As expected England played with an unchanged side and South Africa made quite a few changes. Du Plesis was back and captaining the side. Rabada was left out because he was banned for one test. South Africa also made one strategic choice by replacing de Bruyn who is more of a pseudo all rounder with Chris Morris who fits the term all rounder more suitably.
The result was that South Africa started 62% weaker than the English team. This compares to them underperforming England by 32.2% in the first test match. By the end of the test match South Africa was was in front by 7.6%.
Hashim Amla performed extremelly well with the bat. However once again it was an all round performance by Vernon Philander that sealed the match. Hashim Amla scored more runs than Philander. Chris Morris got more wickets than him. Philander's batting strike rate was much better than Amla's which meant that it was worth more. Morris had a better bowling strike rate but his economy rate was bad. Philander had a better bowling average. Faster runs combined with a better economy rate and a bowling average was too much for England. He seemed to be batting and bowling on a different wicket altogether.
My numbers indicate that England bowled better than South Africa. This is definetly because there were better individual performances from England but you had all of the South African Bowlers contributing. I am not too concerned about this because this actually shows the system is working. The match was won and lost in the batting department. The batting of South Africa was 3% better than the last test match. However England was 50% worse.
I am looking forward to the next match. South Africa will definetly bring back Rabada. England will most likely make changes.