{"id":12569,"date":"2012-07-19T13:02:33","date_gmt":"2012-07-19T11:02:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/07\/cricket-england-win-toss-bat-in-first-test-v-s-africa\/"},"modified":"2012-07-19T13:02:33","modified_gmt":"2012-07-19T11:02:33","slug":"cricket-england-win-toss-bat-in-first-test-v-s-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/cricket-england-win-toss-bat-in-first-test-v-s-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Cricket-England win toss, bat in first test v S.Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">LONDON, July 19<\/span> (Reuters) &#8211; England won the toss and elected<br \/>\nto bat in the first test against South Africa at The Oval on<br \/>\nThursday, as the hosts seek to retain their position at the top<br \/>\nof the world rankings.<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;\u201cThe wicket looks surprisingly dry given the amount of rain<br \/>\nwe have had lately,&#8221; England captain Andrew Strauss said at the<br \/>\ncoin flip.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>England recalled their two leading fast bowlers James<br \/>\nAnderson and Stuart Broad after they were rested for the third<br \/>\ntest against West Indies last month, coming in for Steven Finn<br \/>\nand the injured Graham Onions.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Also as expected, South Africa fielded AB de Villiers as<br \/>\nwicketkeeper in place of the now retired Mark Boucher.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>England have been number one in the rankings for a year,<br \/>\nwhile South Africa dropped to third last week but can still go<br \/>\ntop by winning this three-match series.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>England have won their last seven test series at home, while<br \/>\nthe Proteas are unbeaten in away series for six years.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The toss was delayed by 25 minutes because of a brief<br \/>\nshower.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Record levels of rain have fallen in the UK between April<br \/>\nand July, but brighter, drier weather is forecast for later in<br \/>\nthe match.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Teams:<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LONDON, July 19 (Reuters) &#8211; England won the toss and elected to bat in the first test against South Africa at The Oval on Thursday, as the hosts seek to retain their position at the top of the world rankings. &#8220;\u201cThe wicket looks surprisingly dry given the amount of rain we have had lately,&#8221; England [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-12569","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12569\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}