England coach Trevor Bayliss reveals how his 'in-your-face' intervention prompted amazing win over South Africa

Any victory in a Test series away from home is worth having. They are so rare and difficult to achieve that the manner of them hardly seems to matter. Just get the job done whatever way you can, short of kidnapping the opposition captain and bribing the umpires, and head for home.

England’s superb series win against South Africa, however, has been obtained with a style and substance which would have been beyond them a year ago. South Africa were the world’s No 1 side – still are officially until the rankings formally change at the end of the series – and England, improbably, have outplayed and outsmarted them.

The win by seven wickets that secured the third Test and with it the Basil D’Oliveira Trophy (England lead the series 2-0 with a match remaining) was as thrilling as it was breathtaking. On entering the Wanderers arena on Saturday morning no one would or could have thought that the match, even in this era of wham-bam cricket, would finish that evening, only the third of the match.

Yet 18 wickets fell in the course of seven hours, crucially 10 of them to England for a paltry 83 runs as South Africa teetered haplessly before the might of Stuart Broad.

With fast bowling of a rare resourcefulness but which he replicates time and again, Broad swept away the top order and made the improbable certain.It was a splendid example of fast bowling, making use of favourable conditions, assisted by sharp fielding and an implacable approach and conviction. England played in this match and in the series as a whole as a side who knew their destiny.

The turning point of the day came at lunchtime with one of those interventions from a coach that will go down in legend. England had forged a small lead of 10 runs in the morning while losing their last five wickets and had 20 uneventful minutes bowling at South Africa before lunch.

It was then that Trevor Bayliss, the quietly spoken, keenly observant Australian who took over last July, made his move. Later, it would be described by England’s captain, Alastair Cook, as a kick up the backside. Which is not how Bayliss saw it.

“It was more of a reminder, I suppose, of what we needed to do to help the bowlers win the game,” he said yesterday. “I thought before lunch and even in the first innings I didn’t think their attitude was quite right in the field. I mean, it’s always a decent attitude but I think to field well and pick up those half chances – we missed a few even in Cape Town – that the energy and the attitude has got to be more full on. So it was just a bit of a reminder that if we want to win this Test match now is the time to hunt in a pack or get in the batter’s face, try to make them feel ‘where’s our next run coming from?’ and help the bowlers, put the pressure on that way.

“That’s why I had to remind them. We had spoken about it in the past. But they are only young players, most of them, and like any young person you have to remind them now and then. Hopefully, like any young person, as they get more experienced that type of attitude will be more automatic.”

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It led pretty soon to James Taylor taking two spellbinding catches at short-leg, first by staying low to pouch Hashim Amla and then by flinging himself to his right to remove Dane Vilas. Those sort of moments made Broad feel, and everybody else present sense, that he could take a wicket with every ball.

Bayliss chose his intervention carefully and astutely. He is not a coach who is constantly in the players’ ears. He lets them play as he lets the captain lead, which is perhaps why Cook has developed so capably. But Bayliss recognised that there comes a time in the affairs of a cricket team when something has to be done. There was an opportunity here and he was not about to allow his charges to let it slip. He picked his moment.

“Exactly,” he said. “And that’s why on purpose sometimes I don’t say anything. A player has actually got to make mistakes to learn from them. If someone is telling them all the time what to do, then they don’t necessarily recognise it themselves.”

It is a method of coaching which a few others could do well to adopt. But it also takes an assurance and self-belief not to interfere or tinker. Bayliss seems to have that.

South Africa were by no means as formidable as expected, but much of that was down to their opponents. The heavy defeat in India took its toll and there has been far too much looking back, musing how much they miss their great former players such as Jacques Kallis and Graeme Smith, and in this series, a great current one in Dale Steyn. From the start in Durban, the tourists sensed that they were the superior, better equipped side. They did not do everything perfectly – as demonstrated by the 10 catching chances that were spurned in Cape Town – but they have been prepared to play a fearless brand of cricket in which they have dared to back their own judgement. It has been constantly exciting to watch.

The key period that shaped the third Test came on the second afternoon when Joe Root and Ben Stokes were in unison. They scored their runs boldly. Then came Broad.

Bayliss was asked if he had seen what England might be capable of.

“To be honest, until I got the call I didn’t take any interest in the English game at all,” he said. “Certainly when I did look at it there were some good young players in there that had been through a little bit of a rough trot. I suppose from that point of view some of the signs were good and the future of this team could turn into something special.”

What they have done here is special indeed.