England ‘really positive’ after keeping South Africa in sight, says Stuart Broad

Ben Stokes illuminated another difficult day for England by taking three South African wickets during a long and taxing second day and, though the tourists extended their lead to 124 at stumps, Stuart Broad said the feeling in the home dressing room was good. “We’re really positive that we’ve got ourselves back in the game,” he said.

Having recovered from positions of adversity to win their first four Tests of the summer, England will refuse to be daunted by the situation they face in this one.

After reducing South Africa from 138 for one to 210 for six – with Broad taking the last of those wickets, his 100th at Lord’s – a freewheeling partnership of 72 between Keshav Maharaj and Marco Jansen returned the tourists to the ascendancy.

“When you get bowled out relatively cheaply in the first innings, you’ve got to make it a first- versus fourth-innings game,” said Broad. “So we’ve got to try to get enough ahead that we can try and defend that on day four and five on a relatively dry pitch. I think the game’s set up really nicely.

“Obviously we’re going to have to have a couple of great days, but we’ve proved this summer that anything can happen and we feel really positive in the changing-room that we’ve got ourselves back in the game.”

Sarel Erwee top-scored for South Africa with a commanding 73, an innings that ended when he fended Stokes’s bouncer to Ben Foakes behind the stumps. The England captain then trapped Rassie van der Dussen lbw in his next over, before returning to dismiss Maharaj shortly before stumps.

“He carries an inspirational style about what he does,” Broad said. “We needed a couple of breakthroughs. The bouncer to get rid of [Erwee] was a really big wicket, it gave us a bit of energy and got the crowd