Third Test. SA v England. Jo'burg, Jan 14-18

[Gingerfinch]

Very convincing. Two up and favourites to make it three nil.

[alfie]

Indeed a convincing win.

Especially so as they've had fairly minimal contributions from Cook and Anderson so far ... and they have usually been vital to England wins recently.

Some good efforts across the board in this series. Augers well for the future...

[sussexpob]

I worry for what this result spells out for the future of test cricket in South Africa. This nation has always produced top quality teams, this really isnt one of them, and clearly by far the worst side they have had since re-entry into test cricket. Their top players have question marks on their commitment to tests, and the standard of the new guys looks pretty low.

[Dr Cricket]

lol Chelsea are losing 2-0 after all this.
Should have just taken the money.

[shankycricket]

Excellent series win for England.

Meanwhile, an excellent Test pitch. This needless victimist attitude by BCCI fans every time wickets fall in a heap elsewhere needs to stop. This is getting tedious.

[The Professor]

Bit frustrated with Compton for trying to go big and holing out.

[backfootpunch]

Excellent series win for England.

Meanwhile, an excellent Test pitch. This needless victimist attitude by BCCI fans every time wickets fall in a heap elsewhere needs to stop. This is getting tedious.

my feelings exactly shanks

especially on this forum where nobody unfairly criticises them

[Arthur Crabtree]

Remarkable win by England. This morning Root got out, and a few hours later he was out in the middle while the winning runs were scored.

As I left the house, I had a feeling SA would collapse,but my hunch was Anderson would do the damage. I think, save the first morning, England have released far more of the spite in the pitch than SA, and were a bit unfortunate at times in the first innings. The England attack has been pretty good throughout the series, even when being let down by the fielders on a flattish pitch in Cape Town.

[bigfluffylemon]

Amazing. Broad is really lining up to be leader of the attack when Anderson has gone. His knack of producing incredible spells in decisive test matches continues. And he goes past Bob Willis too.

Quite a turnaround from both teams. This time in 2015, if you'd said that England will be 2-0 up with 1 to play when visiting South Africa, you'd have been labelled an optimist at best. But England have beaten Australia at home, South Africa away, and were unlucky to have lost 2-0 in the UAE - they gave a better account of themselves than that scoreline suggested. After the horror of 2013, this looks like a team that is going places. Sadly, South Africa look to be on the decline, but it's not surprising - a team that has lost Smith, Kallis, Boucher, and has Philander and Steyn injured. Not wishing to take too much away from England, because winning overseas is never easy, but I agree with Sussex that this is the weakest XI that SA have put out for a long time.

[bigfluffylemon]

Stokes's performance was also more than useful. 4 handy wickets, and a 50 that along with Joe Root dug England out of a deep first innings hole. He lends some real balance and freedom to the side.

[Dr Cricket]

Lol I see people are going crazy over the rankings in twitter.
hopefully ICC change it now, can't believe it is taking so long for people to realise how *modded* the rankings were in the first place.
you would assume the fact WI were not number 1 in the world for a brief period was a clue that the rankings were *modded*.
when their introduced it, their entered all past results into the database.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICC_Test_ ... l_rankings
They had india number 1 in 1973, Australia between 1974-1978, West indies for a year, England for 1 year and a half 1979-1980, india again for 6 months and then west indies for 7 years, pakistan for 2 months, west indies again for 3 years.
india again in 1995.
So many weird results.

[Dr Cricket]

Lol how did india even get number 1 in 1995.

[ddb]

I really like this England side.

[Arthur Crabtree]

I think those rankings might have been complicated in the late seventies by the Packer cricket breakaway, where the whole of the WI and Australia teams were replaced by B sides, and England, who lost only four key players, picked up a series of wins against weakened sides.

Doesn't get mentioned much (why?), but replacing Moores with Bayliss has brought big improvements for England, both in ODIs and Tests, from the start.

[Dr Cricket]

West indies only lost 7 test matches between 1981-89
didn't lose a series between 1977-1992.
It is ridiculous to claim their were not number 1.

The ranking system has to many flaws to be a credible system.