Steve Harmison has sung the praises of England's new captain and vowed to give him plenty of support when the going gets tougher. Harmison's two wickets in two balls were the stuff of dreams for Kevin Pietersen on his first shift as skipper, paving the way for South Africa to be skittled out for 194 at The Oval after the visitors had threatened to take charge of the summer's final Test.

Harmison's response to being recalled following a five-month absence was to dismiss opener Graeme Smith and No3 batsman Hashim Amla - twin successes which Jimmy Anderson, Stuart Broad and Monty Panesar capitalised on as nine wickets fell for 91 runs.

But while the big fast bowler thoroughly enjoyed his first few hours under the spotlight again and Pietersen revelled in the role of back-slapping, hand-clapping leader, both men know there will be harder challenges to come, and quite possibly in this match.

"It's hard to say what Kevin's qualities as a captain are because he's only been doing the job for one day," said Harmison after England had reached 49 for one in reply to South Africa's lowest total of a series which they wrapped up at Edgbaston last week.

"But his enthusiasm for cricket, not for the job, is what's going to make him a good captain. He always wants to bounce around, he's always got ideas and he's always behind you. You can't ask for any more.

"He's up for it and enjoying the challenge and I thought he did fantastically well yesterday. He's not done the job before so we need to help him and I think a lot of us did.

"There were 11 leaders out there and we have to make sure we stand by Kevin if things don't go quite right."

Given that South Africa batted their way out of trouble in the first match of this series and will be determined not go down here without a fight, Pietersen could yet have his hands full here.

From a Test point of view, though, the two games against India in December - when there is everything to play for and soaring temperatures may be sapping energy and enthusiasm - will probably tell everyone much more about KP the captain And they could tell us a lot more about Harmison, too.

While the 29-year-old fast bowler was loathe to accept that playing regular county cricket had been entirely responsible for putting him back on the straight and narrow as a paceman, he accepted that sending down 500 overs for Durham this season certainly helped.

The trouble is, with Harmison retired from limited-overs international cricket and England destined to play little else after this game before they meet India in Amedabad, how sharp will their spearhead be come mid-December?

"I'd love to think there is a future beyond this Test but I'll have to work out where we go from here," said Harmison. "Hopefully this is the road to a more successful 12 months than the 12 months I've just had.

"The amount of crap that's been written that I don't want to play and I'm not interested - I love playing for my country, itmeans a lot to me. It wasn't going very well and I was right to be dropped. But I always believed I would get back into the England side."

One man who could soon be struggling to keep his place in that side is opener Andrew Strauss, whose dismissal for six last night left him without a half-century in seven innings.

But apart from Strauss's latest failure and a slow over-rate that could leave England open to a fine, new skipper Pietersen will have only happy memories of his day in charge.