Cape Town: Kagiso Rabada took four wickets on Tuesday morning – and 13 in the match – as South Africa cruised to a 280-run victory over England in the fourth and final Test in Centurion.
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England went from the sublime of their series-winning victory in Johannesburg to the ridiculously bad here after slumping to a humiliating 280-run defeat at Centurion.
Although the series had already been decided, the victory was a welcome one for South Africa after a run of nine games without success stretching back more than a year had caused it to be knocked off the top of the world rankings by India.
“Having won the series we don’t want to go out on a damp note”. Rabada was instrumental in South Africa gaining a decisive 133 runs lead.
Pakistan are in the fourth spot, followed by England, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, West Indies, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe.
“There are no dead rubbers in Test cricket”, said Vaughan, who captained England in 51 of his 82 Tests.
“It shows how much work we’ve still got to do as a side”. His match figures of 13-144 represent the best by a South African on home soil, as well as trumping Mitchell Johnson’s Test-best 12-127 on this ground.
The hosts declared their second innings on 248 runs setting England a mammoth target of 382 runs. “We saw at the Wanderers what Broady can do and we obviously know what Jimmy can do, and hopefully they do it again tomorrow”.
“We thought we could bowl them out maybe and have a reasonable total to chase”. “We stayed positive and I’m happy that we won and I’m happy that I bowled well”.
Rabada then took centre stage, although it did not look like being his day when he had Jonny Bairstow caught at slip only for an umpire’s review to reveal no part of his front foot was behind the line and a no-ball was signalled. For us to be at number one, we do need to start gutsing these out.
Root, who hit a century and two fifties in the first three Tests, made 76 off 128 balls with 11 fours before edging a good delivery from Rabada to wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock.
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England captain Alastair Cook said: “We spoke honestly about how we were going about this week; we tried not to do what we did against Australia”. “If you’d offered me 2-1 before the series I would have snapped your hand off”. “We spoke a lot about how we wanted to finish the tour unbeaten but we just haven’t been good enough in this game”.
