Captain bringing out best in young talent

WE ARE seeing the green shoots of recovery in England’s Test cricket now. The young players are really finding their way under Joe Root and it does look as though it is the England captain who is moulding his side. There have been two excellent performances in a row from England and they have produced them with a template that should serve them well moving forward. The top three batted time on that first day at St George’s Park to follow Dom Sibley’s hundred in Cape Town, even if they could have been more pro-active. That will come with more experience and confidence and you can see they are learning. Zak Crawley, for instance, was standing on off-stump in Cape Town and that didn’t work, so he stood more on middle-and-off here to open up the off-side a little more. Then the middle order, in the form of Ben Stokes and Ollie Pope, took it on from there to get England, for once, to a formidable first-innings score. And with the ball we saw a brilliant display from young spinner Dom Bess (right) as he took the first five wickets in South Africa’s first innings. Credit to the ECB on Bess. When he came into the side 18 months ago, his seam position wasn’t right, and while he scored runs, his off-spin was little more than OK. It was fine on a raging turner in Taunton but not on Test pitches. So England clearly mapped out a plan for his development, initially involving Lions coaches Andy Flower and Richard Dawson. They were then not afraid to go out of the domestic game and get him working with Rangana Herath. They have also clearly got a good man working with the spinners here in Jeetan Patel. He did an interview with Ian Ward on Sky yesterday and I stood there and listened to it because it was fascinating. He was talking about seam position and how you get revolutions on the ball and he is a great asset to this England team. Is Bess a better cricketer than Moeen Ali at the moment? No, probably not. But Bess is fresh and he realised he had to take his game on. He has energy, drive, wants to learn and simply loves being here. Moeen has admitted the game wore him down and he needed a break from Test cricket but there is no baggage nor scarring with Bess and the other young players. I like the youthful exuberance the team are showing in this series. The captain has had two great games now. Root bowled beautifully yesterday to show what a good second string he has to his bow and he got almost everything right. I like the way Root and England have made adjustments as they have gone along, even within what has been close to a complete performance. England were a little short when they first bowled here, particularly Sam Curran, but they corrected that yesterday. There was more, too, from Mark Wood. We know he can bang it in at more than 90mph but if you look at his hand when he bowls you can see he has a brilliant seam position and can be so much more than an enforcer. We shouldn’t get too giddy because this is an average South Africa batting side but remember it is the same home side who won the first Test in Centurion, so let us give Root credit for hitting back from that. There is obviously room for improvement. The top three need to go on to big scores and there is more to come from the keeper-batsman, whether it is Jos Buttler, Jonny Bairstow or Ben Foakes. England need to get Jack Leach right for the tour of Sri Lanka too. But England have been excellent here and should wrap this third Test up quickly, weather permitting.