England draw with Proteas after run chase falters

LEEDS, England (AP):

Despite an unexpectedly dramatic final day, the second Test between England and South Africa at Headingley ended in a draw yesterday.

South Africa declared on 258-9 late on the final day, setting England a target of 253 to win from 39 overs, but the hosts were 130-4 when the teams shook hands on the draw.

"We were probably one wicket away from having a real go there," South Africa captain Graeme Smith said. "We decided at tea we were going to give ourselves five overs and no matter what we were going to get out there and bowl."

England opened with Kevin Pietersen, but he fell to Vernon Philander for 12 and despite 46 from Alastair Cook the batsmen were unable to keep up with the run rate and in the end had to block.

"We put Kevin (Pietersen) up there because he played so magnificently in the first innings, he was capable of taking the game away from South Africa on his own," England captain Andrew Strauss said. "Once he got out we decided to take stock a little. With 20 overs to go we almost decided to treat it as a Twenty20 game. It was certainly a viable chase, but we needed things to go right for us."

JP Duminy had South Africa's best figures with 1-10.

Earlier, the tourists collapsed from 120-0, after Jacques Rudolph and Smith had hit 69 and 52, respectively.

The game had looked to be meandering towards a draw until part-time spinner Pietersen took 3-52 to remove South Africa's top three.

Stuart Broad took 5-69, including a spell of four wickets from 20 balls.

James Anderson caught and bowled Dale Steyn and when Morne Morkel soon after holed out to Broad, South Africa decided to declare.

Reshuffled the batting order

England reshuffled the batting order, promoting Pietersen, who made 149 in his first innings, to open alongside Cook, but after a quickfire 12 he was caught by Imran Tahir off Philander, with England on 21-1.

Strauss was caught and bowled off a full toss from Duminy for 22 before Cook survived a referral when he was hit outside the line by a ball from Tahir that would have hit middle stump.

Cook smashed Duminy for six over midwicket, but was caught by Rudolph off Steyn.

With three wickets down England sent in Matt Prior as a final throw of the dice, but he was run out for seven after Jonathan Trott refused a single.

Needing six wickets, South Africa opted to continue into the final hour, but Trott (30 not out) and Ian Bell (3 not out) blocked until a truce was agreed with six overs remaining.

South Africa, which leads the three-Test series 1-0, will replace England at the top of the ICC world Test rankings by winning the series.

The third and final Test begins at Lord's on August 16.