England's captain Ben Stokes holding The Basil D'Oliveira Trophy as he poses with his teammates after victory on the fifth and final day of the third Test against South Africa at The Oval, in London, on Monday — Reuters LONDON, Sept 12 (AFP): England thrashed South Africa by nine wickets in the third and deciding Test at the Oval on Monday, completing a 2-1 series win in just over two days of action.
The home side, who resumed on 97-0, needed just 5.3 more overs to reach a victory target of 130. Zak Crawley was 69 not out and Ollie Pope unbeaten on 11.
England have now won six of their seven Tests under their new leadership pairing of captain Ben Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum, having managed just one victory in their previous 17 matches when former skipper Joe Root was in charge.
"I'm delighted," said Stokes. "It's been a great series for us as a team. It has been one of those series where we haven't had many individual standout performances, but different people have put their hand up for us throughout and that's what you want in team sport.
"You want to be able to turn to people at key times and break the game open with either bat or ball and that's what we've had throughout."
Defeat means South Africa have suffered their first Test series loss since Dean Elgar took over as captain last year.
England resumed just 33 runs shy of their target after the umpires had halted play on Sunday because of bad light to the disappointment of a capacity crowd.
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