Ups and downs on a roller-coaster ride

The series began with accusations of England being "undercooked", but by the end of an incredible five Tests in six weeks, there was hardly a player on either side who had not been baked half to death by the unrelenting itinerary. Andrew Miller - who witnessed all the ups, downs, lefts and rights of an astonishingly unpredictable tour - runs the rule over the players:

9 - Matthew Hoggard

Matthew Hoggard: unofficial man of the series © Getty Images

England's unofficial man of the series. Hoggard was simply superb throughout the most brutal Test itinerary ever devised. Where once he would merely have been a foil for Steve Harmison, he shouldered the burden of an off-colour attack, and made the vital top-order incisions time and again. He set the tone for the series by dismissing Smith with his second ball (and he went on to nail him three more times in the first four matches, more than any other bowler has yet managed). But he sealed the series with his single-handed brilliance at Johannesburg. Until that point, he had not taken a five-wicket haul for 31 months and 49 innings, but then along came two in a single game, as he recorded England's best Test figures since Ian Botham tore through India at Bombay 25 years earlier. Throw into the equation his unyieldingly obdurate batting, with which he has converted himself into the most reliable nightwatchman in the game, and Hoggard's full value to the side is instantly apparent.

9 - Andrew Strauss
Arrived in South Africa with a burgeoning reputation and, lo and behold, he enhanced it. Top-scorer in six of England's first seven innings, he scored three centuries and 656 runs, and on the tennis-ball-bouncy South African pitches, he unfurled an array of back-foot strokes that took the breath away. Previously he had been regarded as temperamentally superb but technically limited, but at Port Elizabeth he produced two utterly contrasting innings to set the required mood on each occasion. With the most emphatic square cut since Robin Smith, and the most dismissive pull since Vaughan's form dipped, he has established himself as the kingpin of England's batting line-up. But two ducks in his last three innings suggested that perhaps South Africa had spotted a chink in the armour by the end.

8 - Marcus Trescothick
Also began the series with a reputation, albeit a less flattering one, for several doubts had been voiced about Trescothick's ability to replicate his sparkling home form in such an intense overseas series. But with Strauss stealing all the plaudits, Tresco was happy to chug along in his wake ... until one astonishing morning at the Wanderers, where he produced the innings of his life to set up the series-clinching victory. The sheer speed of his final-day assault allowed England the luxury of an unassailable position, and turned a speculative shot at victory into a spectacular one. If he ever plays a more ferocious and timely innings again, I want to be there to see it.

7 - Andrew Flintoff
Until his hugely composed 77 at Centurion, Freddie could hardly buy a run all tour, and questions will once again be asked about his suitability to bat at No. 6 when the Aussies are in town. But with the ball, Flintoff was an entirely different story. Despite daily medical bulletins suggesting that he was constantly on the verge of breakdown, he kept bounding in with the enthusiasm of one of his boxer puppies, and produced a series of spiteful spells that South Africa had little answer to. He's a matchwinner by nature, and the vicious delivery that clattered Shaun Pollock on the helmet at Johannesburg quite possibly made the difference between victory and another demoralising draw. Pollock fell in the same over (after being dropped as well), and England poured through the breach in the closing overs.

7 - Ashley Giles

Ashley Giles: another regal contribution from the 'King of Spain' © Getty Images

Another regal contribution from the man they fete as "The King of Spain". Giles is fast becoming the most consistently consistent cricketer in the world - never a world-beater, but no longer a running joke either. He tucked equally contentedly into the middle of England's batting and bowling averages: 188 runs at 27, with a top score of 39; 11 wickets at 41, with a best haul of 3 for 101. Those sound like neither-here-or-there figures, but Giles knows his role - he holds up an end while the seamers rotate from the top - and England appreciate him all the more for it. It was when he was struck down by a back spasm at Durban that his full worth was revealed. England wilted without him, and were fried alive by Kallis.

7 - Graham Thorpe
The figures hardly look impressive - 287 runs at 35 - but Thorpe is too long in the tooth for day-in-day-out contributions. He saves his best for the situations when it really matters. Three single-figure scores in England's two victories tell their own story. But his century at Durban reignited an innings that was on the verge of collapse after the loss of both openers, and he rounded off his tour with a vital 8 from 56 balls to calm the jitters at Centurion. At Cape Town, a lost cause from Day One, he was anonymous. The one alarm for such an assured player of spin was that he found an improbable bogey-man in Graeme Smith - Darren Lehmann will be licking his lips come the summer.

6 - Simon Jones
He didn't look on top form at any stage of the series, and was harshly left out at Johannesburg, but his waspish, skiddy, late-swinging line contributed 15 wickets to England's cause and gave valuable back-up to Hoggard and Flintoff. His inspirational qualities were fully in evidence at Port Elizabeth, where he produced a superb sprawling catch at fine leg to remove Graeme Smith, and followed up with a fiery four-wicket burst to all but seal the match. And his bullish batting is not to be underestimated either.

5 - Mark Butcher
Never quite at the races, and, if the rumours are to be believed, he may not be seen at them again, after his tour was cut short by a wrist injury. His run of 42 consecutive matches as England's No. 3 ended when injury and misfortune struck last summer, and with it went all of his momentum - something that his team-mates would sympathise with after their mid-tour derailments at Durban and Cape Town. Despite a useful 79 at Port Elizabeth, he was unable to justify his continued retention ahead of Robert Key.

5 - Robert Key
His unconventional appearance means Key is bound to attract attention with every passing failure, so let's dwell on the positives for the moment, and recall his crucial 83 at the Wanderers which played a major part in setting up England's series win. Other than that, however, there is little to sugar the pill. He was on a hiding to nothing in his first innings, a duck at Cape Town after Butcher's late withdrawal, but it was his crass second-innings dismissal - stumped for 41 as England's rearguard crumbled - that will stick in the memory for longer. Ian Bell will be hot on his heels come the summer.

5 - Michael Vaughan
A distressing series form-wise for the skipper, who at least contributed a classy double to the Jo'burg victory, before steering the team through choppy waters on the final afternoon at Centurion. But, like Nasser Hussain at Karachi four winters ago, Vaughan was rightly at the crease at the moment of triumph because, despite his shortage of runs, this has been a victory forged from his granite will. Without his strict adherence to personal fitness, England would probably have wilted midway through the Durban Test, and without his ruthless approach to the captaincy, a team that has struggled for form might never have prised open the safe.

4 - Geraint Jones

Geraint Jones: a disappointing series behind the stumps © Cricinfo

Maintained England's momentum with two important half-centuries at Durban and Centurion, but these could not entirely compensate for a disappointing series behind the stumps. Up until this tour, Jones had been a lucky keeper: his frequent fumbles had conceded nothing more drastic than byes, but the fear has always been that come the Ashes, he would drop Matthew Hayden on 0, and the series would be lost. Well, he provided a glimmer of such alarms by reprieving Herschelle Gibbs and Jacques Kallis, among others, at different stages of the series. And at Jo'burg, he came desperately close to deflecting Kallis's first-ball dismissal out of the path of Marcus Trescothick at first slip. Had that chance gone down, England's heads would have swiftly followed.

3 - James Anderson
There is only so much time a man can spend in the nets before he goes stir-crazy, and Anderson's dreadfully scattergun performance at the Wanderers was proof that he needs to get away from the claustrophobic England dressing-room, and return to Lancashire to get some overs under his belt. He began his career as a boy with a golden arm. England's alchemy is morphing him into a man with all the leaden cares of the world on his shoulders.

2 - Steve Harmison
Was it a case of nerves brought on by his heightened expectations, or a resurfacing of the homesickness that has blighted his career on previous tours? Or was it some technical glitch that crept in during his three-month layoff after the end of the English summer? Whatever the cause, Harmison was tragically anonymous throughout the tour. The management retained their faith until the very last roll of the dice at Centurion, when Flintoff was rightly promoted to share the new-ball duties with Hoggard. But this was a man who had taken more wickets in a single year than any other English bowler. It can only be hoped he is as frustrated with his form as everyone else was.

Andrew Miller is assistant editor of Cricinfo.

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