South Africa vs England 2019-20 | 6 biggest takeaways from the 4-Test series

#5 England find another good opener

Sibley's performance in this series has secured his place in the opener's slot

In 2012, when Andrew Strauss retired, England started searching for a replacement. Six years later, when Alastair Cook called it a day, they were still looking for one and now had to find one more. The emergence of Rory Burns in the Ashes series last year solved half the problem. But who would be his partner?

It seems that this series has produced an answer to that question also. Dom Sibley’s hundred in the third Test has made it certain that he would be the opening partner of Rory Burns when the latter returns to the team. In fact, his partner Zak Crawley also scored some runs in the last match to provide a back-up option if someone is unavailable.

The reason for the sudden emergence of good opening batsmen in the English team is the decision of the selectors to pick successful openers from the county game. After the failed experiment of trying to make Jason Roy into a Test batsman, the Ed Smith-led selection committee finally got its act together and realised opening the innings in the longest format is a specialised job.

With Burns continuing to succeed and Sibley looking impressive, a settled opening combination may be England’s biggest gain from this series.