Stokes vows no let-up in England’s attacking approach after series win

Ben Stokes vowed England would keep up their bold approach to Test cricket under coach Brendon McCullum after wrapping up a 2-1 series win over South Africa at the Oval yesterday. The match was shortened to three days after the first day was washed out and the second scrapped following the death of Queen Elizabeth II.But England still needed less than half an hour to seal victory by nine wickets in front of a sparse crowd in London.“This game here, with it being shortened, our main aim was it ending in a result,” England captain Stokes told Sky Sports.“We felt we owed it to ourselves, we owed it to the nation who have shown their support throughout this whole summer towards us and we will always continue to play in a way that we feel is going to entertain people and always look for the positive side of cricket.”Victory rounded off a stunning summer for England with the red ball. They swept the series against world Test champions New Zealand 3-0 and beat India in a Test postponed from last year after a coronavirus outbreak.An attack-minded approach has underlined all those wins.“Me and Brendon are the guys who are sending this message to this group of players,” said Stokes. “I said to the lads in the dressing room the other day that the person who is delivering the message can only do so much. But I thanked all my team, my backroom staff and my coaches that they have all bought into this.”Skipper Elgar not sure where South Africa will find Test runsSouth Africa’s fragile top six and lack of runs at Test level was exposed as England won a bowler-dominated three-match series 2-1 yesterday, leaving touring captain Dean Elgar with much to ponder ahead of their next five-day assignment in Australia.South Africa made 326 in their only innings at Lord’s in the first test, but did not manage a score over 179 in their next four visits to the crease as Elgar conceded their brittle middle order is letting the side down.They used every batter in their extended tour-party in the series, but only Sarel Erwee managed a single half-century.“I always bank on experience and we don’t have that at Test level,” Elgar told reporters yesterday. “The next best thing is who do we have with experience in first class cricket back home? Is that the right solution, we don’t know yet. We have a few months before our next series (in Australia starting on Dec. 17) but we only have a handful of four-day games before then.”It is a far cry from when the Graeme Smith, Jacques Kallis, Hashim Amla and AB de Villiers used to dominate bowling attacks home and away as South Africa rose to number one in the Test rankings.“The new players have had to learn in the toughest format with not a lot of experience around them, which is something we were always aware of because of the amount of guys we had retire back-to-back,” Elgar said.