Cricket: England’s uplifting South Africa tour
England’s tour of South Africa could hardly have ended on a more straightforward note, said Valkerie Baynes on ESPNcricinfo. On Monday, they wrapped up the fourth Test within four days, beating the hosts by an “emphatic” 191 runs to win the series 3-1. It was only their second overseas series victory in four years, and it gives the side “huge cause for optimism”: this was the moment when Dom Sibley, Zak Crawley and Dom Bess announced themselves. England’s struggles at the start of the series, when they lost the first Test as player after player was hit by a virus, “seem so long ago”.
The real pleasure of this Test was seeing Mark Wood bowl “as well as he has ever done in England colours”, said Mike Atherton in The Times. He is a genuinely fast bowler – he dismissed Pieter Malan on Saturday with a ball moving at 94mph – but the sport takes a real toll on his body, and he has suffered a long run of injuries. In Johannesburg, however, playing back-to-back Tests for the first time since 2017, he took nine wickets in a “hostile, accurate and threatening” performance. It wasn’t just Wood who impressed, said Simon Wilde in the same paper. As a dry run for the Ashes tour in two years’ time, this series “could hardly have gone better for England’s bowlers”: they “operated superbly as a unit, disciplined and patient”. Before the series began, England appeared incapable of taking 20 wickets in an overseas match. Yet here, they took 20 in each of the four Tests. The only real worry in this side is Jos Buttler, said Chris Stocks in The Observer. His batting numbers in this series were “pitiful”: he averaged just 17.83 runs per innings. In white-ball formats, Buttler remains perhaps the finest batsman in the world – so it’s time he focused on his strengths. “He has a lot still to offer his country, just not in Test cricket.”