SCOREBOARD

Captain Fantastic produces career-best performance with the ball to lead England to brink of back-to-back victories

JOE ROOT made a glorious bid to take his place at the top table of cricketing all-rounders with a career-best – and potentially match-winning – 4-31.

Whether Ben Stokes will grant him membership of such an exclusive club is another matter, but for one day here the skipper’s bowling put his team on the cusp of back-to-back victories in South Africa for the first time in 63 years.

Root did everything he could to harry, cajole and steer his side towards the win, including bowling 19 overs of ‘part-time’ off-spin.

The Yorkshireman is working hard on his bowling in practice and the results are improving.

Root turns the ball more than most, and by bowling slightly quicker that more traditional spinners, he can force batsmen into making mistakes. With Ollie Pope gobbling up any chances that came

you’ve seen him in practice, he’s doing a lot more bowling.

“He bowled himself at the right end, though, didn’t he?

“He put young Dom Bess on at the non-spinning end, and he got the spinning end. The captain’s not stupid, is he?” Paceman Wood was also pleased his way at short leg, and Mark Wood causing problems with his pace, South Africa slumped to 102-6 at the close, still 188 runs from avoiding an innings defeat.

Root chose to enforce the follow-on, for the second time in his Test career, thanks to a 28-ball blitz that wrapped up the home side’s first innings for 209 for the addition of just one run.

With rain preventing a full day’s play, and with more threatening to intervene on day five, Root’s decision paid off.

He had never taken more than two wickets in an innings before, but this time he settled into a great rhythm around the wicket.

Wood got the ball rolling by ripping out Dean Elgar’s off stump before torturing Zubayr Hamza and getting him to tickle one down

with his own display, in his first game since last summer.

He sustained knee and side injuries in his last outing, the World Cup final win over New Zealand at Lord’s in July.

Wood’s average speed in this match is 88.3mph, quicker than the 87.5mph Jofra Archer managed at Lord’s in the the leg side to Jos Buttler. While Wood was sending down thunderbolts with the force of Thor’s hammer, Root was the velvet glove lulling the batsmen into miscalculations.

He trapped Pieter Malan with a delivery that pitched straightened.

Rassie van der Dussen struggled throughout his innings, so it was only a matter of time before Root found his inside edge, with Pope doing the rest – exactly as he did to get rid of Faf du Plessis for 36.

Quinton de Kock also fell for the second time in the day, both to equally poor shots.

But rather than offer a gap to drive a bus through, the way he did when he was bowled in the morning, De Kock sliced Root to backward point, where Wood climbed aboard his mythical horse Pegasus to take a leaping catch.

summer. “I’ve waited quite a while to come back, so I was trying to have fun, take it all in, and play with a smile on my face,” said Wood.

“With the way my body has been, it’s something you can’t take for granted.

“It could be my last game. I have to take it as it comes lbw and

because that’s the nature of how I bowl.”

Wood is unsure if he will be able to play in the final Test in Johannesburg.

“That’s too far to look ahead,” he said.

“I don’t like to say my body feels good every time and feed you false information.”