England in South Africa 2015/16

Yes Fraudster sure knows his s**t but to be clear, he was talking in the main about the pace of the innings between lunch and tea rather than the timing of the declaration. Basically, they could have declared at the same time but they should have been 300-8 instead of 248-5 when they declared, or something similar. Obviously declaring earlier would have been wiser either way and more comfortable too, had they upped the rate even a touch in that second session. Inexplicable is a good word for their actions.

Anyway, that's enough from Fraudster. It's been emotional, fun, frustrating at times but I've always enjoyed reading every post, be it from Sussex fans or all those nasty outsiders. I've also enjoyed posting my thoughts and believe it or not, usually to enlighten or suggest rather than antagonise. All good and bad things have to come to an end though. That's the way of the world.

See you tomorrow.

Excellent win against the South Africa A side. A very good workout for some of the non-Test players and the one-day squad seems to be developing very nicely. Jordan had another excellent game: 33 runs, 3 wickets, 3 catches, one of them spectacular,and he should be a fixture from now on.

The lack of comments on this thread about the one day series is perhaps confirmation of my own feelings. Who on earth cares about these matches? Why within a few weeks of a world 20/20 competition are England and South Africa playing 5 50 over matches with ever depleting squads?

Awful innings by Morgan, destabilising the England push for acceleartion and bringing back the old doubts about England's ability to produce the right team at the right time. If Morgan loses form now, will he get it back in time for the World T20, or should we just go for Root now and complete the rebuilding?

Yes and no leedsgull. Your response in itself constitutes a dialogue and it doesn't worry me that there aren't hordes struggling to get their words of wisdom in. What matters is to have a conversation.

In itself this, like all the one day matches that have ever been played, has no great significance and will certainly not be remembered as sometimes quite minor 5 day matches are remembered. There isn't time to generate that sense of "you had to be there" in one day's play, only the momentary thrill (or boredom) of the ball that flashes to the boundary, the suicidal run out, the diving catch. But it does have a context and it does have relevance to many things that we talk about elsewhere on this forum. I think that there are two things that stand out immediately from today,and from the series so far. The first is the absolute dominance of Root currently as a player for all formats, confident in his abilities to respond to a situation in the right manner, which may mean to build on a successful opening, or to get over a stuttering start and turn it into a profitable and sound centrepiece to a worthy conclusion. In this he is like no other England player I can recall in any form of the game since the days of the strokemaking Nos 3 and 4: May, Cowdrey, the later Graveney, but not Dexter whose style was altogether too flamboyant.

Secondly it is that there is an England spirit that seems to be developing that transcends the format and the immediate make-up of the team or squad. It is the same spirit with a rather different group of players in the 5 day game. It seems to be capable of ignoring the occasional poor performance of uncertain passge to the game and to shake its head and get on with the next passage of play, the next wicket to fall. At the moment it is erratic but it is getting better and although some players are central (Root again, Stokes,Ali, Finn when fit) it seems to be teachable to those who have only a limited role - Rashid in the one-days, Bairstow in the Tests, perhaps others.

I don't claim that this is great cricket, in fact I think these have been rather boring matches, partly because South Africa seem to have run out of great players for the moment and there is very limited imagination in their captaincy and coaching. But I do think it has a wider significance and I'm quite glad that England are putting not merely a team together, but some sort of coaching ethos. It will be interesting to see where it leads. And, of course, it is February and what else is there to do?