With their quicker bowlers indisposed, the tourists may pit a slow and steady attack against South African pace

As Harold Macmillan is supposed to have explained, there are times when the best‑laid plans disappear like melting snow in springtime and a whole new landscape is created: “Events, dear boy, events.” Macmillan might have delivered these words in more patrician tones than Chris Silverwood or Joe Root but the two Yorkshiremen now have a clearer understanding of what a previous Etonian prime minister meant.
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