South Africa secured some much needed pride on Tuesday, after securing a 280 run victory over England in the final Test of the four match series.
England batsmen had faced a challenging close to proceedings on day four, with Morne Morkel and Temba Bavuma prospering from the gloomy conditions to leave the hosts in a precarious predicament at 18/3.
Taylor and Root out early
A late revival from James Taylor and Joe Root saw the tourists begin day five on 52-3, and it was evident that any chance of an England draw would rest heavily on the shoulders of the young batsmen of Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire, respectively. However disaster struck for England just a little over ten minutes after the start of play, with Taylor delivered a back of length, rising delivery, with enough movement off the seam to find the glove of the number five and into the gloves of Quinton De Kock, with cracks on the pitch enabling Morkel to extract additional pace and bounce.
In the next over, it was the turn of spin to profit from the aid of the weathered pitch, with Dane Piedt forcing Root to carelessly drive the ball which only resulted in a thick edge into the hands of slip Dean Elgar to leave England with a mountain to climb at 58-5.
Bairstow and Stokes serve up entertainment
Following this, Jonny Bairstow and Ben Stokes were left to carry the can for England and the architects of the record breaking partnership in 2nd test at Cape Town briefly threatened to somewhat replicate their heroics, with a four over stand between the flame-haired batsman yielding a positive 25 runs.
However the attacking mentality of the batsman always left England at a great risk of losing another wicket,and the introduction of promising seamer Rabada into the attack yet again proved to be England's nemesis, finding the edge of Bairstow on two successive occasions, with Bairstow failing to capitalize on a first reprieve from a front foot no ball to leave the score 83-6.
Following on from the previous partnership with James Taylor and Joe Root, both being dismissed within one over of each other with no additional runs added, it was Ben Stokes who was next to go. Man of the series Stokes has been applauded throughout the series for his progressive and counter attacking stroke play and despite the circumstances, Stokes refused to abandon this philosophy but he was made to pay with his wicket, pulling the ball to Stephen Cook at deep square leg.
A little over three overs later, it was Chris Woakes' turn to once again play an erratic stroke to find himself back in the pavilion, failing at a wide delivery from Rabada for a another regulation De Kock catch after scoring just five runs.
Anderson the last to go
From this point, even the most optimistic of England fans would concede that any lingering hopes they had of saving the match were gone and therefore the remaining batsman were seemingly left with the freedom to play their strokes and despite a number of drives to deliveries wide of off stump proving to be a consistent flaw of England's batting during the morning session, Broad himself couldn't resist the dangling carrot of a wide, full delivery from Rabada , only to see the ball once again find its way to the slip cordon, with AB Devilliers this time being the man to take the catch.
The very next delivery, the game was complete with number 11 batsman James Anderson struck on the toe from a full Rabada, and given out lbw on review to leave England bowled out for a paltry 101.