Mission accomplished and then some for England's project reset

LONDON : As England celebrated destroying South Africa by nine wickets to secure a 2-1 series success on Monday, their sixth win in seven tests of the most glorious test-match summer, it took something of a leap to remember how quickly things have turned around.

When they trudged home from a dispiriting tour of West Indies on the back of a 10-wicket series-losing defeat in March, they had managed one win in 17 tests and an exhausted Joe Root stepped down as captain.

To say the arrival of his replacement Ben Stokes and new coach Brendan McCullum transformed the team would be one of the greatest understatements in sport.

In years to come psychology students will surely study "England cricket 2022" as the most astonishing example of how a change in mindset can transform performance in a largely unchanged group of players.

Both men promised a no-fear, all-out attacking approach with McCullum's credo of "walk towards danger" aligned with Stokes promising to make playing for England fun again.

The new era got underway with an amazing 3-0 series win over New Zealand, England's first home series whitewash for 11 years, but it was less the results than the manner of them that suddenly got the world of cricket taking notice as the team scored their runs at a national record 4.54 per over.

With a rejuvenated Jonny Bairstow leading they way they successfully chased 277 at Lord’s, 299 at Trent Bridge and 296 at Headingley - and all were chalked off with such aggressive intent that failure never looked on the cards.

This came a year after Root's England had declined to even make an attempt at making 273 in 75 overs to beat New Zealand.

ATTITUDE CHANGE

The change in attitude was epitomised in the second test where New Zealand posted 553 in