The iconic stadium at Manchester was a host to a fitting series finale, as England continued their march of dominance over South Africa to wrap up the four match series 3-1. It was a game which marked the never say die attitude of England, as the brilliance in all departments from the hosts eventually stood out and proved to be the difference.
The fourth day wasn’t anything worth writing about for South Africa, except the half centuries for Hashim Amla and Faf du Plessis. It was Moeen Ali once again, stealing the show with another five wicket haul, to carry on his superb form. Ali ultimately ended the series with a jaw dropping 25 wickets and 252 runs, the most for an all rounder in a series of 4 Test matches.
Post the loss, South Africa’s skipper Faf du Plessis mentioned that the all-rounders of England ultimately proved to be the difference between the two teams.
“Just want to congratulate Joe and the England team, the well-deserved winners of the series. Consistently they were the better team. It’s been a tough time for us here. We came here for the ODIs before the CT, almost seeing it as the opportunity to play them as warm up games, didn’t go to plan. Had a disappointing CT, and then tried to turn it around in the Test series,” said du Plessis.
Focusing on England’s strengths towards their bowling and all rounders, Faf added,
“The quality of the English bowling attack was superb this series and they were relentless. As a batting unit, we never felt like we could get on top of them. We didn’t do ourselves any justice with the bat. We dropped a few opportunities in the field. When you’re playing against quality teams, those half-chances matter. They’ve got so much balance in their side with those all-rounders, it becomes a challenge against their attack.”
“They’re very, very fortunate with the all-rounders. It’s a great place to tour. We love coming here. The last team which was here had a great series and became No. 1 in the world. We couldn’t match England in consistency,” du Plessis said.