England hold the edge after the first day of the second Test at Headingley, by restricting South Africa to 262 for five.

Choosing to field first after winning the toss, captain Andre Strauss also made the surprisingly bold decision to leave out ace spinner Graeme Swann for the first time in three years, replacing the offie with Steven Finn. Both those decisions looked foolhardy after the first session as the Proteas built up an unbeaten century partnership through Graeme Smith and Alviro Peterson.

But a flurry of wickets soon after, including the needless run out of last Test's triple centurion Hashim Amla, allowed England back into the game on what looked like a comfortably-paced batting track. South Africa ended a disappointing 262 for five, albeit the fifth wicket being night watchman Dale Steyn, with Peterson unbeaten on 124.

England paceman James Anderson was reasonably happy with his side's performance on the first day. "We are pretty pleased with the way things went to be honest," the fast bowler said.

"We created chances all day; we could have got a few with the new ball; they played and missed a lot and a few catches went down.

"We were pretty pleased with the way we fought all day and that new-ball burst from the two big lads (Stuart Broad and Steven Finn) could have swung it back our way."

England had to overcome a shoddy performance on the field with Peterson dropped by Alastair Cook, before Smith was handed a reprieve after being caught in the slips, as Finn knocked over the stumps on delivery, leading to the umpire calling a dead ball.

Anderson, himself, dropped a catch later on, and the bowler admitted he could not really explain the team's performance in the field. "I can't put my finger on it," he said. "If there was a magic answer, we would be catching everything. I don't know.

"We have put a few chances down. Our work ethic on our slip catching is still as high as it was. We still work hard at it.

"We had slip catching Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. We are working hard at it, but we are still putting chances down, which is frustrating for everyone involved. We don't mean to do it and we will be striving very hard not to do it in the future."

On Swann's exclusion, Anderson said: "I imagine it was a very difficult decision, he (Swann) has been an integral part of our team for a couple of years now.

"It's not often you see teams going into a Test match without a spinner, but the captain and coach thought that the pitch lent itself to four seamers and didn't think spin would play a massive part."

South Africa's wicketkeeper-batsman AB De Villiers was fairly satisfied with his side's performance, but admitted they could have done better. "I thought we played really well, the guys assessed the conditions early on with a solid partnership," the classy batsman, who got out late on for 47, said.

"We could have sped up a bit at the end. We all played around Alviro nicely. I would love to be three down at the end of the day, but they bowled too well at the end and things went their way. I'm not too unhappy, but it could have been better."