the selectors right by taking Herschelle Gibbs with the second ball of his first over. But, says The Sun, he admitted later that he had been terrified. "I couldn`t help thinking I had been away a long time," he tells David Facey, "and the last thing I wanted to do was to make a complete fool of myself." "This was Test cricket at its best," says Angus Fraser in The Independent, musing on the irony that at a time when the England and Wales Cricket Board are investing thousands to "sex up" the image of the game, the leading figures on both sides "were gnarled old pros". [... more]

What The Papers Say is delivered to thousands of readers every morning by web, WAP and email. Sign up today!