England’s young stars step up to the plate

CRICKET: Captain Root says victory against South Africa is brilliant template

Joe Root hailed his young England side for a mature Test match performance as they routed South Africa by an innings and 53 runs in Port Elizabeth.

England’s final-day victory did not come close to matching the tension of their previous win in Cape Town, with more than two full sessions rather than a handful of overs remaining at the end and the result in no real doubt despite a 99-run stand for the final wicket.

But it did represent a considerable step forward for a side who have too often had to scramble for successes.

Having won the toss they piled on a big first innings of 499 for nine declared and hunted as a group to dismiss the Proteas for 209 and 237.

It is a blueprint for how Root and head coach Chris Silverwood want their team to go about their business in the five-day game and was achieved with five players aged 24 or younger – Dom Sibley, Zak Crawley, Ollie Pope, Sam Curran and Dom Bess.

Having seen Sibley score a maiden century at Newlands there were two fresh landmark performances here, with Pope making an unbeaten 135 as well as taking six close catches and Bess picking up his maiden five-wicket haul in the first innings. Root said: “I thought this was a brilliant template for us moving forward as a team. We made big first-innings runs and then really drove the game from that point onwards.

“Seeing another two youngsters really step up to the plate in this game and make massive contributions is exactly what we’re after at the minute in terms of our development as a team, and fills the whole group with huge amounts of confidence.”

It took just under two hours to claim the last four wickets England needed at St George’s Park, with Stuart Broad, Mark Wood and Bess all striking before a highly improbable 10th-wicket partnership between Keshav Maharaj and Dane Paterson.

Maharaj hammered 71 and Paterson chipped in with 39 not out, with Root’s attempts to turn his career-best four wickets into a first five-for ending in a barrage of boundaries and Test record equalling 28 runs off his final over.

In the end it took Curran’s opportunistic run out of Maharaj to start the celebrations.

Picture: AP. England captain Joe Root, left, Ollie Pope and Ben Stokes, right, leave the field of play after winning the third Test between South Africa and England in Port Elizabeth.