Since I’m enjoying the England cricket tour of South Africa, I decided to put together a collection of the highlights from the Third Test which is taking place in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, with the series poised at 1-1.
These highlights come from the official source in the UK, Sky Sports’ official YouTube channel.
I’ve collected the highlights from each day, and added some brief commentary to remember some context.
Any ads are from YouTube / Sky Sports. I don’t profit from posting these here, other than as a fan of sport, being able to reflect on a full test match all in one, very fast loading, mobile-friendly, web page, that I publish here on my personal site.
Table of Contents
Day One Highlights
Crawley and Sibley both edged slowly towards 50s, but didn’t quite get there. Root and Denly got in also, but then failed to convert. Stokes and Pope steadied the ship and ensured it was slightly in England’s favour at the end of day one, on a flat-ish looking but turning track.
The score at the end of the day was England, who’d won the toss and elected to bat, on 224/4.
Day Two Highlights
Ollie Pope scored a memorable debut hundred, as England finished 499/9 dec. Ben Stokes, ICC Cricketer of the Year for 2019, and BBC Sports Personality of the year, also continued his magnificent form, bagging ton in an impressive partnership with Pope, which could be a test winning move from England.
Day Three Highlights
The pitch looked like it was going to offer most to the spinners, and so it would prove, as Dom Bess collected the first 5 wickets for England with some tricky off-spinners. South Africa will be disappointed, though, with their shot selection: they looked very poor against spin, and ended the day on 208/6 having started it on 60/2. It looked like really only more rain could save South Africa, unless a batsman or two could make a stand of 4+ hours.
Day Four Highlights
On the fourth day, everything changed. South Africa came out at 206/6 in their first innings reply to England’s 499/9 declared, and they lost swift wickets. A rain delay wasn’t enough to save them from the follow-on, and they ended the day on 6 wickets… in their second innings. It looked all over, bar the shouting, now. Joe Root was the pick of the bowlers, as he took 4 wickets with his part-time off-spin on a pitch which in truth didn’t do much – South Africa just played a succession of poor strokes.
Day Five Highlights
South Africa were again very poor early in the day, dropping wickets quickly, before a last wicket stand which showed a bit of the metal the previous 19 wickets basically lacked. England won the match with plenty in hand on the fifth day, by an innings and 53 runs.
Pope added to his impressive big hundred (135*) with six (6!) catches across the two SA innings.
It was also nice to see Wood back, over 90 MPH and among the wickets. He’ll be pleased with his slower ball on day 5, which did the job – on first attempt – to dismiss Rabada.
Maharaj (71) showed a bit of spirit, as did last man, Paterson (39*) at the death.
England lead the series 2-1, with one match to play. They’ll be particularly please with the younger members of the squad, who all contributed to this success. Ideally, next time, we’ll see a 50 (or more) from one or both openers, and Jofra Archer firing again. This has the green shoots of a very decent side.
