Run-heavy South Africa show the way

South Africa's first series win in England since 1965 was achieved by patience and perseverance: they averaged half a run less per over, but averaged 3.33 runs more per wicket. The difference becomes over ten runs per wicket if one excludes the fourth Test at The Oval, where England earned a consolation win, and extended South Africa's jinx at the ground. South Africa haven't won once in 13 Tests at The Oval, the most for a team at a venue without a win.

It was England's second series defeat at home in as many years, and defeats at Headingley and Edgbaston were the first time they lost two matches in a row since 2001, when they lost four consecutive Tests against Australia. Michael Vaughan resigned after the back-to-back losses, the first-such occurrence in his captaincy tenure.

Vaughan's successor, Kevin Pietersen, led the run-scoring charts, but it was Graeme Smith who walked away with his reputation as a batsman enhanced. Smith built on his exploits of 2003, and in the process became only the second visiting player to score 1000 runs while leading his team in England, besides winning South Africa the series with his 154 at Edgbaston. The ratio of hundreds was 7:4 in favour of South Africa, but England had ten fifties in comparison to South Africa's four: Alastair Cook surely missed out by not converting any of his four into a century. Cook now has gone 17 innings without a hundred, while being dismissed five times in the 60s and once in the 70s. In 31 innings starting with his debut, Cook had scored six of his seven Test hundreds, in 31 since, he's made just one. Jacques Kallis' horrendous run with the bat means he will have to wait longer to reach 10,000 Test runs. He needed 343 runs at the start of the series but got just 104 - his series average of 14.83 was his lowest in nearly 12 years. (Click here for view how each player fared with the bat.)

The opening stands for both teams averaged over 50. Smith and Neil McKenzie went past 1000 runs as an opening pair, and are only one of three to average over 80 (among those with at least 500 runs). South Africa's best average was for wicket No. 5, not a surprise given the form of AB de Villiers and Ashwell Prince in the series. The fourth wicket was the best for England, and surprisingly it was the sixth-wicket stand that averaged the lowest, with the seventh-wicket partnership averaging 61.50.

Morne Morkel and James Anderson topped the wicket-taking charts - with 15 scalps apiece - but Kallis was the only bowler to average less than 30 per wicket in the series. An injury to Dale Steyn resulted in him missing the final two Tests, and with Makhaya Ntini not at his best, South Africa's much-hyped pace trio didn't blow away the opposition as expected. Both spinners and fast bowlers averaged in the mid-30s on an average; however, Monty Panesar far outdid his left-arm spin counterpart Paul Harris. (Click here to view how the bowlers fared.)

Like Kallis, Andrew Flintoff too had a better run with the ball than bat. One allrounder who stood out with his batting with Stuart Broad - Geoff Boycott was reminded of Garry Sobers - though his bowling needs to improve tremendously if he is to even come close to the West Indian legend.