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Knowing there was no prospect of their team winning the match, Graeme Smith and Neil McKenzie had little incentive to entertain the crowd.

Their job was to survive, not to show the smattering of South African supporters around the ground that they too could dominate the bowlers in the way Kevin Pietersen and Ian Bell had done for England.

Thus the fourth day of a Test up until now dominated by England proved .

Had the first three days been too good to be true? Well, yes. Only an Australian side with Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne in it could dominate South Africa to that extent for the entire duration of a match.

But it really did take an inordinate amount of time for a wicket to fall, and I wonder how long anyone will be able to remember a single shot played by Smith, McKenzie or Hashim Amla by the time the .

So, knowing that some people find the high price of tickets for a Lord's Test a little hard to stomach, I took the views of some paying punters shortly after the tea interval. I also asked them to compare Test cricket with Twenty20 cricket.

John Lofthouse, from Watford, a regular at Lord's and Oval Tests, said: "I am not a great fan of one-day cricket or Twenty20 cricket. I prefer traditional Test cricket. Even if it's not been a very successful day for England this is still, for me, real cricket.

"I've seen days when 20 wickets have fallen and this is very different from that. It's a flat track as well, and we could do with someone who could bowl 90mph, like , or a track with a bit more pace and bounce in it.

"But even if it ends in a draw, Test cricket gives you more drama than anything you get in a day or in two and a half hours.

"I've watched Twenty20 on the television but it just doesn't do it for me, it's like the difference between 11-a-side football and five-a-side football."

"Today has not been thrilling to watch, but we would have done the same in the South Africans' shoes."

Matt Walker from south-west London was slightly less positive, but even he was not left craving more instant satisfaction.

"Ordinarily I would have said Test match cricket is better, but today has been dreadful and very boring," he said.

"It's not been good and I might ask for my money back. Having said that, today has been an exceptionally bad day and ordinarily I would still pick Test matches over Twenty20 cricket."

The most challenging day of Test cricket I ever saw was probably the Saturday of the . New Zealand openers Trevor Franklin and John Wright batted all day, reaching 156-0 against the likes of Gladstone Small and Phil De Freitas.

But the beauty of travelling to watch any day of any Test match - anywhere in the world - is that you never know quite what to expect. Only the most unfortunate of souls would find themselves only experiencing days like Sunday and that one in 1990.