South Africa in control at Edgbaston

Another batting failure undermined England's fightback in the third npower Test against South Africa at Edgbaston.

Although England moved 43 runs into credit by tea on the third day, it came at a cost of four wickets as captain Michael Vaughan's batting woes continued.

Vaughan, who now has only 40 runs in five innings in the series, was among the quartet to fall after England's bowling unit restricted the tourists' first-innings advantage to 83.

The captain drove Andre Nel uppishly towards extra cover and Hashim Amla took a brilliant diving catch.

That was England's second loss of the innings, following a reckless pull by Alastair Cook off Makhaya Ntini which offered a swirling chance that was gratefully received by running wicketkeeper Mark Boucher.

Star batsman Kevin Pietersen brought the scores level with a rasping square-driven four off Morne Morkel, and his side were 11 runs to the good a third of the way through their 81 overs allotted for the rest of the day.

It had been the lanky Morkel who had sent back a third English batsmen when Andrew Strauss dangled his bat outside off-stump for Jacques Kallis to pouch the catch at second slip.

And Ian Bell's breezy 20 was terminated in similar fashion to that of Cook as Ntini's first ball of a new spell was spiralled to short fine-leg.

Earlier, Vaughan's team took the four wickets required to bowl the tourists out in the opening 75 minutes of play as new-ball pair Ryan Sidebottom and James Anderson claimed an even share.