England beat South Africa by nine wickets to win the third Test and series – as it happened
England beat South Africa by nine wickets to win the third Test and series: England had a dominating nine-wicket win over South Africa on Day 5. The low-scoring third and final Test match came to an end as a come-from-behind 2-1 series win.
Moreover, despite the loss, South Africa stands second in the World Test Championship 2021-23 standings. The country has a percentage of 60. The rest of the chasing pack is Sri Lanka (53.33 percent), India (52.08 pc), Pakistan (51.85 pc), and West Indies (50 pc). The gap between South Africa and these countries is seen to be diminishing. Australia is comfortable on top with 70 pc.
England was languishing at the bottom of the standings. Moreover, the country continued its rise in the WTC23 table. In addition, they maintain their stranglehold of the seventh spot with 38.59 percent. England is starting to build some distance from New Zealand (25.93 pc) and Bangladesh (13.33 pc).
England had to make 33 runs to win. In addition, the country took less than 30 minutes on day five to wrap up the Test and series victory.
Performance
Kagiso Rabada cracked the only wicket of the innings with the scalp of Alex Lees. Lees missed out on a half-century by 11 runs. Moreover, the pacer could have had another wicket in the first over of the day. In addition, Kyle Verreynne went on to drop a regulation catch to let Zak Crawley off the hook.
Moreover, only 151.3 overs happened in the game. In addition, it was the fourth-shortest men’s Test match in history. Moreover, it was the shortest since 1912. It was not until the third day of the Test match that there were some movements on the field. On the other hand, rain forced the day to come to an end. Moreover, the second day did not work out due to the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
However, all it took was six sessions and only 25 minutes for England to get a result in the match. The pacers helped the way for the hosts in the first innings. South Africa scored 118 runs in total. Ollie Robinson secured his fifth five-for in Tests supported by Stuart Broad’s four-wicket haul.
Moreover, it looked like England was on course for a huge first-innings lead. But South Africa went on to fight back well. Marco Jansen (5/35) and Kagiso Rabada (4/81) restricted the lead to just 40.
The wicket of Dean Elgar triggered a monumental collapse. South Africa was 70/1 at one time but the country met its end at 169.
Chasing 130, Zak Crawley scored a 36-ball fifty. In addition, he put the hosts on the verge of wrapping up the Test in two days. But, bad light stopped the match on day four. The home side stood at just 33 runs away from a win.
Brief Scores
Brief scores
England – 158 & 130/1
Zak Crawley was at 69 not out
Alex Lees was at 39
Kagiso Rabada – 1-57
South Africa – 110 and 169
England defeated South Africa by 9 wickets.