England tour of South Africa

[Arthur Crabtree]

QDK is the top run scorer in the series, which is some achievement given how badly his side has batted.

Only Sibley has faced more balls than VDD. VDD has got stuck in, and has been SA's second best bat. It would be astonishing if he didn't tour.

[Arthur Crabtree]

How about:

Sibley
Elgar
vd Dussen
Root
Stokes
Pope
de Kock
Bess
Nortje
Wood
Broad

[Durhamfootman]

RvdD playing his shots and FdP digging in

decent combo

Woody will sort them out later

[mikesiva]

Du Plessis struggles finally come to an end. Bowled for a battling 35. Did he pass the half century mark at any time this series?

RvdD out for 98. Poor guy!

[Durhamfootman]

RvdD playing his shots and FdP digging in

decent combo

Woody will sort them out later

Stokes and Woody one-two

thanks for playing, SA

[Arthur Crabtree]

Mark Wood showing that he's more than just a zany guy. Well done to him.

Gives England plenty of options, with Anderson and Archer not in the side.

[Durhamfootman]

deserved his POM award

his 2 tests have reaped 12 wickets at 13.58 and 95 runs at 47.5


I note that SA received a 60% loss of earnings for a slow over rate. It seems almost inconceivable to me that England managed to keep up with the over rate, with a 5 prong pace attack

[bigfluffylemon]

Very quiet here. I guess England must be winning. Well played them. Not a good South Africa side, to be sure, but winning away from home is never easy, and after the horrors of the first test, winning emphatically three tests in a row is a pretty good effort.

Nice also to see the younger and more fringe players standing up. Dare we hope there is life after Cook and Anderson after all?

What a horror farewell for Philander. Massive test and series loss, fine for verbals, an injury after 9 balls of the second innings, and a return of 2-51 and 14 runs in the test. Never quite got the recognition he deserves, IMO - one of South Africa's very best at home and non-Asian conditions. He never achieved much in Asia, but he wouldn't be the first quick bowler who struggled there.

[bigfluffylemon]

Been a bit of an undisciplined couple of games - Stokes, Buttler, Rabada and Philander all getting in trouble for the verbals, now it looks as though Faf might be in trouble for barging during an altercation with Buttler.

Sounds as if it may be a bit overblown, but given speculation is already rife about Faf's future as captain, you'd have to assume a ban would be the end of his test captaincy (and maybe test) career.

Also interesting to see South Africa taken to task for a slow over rate. I'm glad the ICC appear finally to be clamping down, but it needs to be applied consistently. Australia and New Zealand were quite frankly taking the p**s in their recent series with over rates, yet neither were penalised, despite two or three days where they fell short even with the extra half hour. And England are far from blameless on that front as well.

I do worry if a massively draconian regime of enforcing over rates would unfairly penalise teams that rely on a high proportion of quick bowling. No one wants to see a side have to bowl 10 overs of part time spinner just to try and catch up, especially if they have an opponent under pressure. But surely there's a way to get through enough overs even with quick bowling. 14 overs an hour is a ball every 43 seconds. It can't be that hard in a test match, where around 60% of deliveries are left or defended.

The biggest issue to me seems to be the time between overs, not the time to send an over down, for the most part. It's not uncommon to see a good couple of minutes between overs, by the time a new bowler has warmed up, set his field, had a chat to the captain, etc. Surely a lot of these things can be done quicker, chatting between balls etc.?

At least in part I blame television. The broadcasters need to fit in an ad break between every over, sometimes there are two ads which take 15-20 seconds each. I expect the players are expressly told that they can't start the next over too soon. Hence there is a bit of leniency in over rates, as a slow one is at least in part forced by TV rights.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Yes, shame Big Vern had such a disastrous end to his Test career. FDP is retiring of course this year. More changes ahead for SA. Presume QDK will be captain, and I'd guess give up the gloves.

[Arthur Crabtree]

SL for England next. From a five person pace attack, to maybe two or three. Wood/Anderson/Stokes/Leach/Bess. Bit of an injury risk with the first two though! Foakes in for JB2 or at least the touring party. Jennings into the squad seems likely.

[bigfluffylemon]

I read Anderson wasn't going to SL.

[Arthur Crabtree]

How about: Sibley/Crawley/Denly/Jennings/Root/Bairstow/Stokes/Pope/Foakes/Bess/Parkinson/Leach/Wood/Broad/Curran/Archer.

I expect Buttler will be in for Foakes though.

[Durhamfootman]

except that foakes did well last time

[Durhamfootman]

Will they give Wood a rest now until the summer?

is Leach recovered?

will Broad tour?

maybe Overton to come back

maybe JB2 and Foakes.... although I agree with Dobell and the experiment should ended forthwith