England's "disappointing" first innings led to Centurion defeat, admits Joe Root

The tourists collapsed from 142-3 to 181 all out in their reply to South Africa's 284 - giving the hosts a 103-run first-innings lead

England captain Joe Root says England’s first-innings 181 was “very disappointing” and accepts that ultimately that effort was his team’s downfall. Only Joe Denly reached a half-century in the tourists’ first innings as they collapsed from 142-3 to 181 all out in reply to South Africa’s 284 - giving the hosts a 103-run first-innings lead.

The Proteas added 272 to that lead in their second innings, leaving England needing a mammoth, record chase of 376 to earn an unlikely victory. Root’s men were well placed at 204-3 on Sunday but lost their last seven wickets for 64 runs as South Africa halted a run of five successive Test defeats.

"That was the real crux of it and where the game was won and lost - it was very disappointing,” Root told Sky Sports.

"I still think the toss was a 50-50 call. If you get a side 111-5 you think you are ahead of the game so maybe we had a slight opportunity missed there.

"Ultimately I have to give credit to South Africa. I thought they played very well this week."

The England camp, both players and backroom staff have been plagued by illness throughout the match and Root praised the squad for battling through in difficult conditions.

^{Root hit 48 in England's second innings}

"It's been a tough week off the field. Pretty much everything has been thrown at the group, with 10 guys having gone down," said Root.

"Credit to everyone - they have stood up and tried to put in the best performance possible. At no stage have they let anyone down.

"Pretty much everyone has been ill now so hopefully that is out of the way and we can prepare extremely well and bounce back strong."

At lunch on day four - with England 171-3, requiring another 205 runs for victory - the visitors had supporters dreaming of a Headingley repeat - a record chase Root said he was confident England could pull off.

"It has not been long since we saw a similar chase from a very similar group of players," Root commented.

"We got ourselves into a position, even at lunch with me and Ben, where it was pretty much a similar equation to what it was at Headingley.

"We were fully confident we could chase those runs down, we just knew it would take one or two reasonable partnerships and that we needed to negotiate the new ball very well."

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