The Springboks made no secret of the fact they felt they had been the better of the two sides throughout the test series. After the 4th test where England was comprehensively demolished, it is hard to disagree with that opinion. Apart from their one below par display in the 2nd test, South Africa played positive, aggressive cricket. England on the other hand seemed more interested in avoiding defeat as opposed to pursuing victory.
Overall, it was a decent series for England but you can’t help wondering what might have happened if they had been more positive. Now that Flintoff is no longer around the side continues to lack balance. Selecting an extra batsman is not the answer if you want to win test matches. Indeed, right throughout the series England have not scored enough runs even with the additional batsman. England bat down the order with Swann and Broad so runs should not be too much of a problem.
Taking 20 wickets must surely be the priority but in the final test England once again selected only four bowlers. Unfairly ditching Onions in favour of Sidebottom with his novelty left-arm bowling merely compounded the error. We keep hearing about our world class attack but if you take Swann and his wickets out of the equation we would have struggled. They have potential to be a world class attack but are certainly not the finished article. England still requires a long term replacement for Harmison as the current attack would benefit from the addition of genuine pace.
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