England start favourites against South Africa in Boxing Day Test
England's Joe Root
Englandwill belooking to bring a heady year to a successful close in the opening Testof their four-matchseriesagainst South Africa, which starts on Boxing Day in Pretoria but must beware a home side eager to revive their fortunes.
Englishcrickethas been basking in the glory of dramatic World Cup success in 2019 but the Testarena did not offer any subsequent triumphs as they failed to regain the Ashes and lost last month in New Zealand.
Yet they are favourites to beat theirhosts, who have had a year of turmoil both on and off the field.
South Africa surprisingly lost a homeseriesto Sri Lanka earlier in the year, flopped at the World Cup and was comprehensively thumped in India in October, losing all threetests to sit bottom of the new WorldTestChampionship standings.
There has also been a crisis atCricketSouth Africa, who are at loggerheads with the players union, have been accused of mismanagement, losing millions on an ill-conceived Twenty20 venture and are soon to lose their major sponsors.
Several changes have recently been made, including the appointment oftestcricket’s most successful captain Graeme Smith as acting director ofcricket.
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In turn, he appointed old teammate Mark Boucher to coach the side, with another stalwart Jacques Kallis brought on board as a batting consultant.
The changes are expected to infuseenergyto a moribund side, wholooked listless in India where they suffered aseriesof heavy defeats.
But captain Faf du Plessis will take charge of a relatively inexperienced team after aseriesof recent retirements from thetestarena, including Hashim Amla and Dale Steyn.
Joe Root leads anEnglandside that has James Anderson and Johnny Bairstow back and excitedly awaits to see if Ben Stokes can repeat the bludgeoning he handed South Africa in the 2015-16seriesand what Jofra Archer might be able to extract from seamer-friendly wickets.
A bout of illness in theEnglandcamp on the eve of the firsttest, however, means Archer and Stuart Broad are both scrambling to be fit in time to make Thursday’s team line-up.
The firsttest, from December26-30, at Centurion in Pretoria is followed bytests at Newlands in Cape Town (January3-7), St George’s Park in Port Elizabeth (January16-20) and the Wanderers in Johannesburg (January24-28).