Morne Morkel Shines as England Collapsed to Heavy Defeat

England crashed to defeat by an innings and 74 runs as South Africa's victory in the final Test in Johannesburg allowed them to draw the series.

A demoralised batting line-up went from an overnight 48-3 to 169 all out as the hosts wrapped up the match before lunch on the fourth day at the Wanderers.

Wayne Parnell struck first to remove Kevin Pietersen before an in-form Morne Morkel picked up the next three.

Paul Collingwood hit 71 but England were all out just before lunch.

Andrew Strauss's team had already lost its top order in the 13 overs available to South Africa's bowlers on the third evening.

And Pietersen could not get through the first hour of Sunday's play before driving at a wide delivery from Parnell and getting a thin edge to wicketkeeper Mark Boucher.

It ended a dreadful series for Pietersen - though Strauss, Jonathan Trott and Matt Prior have fared equally poorly with the bat - the wicket coming about as the batsman desperately went in search of a pressure-relieving boundary.

At the other end Collingwood opted to attack, smashing Morkel over the slip cordon for two boundaries and alternating pulls with drives when facing Dale Steyn.

Smith only gave Morkel a brief rest before the tall paceman changed ends and quickly removed Ian Bell - whose weakness for fending at shortpitched balls outside off-stump was exposed when a nick flew to Jacques Kallis in the slips at head height.

Prior must have reckoned he could size up Morkel from the pavilion, electing for an ambitious pull to only his second ball and top-edging a simple catch, before Stuart Broad gloved one down the leg-side.

Graeme Swann clattered three boundaries but eventually got a nasty ball from Steyn, and the edge was again greedily snaffled in the South African slip cordon.

Collingwood, England’s best batsman of the series, hit Steyn for one memorable straight six but then swept JP Duminy’s first ball, a horrible long-hop, down the throat of deep backward squareleg.

The match ended in the final over of the session when Ryan Sidebottom missed a sweep against Duminy, and was bowled.

The result was a vital one for South Africa, who had lost their last home Test series and had shuffled their bowling attack several times as they tried to find a formula to defeat England.

On a wicket that was always billed as the most bowler-friendly one of the series, they were nevertheless able to declare their first innings on 423-7.

Performance to blame not reviews - Strauss

And, although England were the victims of two controversial incidents that reflected badly on the new umpire decision review system, they were thoroughly outplayed by the hosts.

England’s next assignment is a tour of Bangladesh, which may be more taxing than it sounds given that some players are expected to be rested and with a number of them not in the best of form.