A lot has been written about South Africa's ability to do the hard yards and England's lack of appetite to do them, so victory for both teams is essential to either cement or dispel perceptions.
The target score is an ``in betweener'' not easily obtained, not so far away as to be out of the question but testing, indeed draining, cricket for both sides. How will each captain react? Alec Stewart is showing a new approach, perhaps more of a gambling instinct, and his batting will be watched very keenly, especially by the South African team, who will judge his performance as a leader.
But Hansie Cronje has seen these situations before. Who can forget South Africa's epic victory in Sydney when Australia, needing a mere 117, fell five runs short with many of the wickets falling in a seemingly hopeless situation. Cronje and his team will draw inspiration from that and it is bound to be mentioned prior to the last three sessions.
A lead of 300 would have been ideal and South Africa might still lament a couple of soft dismissals, which meant they did not achieve that, but the captain would not be unhappy with a target of 247 and has confidence in all the bowlers, irrespective of age and experience, so they will have the opportunity to stand up and be counted.
The level of intensity on day four of this game has been raised another notch with the confrontation between Allan Donald and Mike Atherton, one of the classics and riveting viewing. Surely Test cricket cannot die with the kind of performance produced yesterday by both teams. Spectators, who previously offered polite acknowledgment, became engrossed, applauding and encouraging their team - more power to the game -an hour of the best entertainment of the summer, perhaps the year, spoilt only by some poor umpiring, of which, disappointingly, we shall hear a lot more. It is a sad indictment of today's society and sport in general when umpiring decisions take precedent over an absorbing contest, which was hard and fair with two men wanting to win for their country.
Pressure affects performances, the most talented relegated to the ordinary under the microscope, which builds, not over one or two hours, but over one or two days and is more exhausting than would appear.
South Africa, and Donald in particular, applied real pressure to England and they can be thankful that Atherton was at the crease. More talented but less inclined players would have succumbed, something that has happened in the past. Atherton, to his credit, knows the significance of another collapse and set himself to blunt Donald. He did it with a resoluteness that no one could match.
Donald, justifiably frustrated, threw everything into a spell of eight overs costing just five runs and deserved a far better reward after Mark Boucher missed his first chance of the series. One wonders if the heat of the situation in which Atherton was palpably caught behind effected Boucher's concentration. The incident certainly led to boiling point on the field and full credit to Cronje, who again demonstrated his statesmanship by calming things down and reminding his troops of the job at hand.