SA's vulnerable middle-order need a quick fix

South Africa's cricketers go to Centurion Park on Friday to save a series, having learnt a lot of hard lessons at the Wanderers over the past five days.

England's victory by 77 runs on Monday in the fourth Test not only gave them a 2-1 lead in the series, but meant they could no longer lose it. At best, the Proteas can hope for a share of the spoils.

If South Africa have learnt from this defeat there will be hope for a team which is meant to be building for the Aussies in less than a year's time.

Not least of the lessons is how to bowl. Makhaya Ntini and Shaun Pollock looked potential match-winners on the Wanderers pitch early in this Test, but it took England's Matthew Hoggard to show them how to bowl properly on their own wicket.

The England swing bowler, instead of pitching it short as the South Africans did, pushed it up to the batsman and let the pitch "do things" for him.

The result was seven wickets for 61 runs, his best Test performance and a match haul of 12 for 205, which is the best at this ground in 47 years. During the 1956/57 series against Peter May's England team, South African spinner Hugh Tayfield took 13 for 192.

Hoggard's bowling even earned praise from South Africa's coach Ray Jennings, who could not have been too eager to concede anything after the test slipped away from his team so badly in the second innings.

"I can't remember a spell in this series when he hasn't put in the effort," said Jennings. "He's shown a lot of passion and desire to keep coming at you."

And that is what Hoggard did, bowling 52.3 overs and rocking the South African batting order with three wickets in his first five overs on Monday, including that of Jacques Kallis for a first-ball duck.

South Africa would have watched Hoggard in the hope that their own swing bowler, Charl Langeveldt, will be fit to play at Centurion in three days time.

Langeveldt's injury severely restricted South Africa's bowling options.

His replacement, Dale Steyn, is young and enthusiastic but will take a few years to develop and is not yet the finished product.

Steyn will soon join Allan Donald at Warwickshire where he will come under the tutelage of South Africa's greatest fast bowler.

And it was Donald who also taught Hoggard when the Englishman came to Free State eight years ago to learn the trade.

Donald was at the Wanderers in his new role as a TV commentator; it would be interesting to know if the South African brainstrust asked him some advice.

It was Donald, after all, who decimated the famous Transvaal "Mean Machine" at this very ground with eight wickets some years ago when he was still a raw 21-year-old fast bowler who could hardly speak English.

Bowling, however, is not the main problem for South Africa. Scoring enough runs is.

No team has lost a Test in 10 years by being bowled out in the last two sessions, South Africa did on Monday.

Indeed Graeme Smith raised his concerns about the batting on Monday. They concerned the team's middle order, where Boeta Dippenaar, Jacques Rudolph and AB de Villiers especially did not come up to scratch in this Test. Of the three Dippenaar looks the most vulnerable.

South Africa will take the same squad of 14 to the Centurion Test, so there will not be much scope to change things.

Smith believes, however, it is in the application that the change needs to be made.

The captain provided the example, as did Herschelle Gibbs, who was again brilliant on Monday.

Neither man hid in his shell as South Africa tried to save the Test. Their motto appeared to be: Boldness be my friend.

At least the South Africans recognise their shortcomings - and are prepared to do something about them.