"Over the years you begin to realise that your life is not in peril every time you walk out to bat against the likes of Donald, Walsh, Ambrose or Malcolm Marshall. A blow to the ribs, knuckle, shoulder or elbow can be mighty painful but fast bowlers don't kill you, they just chip bits off you," writes Angus Fraser in the Independent.

During the next five weeks it will be just such contests that dominate the sporting landscape here and it will be the ability of Alastair Cook, Andrew Strauss, Michael Vaughan, Kevin Pietersen, Ian Bell and Paul Collingwood to handle South Africa's hostile and much vaunted pace attack that will ultimately decide the result of the four-Test series. If England defeat the Proteas they can look forward to next summer's Ashes with confidence. Lose, and the international future of a couple of players in Michael Vaughan's side must be in doubt.

Meanwhile, Lawrence Booth meets Allan Donald and talks to him in the Guardian about how South Africa are seeing Ian Bell as a threat in the Jacques Kallis mould.