England beat South Africa by 9 wickets to wrap up series win

It said everything about England’s dynamic new approach to the oldest form of the game that Ollie Pope tried to reverse ramp Marco Jansen for six to win the final Test and this series.

Instead of making contact the ball hit his wrist and then helmet but the broad grin on Ben Stokes face on the balcony was all that was needed to give approval to Pope’s audacity.

Even now not everybody gets it – in the Sky commentary box Shaun Pollock was heard to lament ‘can’t they just be orthodox with six runs left’ – but what England have done this summer has been both transformative, breathless and quite brilliant.

Yes, there will be times when they stubbornly insist on doing it their way when all logic points to the conventional, like their manic pursuit of quick runs in the first innings here when they could have sensibly batted South Africa out of the game.

But the restorative effect at a time when the red-ball game is under threat like never before cannot be over-estimated and both Stokes and Brendon McCullum deserve immense credit for bucking the franchise trend and throwing their heart and soul into Test cricket.

Six wins in seven Tests this summer, all against top quality opposition in New Zealand, India and South Africa, is transformation enough after that run of one victory in 17 Tests that saw England reach their nadir with defeat in the Caribbean.

But the way they have done it, rewriting the Test playbook as they went, has been extraordinary, albeit with the last instalment of the summer played at such a frantic speed and with such little batting application that it was effectively white-ball cricket in white clothing.

It should be said South Africa’s batting has been quite dreadful. They betrayed their negative mind-set going into this special match when they refused ECB’s attempts to add an extra day after the first had been lost to rain and the second called off while respect was paid to the Queen. Then their fallibility showed why that extra day was never going to be needed anyway.

How appropriate Stokes was named England’s player of the series. What a leader he has shown himself to be, both by his example and man-management, and how refreshing it is that England’s best and most important player should turn his back on the IPL and the Hundred, and even 50-over cricket, to prioritise Tests.

Stokes was a little tetchy when asked by Mark Butcher during the presentation after England’s nine-wicket win if he was selling himself a little short by batting too aggressively. Clearly he will carry on doing it his way, setting the selfless tone, and he has earned the right to do so both with his results and his Herculean efforts with bat and ball.

It was appropriate, too, that Ollie Robinson should be player of the match here after taking 12 wickets at 15 in his two Tests since returning to the side. It was the sight of Robinson, backing away and being bowled in Hobart, that became the image of England’s Ashes surrender at the start of this year after he had been publicly shamed for his poor fitness levels. How far both he and England have come since then.

Not since Michael Vaughan’s team in 2004 won all seven Tests have England enjoyed a summer like this. We all know Vaughan went on to lift the Ashes the following year in the most fabled triumph of them all and next year’s series is suddenly a much more enticing prospect. Can England beat Australia playing this way? Why not. It will be harder against Australia’s attack but they have done it against just as potent a South African one.

Backing their players and taking away fear of failure is at the heart of England’s approach and how delighted they will be that Zak Crawley came good at the last after he was backed like few players have ever been before through a quite dismal run.

Crawley’s unbeaten 69 off 57 balls, ending with a square drive for his 12th four to win the match after 25 minutes of play on the final day, was exactly why England have been so reluctant to discard him. Crawley will go to Pakistan for England’s next Test assignment in December alongside Alex Lees, who rode his luck here before finally falling lbw to Rabada but did enough to extend his run at the top of the order.

Expect a call-up for Moeen Ali to supplement the spin of Jack Leach in Pakistan while Ben Duckett, added to the squad here when Jonny Bairstow was so freakishly injured, and Keaton Jennings will be in the frame to provide batting depth.

And it can be guaranteed that England won’t repeat their mistake of the Caribbean of leaving both Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad out of their attack. Broad may be missing from Pakistan because of the timing of the arrival of his first child but he will be back in New Zealand next year while Anderson looks like he can go on forever.

Perhaps the biggest compliment to be paid to Stokes is that both have fully bought into his methods and are playing with the enthusiasm of teenagers.

Both Alastair Cook and Joe Root had times when they found the big two difficult to manage on the field – and their absence in the West Indies did have something to do with their personalities perhaps being a bit big for the captain to handle.

But Stokes has made a mockery of that. Just as he has made a mockery of those, this correspondent among them, who feared the captaincy might break him. It has been the making of him – and his methods have been the making of the new England.