England won the 3-test series 2-1, with all three Tests finishing within 3 days of play. The 3rd Test at the Oval lost the first day due to the weather and the second day to the queen’s demise, but still finished soon after the start of what was the scheduled 5th day. Stokes was the last English captain of the Elizabethan era. Earlier, SA won by an innings in the first Test and England won by an innings in the second Test.
A summary of Tests between these teams:
The upper table is for all tests since the beginning. England leads by a large margin both at home and abroad. This is not surprising as SA was a weak team for many of its earlier Tests, when they only played against England and Australia.
I thought it would be more useful to look at the record after SA returned to Tests in the 1990s. Here, England still leads at home and abroad but with a narrower margin.
We now look at individual performances, starting with
Batting:
Most runs (1200 and above):
As we will see in the later tables, many of the aggregate records are from the pre-1990 period. Thus Kallis has the most runs of the post-1990 batsmen but is fifth overall. Next is GC Smith (6th overall).
Kallis has the most centuries (8), followed by several others with 7.
B Mitchell has the most 50+ scores (23), followed by Hammond and HW Taylor with 20. The most by a recent player is 16 by Kallis.
Highest individual scores (180 and above):
Here, the top few scores are from recent players. None from this low-scoring series.
Highest batting averages (Minimum 20 innings and 40.00):
GC Smith has the highest average among recent players, followed by Amla. However, the highest averages are by Hammond and Hobbs from the early days.
Highest strike rates (Minimum 1000 balls faced and 45.00):
Here Stokes leads by a good margin over de Kock. None of the pre-1990 players are here.
To be continued:
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