Former Scotland number eight Johnnie Beattie has retired from rugby after being allowed to "live out my dreams".

The 34-year-old ex-Glasgow Warriors, Montpellier and Castres forward finished his career with a three-year stint at French club Bayonne.

Beattie earned 38 caps for Scotland - 13 more than father John and 90 fewer than footballer sister Jen.

"That inevitable moment in every sportsperson's career has arrived," he wrote on Instagram.

"After 16 years of rugby life in Scotland and France, the time is right to retire from playing the sport I love professionally. 'Le petit mort' as they say in France."

Beattie began his professional career with Glasgow in 2004, before leaving for France in 2012. Two seasons with Montpellier, and a further two with Castres, followed before he joined Bayonne in 2016.

His first international appearance came in 2006 against Romania and he went on to score three tries for the national team.

"Professional rugby has allowed me to meet and work with some incredible people, from all over the world," Beattie added.

"The inspirational places, people, experiences, tournaments, supporters, anthems and matches were all a privilege to be part of, and I realise I have been very fortunate to live out my dreams practising and playing my sport.

"I look forward to applying cultural lessons learned in leadership, teamwork, respect and enjoyment as I move into new adventures."

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds will perform the flyover for the 62nd annual Daytona 500 on Feb. 16 at Daytona Int’l Speedway.

The flyover will mark the 10th consecutive year, and 11th total, that the Thunderbirds – officially known as the U.S. Air Force Air Demonstration Squadron – will showcase their world-class talent and precise choreography by flying their signature “Delta” formation over the 2.5-mile oval at the end of the national anthem for “The Great American Race.”

“We’re honored to have the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds be a part of the DAYTONA 500 pre-race ceremonies,” Daytona Int’l Speedway President Chip Wile said. “For both the thousands of fans in attendance and the millions more watching on television, the sight of the USAF Thunderbirds soaring over the race track at the end of the National Anthem is one of the most exhilarating and treasured moments of the Daytona 500 experience.”

“We’re excited to open our 2020 demonstration season with NASCAR race fans at the Daytona 500,” added Lt. Col. John Caldwell, Thunderbird commander and lead pilot. “We look forward to showcasing the pride, precision and professionalism the 685,000 total force Airmen of the U.S. Air Force employ every day around the world.”

The Thunderbirds feature six F-16 Fighting Falcons, the Air Force’s premier multi-role fighter aircraft. Assigned to Air Combat Command, the squadron is composed of 12 officers and more than 120 enlisted personnel serving in nearly 30 Air Force job specialties.

They have a rigorous schedule, performing hour-long demonstrations across the United States nearly 35 weekends between March and November.

Since the unit’s inception in 1953, more than 350 million people in all 50 states and more than 60 countries have witnessed the distinctive red, white and blue jets in thousands of official aerial demonstrations.

The flight demonstration team is made up of Lt. Col. John Caldwell, Thunderbird No. 1, Thunderbird commander and lead pilot; Maj. Trevor Aldridge, Thunderbird No. 2, Left Wing pilot; Capt. Michael Brewer, Thunderbird No. 3, Right Wing pilot; Capt. Zane Taylor, Thunderbird No. 4, Slot Pilot; Maj. Michelle Curran, Thunderbird No. 5, Lead Solo; and Capt. Kyle Oliver, Thunderbird No. 6, Opposing Solo.

Three of the members of the team have strong Florida ties. Both Caldwell and Taylor are natives of Orlando and Brewer is a graduate of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, which is next door to Daytona Int’l Speedway.

John Hynes has been named the new head coach of the Nashville Predators, just over a month after being fired by the New Jersey Devils.

The Predators fired head coach Peter Laviolette on Monday after six seasons with the team. Hynes becomes just the third head coach in Nashville's franchise history.

The Predators are 19-15-7 for 45 points, sitting seven points out of third place in the Central Division and four points out of the last wild-card spot in the Western Conference.

Laviolette had coached the Predators since 2014, amassing a record of 248-143-60. Nashville made the playoffs every season he was behind the bench, including a trip to the Stanley Cup Final in 2017, where the Predators lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Hynes was hired by the Devils in 2015 and went 150-159-45 with the team in five seasons, making the playoffs just once. He was formerly the head coach of the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins in the AHL from 2009 to 2015. His general manager there was Ray Shero, who later hired him to become his first head coach in New Jersey.

"John Hynes is bright young coach and great leader who has a track record of both effectively developing young players and successfully motivating veterans," Predators general manager David Poile said in a statement. "We love his coaching résumé and are confident that he has learned from every stop during his career, and has the best skill set to get the maximum potential out of our team."

Shero is one connection between Hynes and the Predators, having served as assistant GM under Poile. Hynes also has a connection with Nashville assistant GM Jeff Kealty, who played with Hynes at Boston University. Hynes has also worked inside the USA Hockey Development Program, and Poile has been an executive with USA Hockey throughout his career.

"This is a tremendous opportunity to join an organization with a history of success, a team with immense talent and a phenomenal fanbase," Hynes said in the statement. "This organization has a strong foundation, from its ownership and executives to the entire front-office staff, and I'm excited to come in and try to maximize this team's abilities."

Hynes takes over a Nashville team that has underwhelmed this season. While they're sixth in offense (3.44 goals per game), the Predators have had an uncharacteristically bad season defensively at 3.27 goals against per game, which is 24th. Last season, they were fourth at 2.58 goals against per game. The Predators have the second-best goals scored percentage (56.28) at 5-on-5 in the NHL. On special teams, they're 24th on the power play (16.8) and 29th on the penalty kill (74.0). The Predators are third from the bottom in team save percentage (.889) this season.

Wake Forest senior Siyun Liu is looking to make history this week.

Liu, who is from Shanghai, is competing in PGA Tour China Q-School as she hopes to become the first female to earn her card on the men’s development tour.

She began her quest Tuesday by shooting an opening 3-over 74 at Foison Golf Club in Guangzhou and sits T-19 on the leaderboard after the first of four rounds.

“Honestly, it’s not as different as I thought,” said Liu, who is playing from the same tees as the men (6,588 yards). “Everyone hits it so much farther than I do, that’s for sure, and I expected that, but I’m just more playing my own game because I know that everyone else if kind of playing a different golf course than I am doing. It helps me relax.”

The top 15 finishers will earn full cards for the 2020 season, which is expected to begin in late March, while the rest of the top 45 and ties will receive conditional status.

Regardless of how Liu finishes, she is planning on returning to Wake Forest for her final semester, according to Demon Deacons head coach Kim Lewellen, who made sure to ask Liu her intentions after a winter in which five of the top women’s players in college golf opted to leave school and turn pro after earning status through the LPGA’s Q-Series.

Liu, who was a key part of Wake’s NCAA runner-up team last season, had five top-13 finishes, including three in the top 6, in as many starts during the fall.

“We were so close to winning the national championship last year, so my goal this year is to definitely try to win the team championship,” Liu said.

Liu was already planning on heading back to China this summer after turning pro following graduation. She had a few women’s pro events circled on her calendar but may need to adjust if she gets her card this week.

“If I do end up getting some status here, then I’ll definitely come back and play,” Liu said. “… If I get to play any event here, I would be so down for it.”

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Professional sports leagues struck out in their quest for a cut of sports betting money by claiming they needed payments to help protect the integrity of games.

They also fumbled an attempt to claim a share of betting proceeds by saying the games are the intellectual property of the leagues, and that they should be compensated when others profit off them.

But with two strikes against them, the leagues may have hit on a way to cash in: selling their official data to gambling companies, making the case that the leagues are creating new products for gamblers to bet on.

Six of the largest U.S. bookmakers already use official league data under terms they negotiated directly with the leagues.

“Last year it was, ‘Here are the leagues with their hands out,’” said Scott Kauffman-Ross, senior vice president of fantasy and gaming for the NBA. “Now we realize there’s a lot we can offer each other. More and more operators are starting to see the value in this.”

While not delighted with the added expense, the companies see the value in using official data, particularly for in-game betting, the fastest-growing segment of sports betting in the U.S. In such instances, determining whether a running back gained 100 yards or 99 yards could be the difference between winning or losing a bet, and having the leagues’ data serve as the last word provides a level playing field for bettors and bookmakers alike.

“We’re collecting a lot of data,” said Chris Golier, vice president of business development for the NHL. “We are the only ones that can extract that kind of data and collect it. We’re putting chips in pucks, chips in shoulder pads. It’s a whole new manufacturing process to have a piece of rubber with a chip in it that can bounce off the wall. It’s going to be 2,000 data points a second. These things will turn into prop bets over time.”

NASCAR has invested heavily in technology it says is creating new betting opportunities — and the company feels it deserves to be paid for it.

“We are creating a market that hasn’t existed,” said Scott Warfield, NASCAR's managing director of gaming. “How can we get our fans to watch an extra 30 to 45 minutes? We can when they’re betting on stage 2, or who’s leading in lap 100. There’s a lot to bet on. It’s taking that data and creating a new product that didn’t exist. I don’t physically know how you would do it without official data: (keeping track of) 36 cars going 200 miles an hour at the same time.”

The NFL has inked a deal with Sportradar to distribute official league data to bookmakers in the U.S. and in other countries.

DraftKings, FanDuel, William Hill, MGM Resorts, Caesars Entertainment and Betstars are among gambling companies that have reached individual deals with leagues to buy their official data. They generally do not reveal how much they pay for the information.

Why is this important? Sports betting has very small profit margins, typically between 5% and 7%. With state taxes, payments to technology partners, marketing and other expenses, even a seemingly small additional cost, such as a quarter of 1% of the amount bet, quickly adds up and affects the bottom line for bookmakers.

That is no small concern in what right now amounts to a gold rush in the year-and-a-half-old sports betting market in the U.S., with dozens of companies scrambling for market share — and the likelihood that not everyone in business today will be in the market in 5 years.

And in a trend already emerging, some bookmakers seeking to defend their profits are offering less favorable odds — and smaller payouts — to gamblers, something likely to accelerate if more bookmakers feel pressure on their bottom line.

Of course, gambling companies are under no obligation to use official league data, and several don't. They can get it from a variety of sources, including aggregated data that they or a third party collect from a league website (a process known as data-scraping.) Or they could collect the data themselves from live events.

“Sports books have been running in Nevada for decades without official data,” said Seth Schorr, chairman of the Downtown Grand Las Vegas casino. “Having an NFL logo next to the data will not mean a thing.”

But those options are much slower than getting a flow of data from the league itself and would be virtually unusable for the quick pace of in-game betting. The NBA's Kauffman-Ross said his league’s games are simply too fast-paced to rely on third-party data.

“We collect our official data courtside as it happens,” he said. “The speed of that data is incredibly important. We have hundreds of lead changes. You can be one to two plays behind if you collect data off a broadcast feed. A player that hits a couple of 3-pointers can meaningfully change the odds.”

Numerous pro teams already are building spaces for fans to bet on mobile devices while they watch the games in person — even in places where sports betting is not yet legal. Those include the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, California, where the NBA's Kings introduced fans to a contest to predict outcomes that would win them points toward merchandise — not quite sports betting, but not very far from what it will eventually look like if and when California legalizes it.

Those spaces, and others including arenas in Newark, New Jersey; Philadelphia and Washington, could use official league data in their offerings to fans.

Bookmakers want the freedom to pay for what they want, and strongly oppose the government-mandated use of official league data in their operations. That is required by at least two states: Illinois and Tennessee.

“A lot of operators have an allergic reaction when you talk about federal legislative oversight of our industry,” said Joe Asher, CEO of William Hill US.

The leagues argue that they are creating new betting products by enhancing the data that they sell to gambling companies. That is part of the reason these companies have been willing to pay for a product instead of simply writing the leagues a check.

The PGA Tour says it is creating new betting opportunities through its complicated (and expensive) ShotLink technology.

“ShotLink gathers data from every shot; there are more than 30,000 shots in a golf tournament,” said Andy Levinson, senior vice president for tournament administration with the PGA Tour. “We’re collecting multiple data points, and they are going to be potential betting points. There’s going to be opportunities over a season to have millions of markets created in golf. You’re talking about distance, ball location, whether it’s on the fairway or in the rough. If a player has a 10-foot uphill putt, there’s going to be historical data on that shot. Our sport is perfect for it.

“That requires 60 people every week; we have to lug 5 miles of cable,” he said. “We have cameras, laser systems around our greens. It’s an extremely expensive process.”

Baseball makes a similar pitch.

“Baseball has always been a statistics-driven sport," said Kenny Gersh, executive vice president of gaming and new business ventures for MLB. “Are the pitches breaking as much in the third inning as they were in the first inning? What’s the spin rate? We spent all this time and money to develop and implement this.”

“Now, we can market betting products off of that data,” Gersh said. “My hope for baseball is that betting evolves, that you can make micro-bets: Is Aaron Judge going to hit a home run off Chris Sale in the seventh inning? What are the odds of that happening? We can market those tools so that sports books can offer a better product. We’re much better together than we will be apart.”

England 269 (Pope 61*) and 391 for 8 (Sibley 133, Root 61, Stokes 72) beat South Africa 223 (Elgar 88, van der Dussen 68, Anderson 5-40) and 248 (Malan 84, de Kock 50) by 189 runs

Ben Stokes took three late wickets to seal a dramatic final-day victory for England at Newlands to level their series against South Africa at 1-1.

Stubborn resistance from Pieter Malan, Quinton de Kock and Rassie van der Dussen had taken South Africa into the tea interval five wickets down, with the pitch offering little for England's attack and the draw looking ever more likely.

But after Joe Denly removed de Kock and a seemingly inspired piece of captaincy from Joe Root accounted for van der Dussen, Stokes burst through the tail in the final hour to complete a 189-run win with only 8.2 overs to spare.

De Kock had put on 66 off 203 balls alongside the valiant van der Dussen to see South Africa through to tea, and with James Anderson absent throughout the session - seemingly with a side injury - England's chances had appeared to have faded.

That was, at least, until Denly, the part-time legspinner, broke the stand with one of his worst deliveries of the match. Having dismissed Dean Elgar the previous evening, Denly had caused de Kock - another left-hander - problems by landing the ball in the rough outside the off stump. Faced instead with a rank long-hop, de Kock looked to free the shackles by pulling off the back foot, but only managed to find Zak Crawley at short midwicket.

It looked like inspired captaincy had brought the seventh wicket. Root, who appeared to have grown increasingly frustrated with his side's inability to take a wicket, moved Anderson from silly mid-on and into the leg gully position where Stokes had caught Steve Smith in the final Ashes Test last year off Stuart Broad's bowling. The following ball, Broad slid a full delivery down the leg side, which van der Dussen tickled round the corner straight to the gleeful Anderson. Root later gave credit for the field placement to Broad, who admitted that he had missed his line, rather than pulling off a masterful plan, but England's fans celebrated all the same.

Dwaine Pretorius joined Vernon Philander with runs an irrelevance, as South Africa moved into the final hour with three wickets intact. Stokes, with relentless energy, continued to bound in and push 90mph, and after three near misses in an over, Pretorius eventually departed. Hitting a hard length in the off-stump channel, forcing the batsman to play, Stokes drew the edge as Pretorius steered to Root at slip.

Anrich Nortje, who had proved such a frustration to England at Centurion, was the new man in, and Stokes could be seen repeating "same ball, same ball" to himself at the top of his mark. His note-to-self worked a treat: not only was it the same ball, but the same result, as Nortje pushed with hard hands at a back-of-a-length delivery and Crawley held a juggling catch at third slip, initially palming it up with his right hand before snaffling the second chance with his left while prone on the turf.

Philander was left to bat out 12.2 overs with only Kagiso Rabada for company, and looked to nullify Dom Bess with a handful of attacking strokes despite men surrounding the bat. Rabada, usually a poor player of spin, kept Bess out, playing with soft hands to dig out anything tossed up on the stumps.

But Stokes made the breakthrough with 50 balls left in the day, firing in a back-of-a-length ball that bounced sharply off the pitch, struck Philander's glove and skewed up to Ollie Pope in the gully. Yet again, England's talisman had risen to the occasion.

England had hoped for an early breakthrough after removing Zubayr Hamza late in the piece on the fourth evening, and Anderson struck in the third over of the day, trapping Keshav Maharaj plumb in front to the extent that the nightwatchman had started to walk before being given out. He had looked in trouble against Anderson from the outset, even having his bat snapped in two in the day's first over by an inswinger that hit the splice.

Anderson could have had another soon after, when his booming inswinger struck Faf du Plessis' pad before the bat, skewing into the leg side and almost causing him to be run out coming back for the second. England had barely appealed after hearing two noises, but UltraEdge confirmed it had hit pad first and would have gone on to smash into leg stump.

Stokes - regularly touching the 90mph/145kph mark - and Dom Bess continued to keep South Africa honest, as Pieter Malan maintained his measured innings by leaving and defending with composure, but du Plessis decided to try and free the shackles soon before the new ball and picked out Denly at square leg.

Perhaps surprisingly, Sam Curran took the second new ball, but Root's gamble was vindicated as he struck to end Malan's resistance. Bowling a tight line across the right-hander from over the wicket, Curran enticed a defensive prod to a back-of-a-length ball which took the edge and flew into the grateful hands of Stokes at second slip for his sixth catch of the match.

That brought van der Dussen and de Kock together, who looked set to seal a draw for South Africa having taken them through to tea with five wickets still remaining. But not for the first time, it was Stokes who would have the final say.

Ben Stokes has said that England's young team should use a memorable victory over South Africa as a stepping stone towards greater things, after he helped seal a 189-run win with three late wickets on a thrilling final day at Newlands.

Stokes, who also scored 119 runs in the match and claimed six wickets at slip in an outstanding personal display, paid particular tribute to Dom Sibley, whose maiden Test century in the second innings laid the platform for his own explosive contribution of 72 from 47 balls.

Stokes even tried to persuade Sibley to join him on the podium after being named Player of the Match.

"I came in in situations where it was do-or-die, really, and I thought Dom put all the hard yards in to get us into a position of winning," Stokes said during the post-match presentations. "He's the Man of the Match. He's the one who should be up here.

"Full credit's got to go to Dom for how he played in his first Test hundred, at the most beautiful ground in the world. And full credit's got to go to everyone who played this week. We've got three members of the group who are 21 years of age, and have had to step up on the biggest stage."

"Sam Curran, Zak Crawley, Ollie Pope and even Dom himself, they are so inexperienced in that batting unit but they've shown how good they are. The future looks great for us, and hopefully this is a stepping stone because we've shown a serious amount of character, and what we're all about."

Joe Root, however, ensured that Stokes could not deflect all the praise, after another display of selfless team-orientated Test cricket helped England to their first victory at Cape Town in 63 years.

As if his runs and catches were not enough, the manner in which Stokes stepped up on the final afternoon, amid doubts about James Anderson's fitness, was exemplary. He effectively ensured the win with two wickets in as many balls to prise out Dwaine Pretorius and Anrich Nortje first ball, then sealed the deal with 8.2 overs remaining as Vernon Philander fenced to gully.

"He makes things happen, he's a golden nugget in our side," Root said. "And it's not happened by accident, he works bloody hard and sets a great example to the young guys around in our team as they come into this side, seeing what Test cricket is like and how different it is to county cricket.

"They are having to learn on their feet, and in situations like that and they're standing up as well, which this week has really pleased me, and made me really proud of a very young set of lads.

"But you can you can throw the ball to Stokes or you can put him in any situation and know he's going to stand up for you," Root added. "He's going to do absolutely everything for the rest of the guys, he plays 100 percent for the team. And he's a brilliant role model for all the other guys coming through.

"He's a brilliant senior player. He stands up and puts in a spell like that, a nine-over spell, he just keep running him free all the time. and as we've seen with the bat, he can he can really change the game from any situation. So he's a world-class player and deserves all the plaudits he can get from the game."

Zimbabwe Cricket announced Sean Williams as the new Test captain, with Chamu Chibhabha to lead in ODIs and T20Is on an "interim" basis. A ZC release said the appointments were recommended by former captain and current director of cricket Hamilton Masakadza, which were then "unanimously endorsed" by the ZC Board at a meeting in Harare on Tuesday.

"The role of captain is an honour and a responsibility which Sean and Chamu thoroughly deserve, both of them being exceptional players and great servants of our game over the years," Masakadza said.

"I am delighted that they have accepted their new roles and I extend my congratulations to them and wish them all the best as they help to take Zimbabwe to the next level."

Williams was Zimbabwe's T20 captain the last time they played, a tri-series involving Nepal and hosts Singapore in October last year. Zimbabwe lost a match to Singapore in the series but effectively won the tri-series by finishing on top, as Williams was named Man of the Match in two of their four matches.

ZC also announced a new selection panel to be led by former international quick bowler David Mutendera, and Gavin Ewing, Shepherd Makunura and Prosper Utseya the other members.

"Congratulations to all the selectors. Their qualifications and experience speak for themselves," Masakadza said. "David is a respected former international who boasts massive playing and coaching experience, while he has also previously served as a national selector.

"Gavin has done exceptional work as a coach and national Under-19 selector since he retired from playing international cricket a few years ago and we are fortunate to draw from his heap of experience. Shepherd is a veteran coach who has earned the reputation of being a serial winner, dominating the domestic competitions with his Mountaineers side in recent seasons, and his appointment to the selection panel is well-deserved.

"Retaining Prosper on the panel will not only guarantee continuity but will also ensure that the game keeps benefitting from his massive knowledge of the game and experience."

Walter Chawaguta, who was the convener of selectors since May 2018, will now be the Rhinos' head coach, to be assisted by Stanley Chioza, who has been replaced as national team analyst by Mufaro Chiturumani.

The ZC release further said the board will announce a fielding coach and a mental strength coach in "due course", and confirmed the other support staff members as follows: Lalchand Rajput (head coach), Dilip Chouhan (manager), Stuart Matsikenyeri (batting coach), Douglas Hondo (bowling coach), Walter Karimanzira (strength and conditioning trainer), Lovemore Banda (logistics manager) and Darlington Majonga (media manager).

More to follow...

This five-day Test cricket thing is pretty good

This match provided an eloquent response to those suggesting that Test cricket should last only four days. Absorbing until deep into the final session of the fifth-day, it attracted large crowds and included fine displays of steadfast and aggressive batting, spells of intimidating fast and skilful seam bowling, intriguing spells of spin and, most of all, the wonderful ebb and flow that makes this game so special. It was, in short, an excellent advert for the game and strong evidence that it doesn't require too much tinkering. Administrators meddle with it at their peril.

Winning overseas is tough

Going into this match, England had not won an away Test in a live series (one that was not already decided) against any team other than Sri Lanka or Bangladesh since they were last in South Africa four years ago. And while they may have fancied their chances when declaring shortly after lunch on day four, South Africa kept them in the field for 137.4 overs before victory was finally achieved. By then, there were only 50 deliveries left in the match.

England bowled well throughout South Africa's second innings but, on a surface that had slowed considerably, they lacked the weapons - in particular, perhaps, an attacking spinner - which might have coaxed anything out of the pitch or the Kookaburra ball. As a result, they had to toil relentlessly hard to work their way through the South Africa batting. It was England's first Test victory in Cape Town since 1957.

There's only one Jimmy Anderson

Anderson gave everything he had in this game. Even after it became clear, just before tea on the final day, that he was struggling with a side strain, he was the man his captain called upon to bowl after tea. With pain etched on his face between deliveries, he only managed two overs and may well have worsened the injury. But it was typical of him to try and telling that, even aged 37, he was the first choice in such circumstances.

It seems odd to report now but, ahead of this game, there were suggestions that Anderson might be left out. As it transpired, however, Jofra Archer was ruled out through injury and England were not forced into any such decision. But he responded with an immaculate performance. Despite rarely gaining much swing - his outswinger simply refused to move in the second innings - he maintained pressure in every spell and, in the first innings, became the oldest England seamer to take a Test five-for since Freddie Brown in 1951. It is true that several of those wickets included lower-order batsmen but England have been frustrated by such batsmen often in recent times and, on a surface that negated bowlers as skilled Kagiso Rabada and Vernon Philander, Anderson finished with outstanding match figures of seven wickets for 63 runs from 37 overs. England now face an anxious wait to learn the severity of the problem. And, perhaps, whether Anderson can stand the thought of another stint of rehab.

Stats don't tell the whole story

A regular refrain from some on social media is: 'Ben Stokes isn't that good; his stats are ordinary.' Whether that point about his stats is true - a batting average of 36 and bowling average of 33 are really quite impressive - the fact is you cannot judge Stokes purely in those terms. In this game, he provided a record five catches in the first innings, an outstanding innings which helped England accelerate towards a declaration in their second innings - a more selfish player might have not have been prepared to risk his own wicket in such fashion - and a display of pace bowling that underlined, once more, his strength and fitness.

While the wickets didn't come until late, he troubled all the batsmen with his pace and hostility and perhaps created wickets at the other end with the pressure he built. It was fitting that it was Stokes, when England had tried all other options, who tore in for one final spell and claimed the final three wickets. He was, quite rightly, Player of the Match.

The Vicar takes residence

The manner in which Dom Sibley (the vicar of Sibely, geddit?) batted throughout the second innings suggested England had found an opening partner for Rory Burns. In resisting for nearly 500 minutes, he saw the shine of the ball, wore down the bowlers and eased the role of his middle-order colleagues. This is exactly the requirement an England side rather heavier on aggressors than defenders have had for several years.

Bess can perform a holding role

Dom Bess out-bowled South Africa's Keshav Maharaj in this Test. The 22-year-old Bess, called into the squad as injury cover and without a match since September, performed admirably in conceding just 2.29 runs per over (from 27 overs) in South Africa's first innings and thereby allowing England's seamers to remain fresh and operate in rotation at the other end. While, in a perfect world, he might have proved more potent in the fourth innings, we probably have to be realistic. This was his third Test and only his 39th first-class game. England couldn't reasonably have asked for more from him. Fitness permitting, he looks certain to be included in the squad to play in Sri Lanka in March.

The Barmy Army are an asset to cricket - and England, in particular

The sad truth is that, in some nations and at some grounds, this wonderful final day may have been witnessed by a handful of spectators. Here, however, the spectacle was witnessed by several thousand thoroughly engaged supporters. Not all were supporting England, of course, but many were and the noise they made and the atmosphere they generated contributed to a wonderfully memorable day. On a more practical level, the fact that England have attracted so many supporters to follow them - some estimates suggest there are 10,000 England supporters in Cape Town - with the economic benefits it brings to the cities they visit helps keep the longest format viable. They probably deserve a bit more respect than they are sometimes given.

Babar Azam, the Pakistan batsman, has signed a deal that will see him return to Somerset as the club's overseas player for five weeks next summer.

Babar, who scored 578 runs at an average of 52.54 to finish as the leading run-scorer in the Vitality Blast last summer, will be available for 12 T20 group-stage games and County Championship fixtures against Gloucestershire and Kent.

He will replace Matthew Wade as the club's main overseas player, and will depart in time for Pakistan's tour of the Netherlands, which is followed by two T20Is in Ireland, and three Tests and three T20Is against England.

Babar is likely to resume his partnership with Tom Banton at the top of the Somerset order, which saw the pair finish as the competition's top-two run-scorers last summer, with interest in them so high that the county was forced to upgrade its website as the traffic from Pakistan had caused it to crash.

"I really enjoyed my time at Somerset, and I look forward to coming back next year," said Babar. "Somerset has a very good squad and the supporters made me feel very welcome. Hopefully I can help the Club reach the knock-out stages of the Vitality Blast and contribute to winning matches in the County Championship."

Andy Hurry, the club's director of cricket, said: "Babar Azam is the best IT20 batsman in the world and his return will be a major boost for us. He played a significant role for us in the Vitality Blast last year and his stats speak for themselves.

"He made a number of match-winning contributions and he fitted seamlessly into the dressing room. You can't ask more from your overseas players than that. His batting is so easy on the eye and he is so hungry to evolve his game. He will add significant value to the team, both with his batting and leadership."

"He was extremely popular with our members and supporters but also with our playing squad. He is a truly world-class talent and we look forward to working with him again in 2020 in both the Vitality Blast and the County Championship."