TEST MATCH TALKING POINTS: 16 years since a consolation victory and dropped catches

England wrapped up the Test and managed to walk away from the series with a little bit of pride. TOM EDWARDS goes through some of the talking points from the fourth day of the final Test...

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Finally, a consolation victory

This has been England's best match for batting by quite a distance. Not only did they make it past 250 for the first time in the series in their first innings, but they went two better in the second innings by going past 300 and then 350.

Yes, it is a dead rubber, but they need to take whatever positive they can find after a series as demoralising as this.

It’s worth remembering that the last time England recorded a consolation victory was back in the 2002/2003 Ashes when 7-94 from Andrew Caddick inspired England to victory in the fifth and final Test of the series, with Australia already 4-0 up.

Since then England have been prone to capitulating rather than finding any sort of resolve to fight back when there was nothing but pride on the line.

It’s been different here though, England have shown grit, they’ve shown determination, and most importantly they’ve shown a willingness to work for their runs.

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Andy Caddick salutes the England fans after his 7-49

Will the real Mark Wood please stand up?

Having sung the praises of Mark Wood in this series back on Sunday, we saw a return of the Wood which we've become more accustomed to in Test cricket. A lot of talk about how fast he is without him actually being that fast. Brisk at best.

Now, as was said on Sunday, we can't expect Wood to bowl like that in every match. It's the nature of fast bowlers. It takes a lot of things to be right for someone to pull out a spell like Wood did that day.

We also said though, that it was the first spell of that kind that Wood has produced in his 13 appearances for England. If they want him to be a real weapon in Test cricket, he's going to need to produce those sort performances regularly.

This isn't a criticism of him, and it will be really exciting what he does from here, but today was a reminder of the Wood we are more familiar with.

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Mark Wood was less spectacular on Tuesday

Jimmy's new run-up

A lot of the talk from the day was how Jimmy Anderson had changed his run-up mid-Test because he had started bowling no balls and was running on what they like to call the 'danger zone'.

Sky's Ian Ward was recounting how Anderson had told him during a masterclass in Loughborough that he had used the same run-up since he was 15.

If ever there was a sign that Anderson is an example for all young cricketers to follow, this was it.

He recognised that something was going wrong, wasn't too proud to ignore it and got to work fixing. He was rewarded by three wickets in a fantastic opening spell which put England right on top.

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