Kallis cuts down sorry England

Hick held both of those opportunities, the first of them above his head and the second, quite sensationally after diving left to take a spectacular one-hander off the fiercest of edges.

But England's aggressive approach meant there were many gaps in the field for South Africa to exploit. With Jacques Kallis ominously in control, they had reached a comfortable 127 for two after 30 overs and looked destined for a semi-final date with India on Friday.

England were struggling from the time Shaun Pollock and Roger Telemarchus restricted them to just five runs from eight new-ball overs this morning. Then Allan Donald and Kallis followed that lead quite perfectly to keep Hussain's men under the cosh.

Marcus Trescothick, Alec Stewart, Graham Thorpe, Andrew Flintoff and even the well-set Hick all managed to pick-out fielders in the deep with accuracy. South Africa do not spurn simple opportunities like those and, predictably enough, they also engineered a couple of run outs through direct hits from Jonty Rhodes and Nicky Boje.

But while England's batting was undeniably disappointing - they lost their last six wickets for 28 runs in seven overs - it would be churlish not to give high praise to their opponent's bowling.

Indeed, it was only while Hick and Flintoff were adding 65 for the fifth wicket - mainly against spinner Boje and all-rounder Lance Klusener - that England prospered.

Flintoff, though, swung the returning Pollock straight to deep mid-wicket, Hick soon followed him back to the pavilion when hoisting Kallis to deep square-leg and the unfortunate Paul Grayson fell in an instant.

Grayson, who only arrived here on Saturday after being summoned to fill-in for calf-strain victim Ashley Giles, edged his first - and possibly last - delivery as an international batsman to slip.

The theory today was that Hussain's side would hold a slight advantage through having played a preliminary round match here against Bangladesh, whereas South Africa received a bye into the quarter-finals.

Certainly Hussain had no hesitation in choosing to bat this morning. But any hopes that there opponents would take time to settle soon evaporated. Pollock, promoted to captain post-Cronje, set a tremendous example during an opening over that was spoiled only a fraction by one marginal off-side wide.

But, if anything, Telemarchus found an even tighter line and length. Given the new ball ahead of Donald, Telemarchus was soon touching 90mph.