CRICKET / Final Test: Herschelle Gibbs exposed England's failure to learn from their mistakes and powered South Africa into a commanding position in the final Test with a flurry of boundaries at The AMP Oval.

Condemned to the field by Graeme Smith winning another crucial toss, England served up a regular diet of wayward deliveries to allow the tourists to hit two sixes and 58 other boundaries during an action-packed opening day which enabled South Africa to reach a commanding 362 for four after a late clatter of wickets.

The architect of yesterday's boundary spree was Gibbs, who entered the Test with something of a point to prove after scoring only 49 runs in his four previous innings during the series on the inconsistent surfaces at Trent Bridge and Headingley.

Given a true wicket, a traditional batsman-friendly Oval pitch, Gibbs excelled and dominated England's under-par attack virtually from the first ball of the day and forced James Anderson out of the attack after only three overs with the new ball.

While his judgment of a bad ball was almost impeccable - as the six and 28 other boundaries during his brilliant 183 would suggest - his selection of a quick single was less certain.

He gave the sell-out Oval crowd a preview of his risky decision-making by almost running himself out on 21 when he pushed Steve Harmison onto the on-side and would have been out of his ground had Ed Smith's throw from mid-on hit the stumps.

Having failed that time, he succeeded five overs later when he pushed Ashley Giles towards cover and set off for a quick single but Vaughan ran in and threw under-hand to wicketkeeper Alec Stewart to engineer the run-out of captain Smith.

His contribution to that dismissal put the onus on Gibbs to deliver for his team and he more than made amends with a brilliant display which continued for another 64 overs of harsh punishment on England's attack.

Joined by the less flamboyant but prolific Gary Kirsten, whose two innings at Headingley swung the match decisively in South African's favour, the tourists scored runs almost at will for the next four hours which bordered on mayhem at times.

By tea South Africa had accumulated 38 fours and a six while Vaughan had used six different bowlers, including himself, in an attempt to both halt the run flow and make the breakthrough.

Like many England captains before him Vaughan is discovering the difficulty in bowling sides out on good wickets with the bowlers at his disposal. But he had a right to become angry at the manner in which all his bowlers continually bowled loose deliveries and enabled South Africa to register 244 runs just in boundaries - a massive 67 per cent of all the day's runs.

Gibbs showed a complete mastery of England's ill-disciplined attack and looked certain to claim a double century only for his adventurous style to halt his efforts when he was bowled by Giles attempting another pull.

Neil McKenzie then fell to the seventh over of the new ball and the penultimate ball of the day when he edged Anderson behind to at least give England some belated encouragement from an otherwise demoralising day.