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14-Feb-2016 15:45:00 GMT
South Africa v England, 5th ODI, Cape Town

AB de Villiers Gives South Africa ODI Series Win Over England

Cape Town: Century from AB de Villiers and Tahir, Rabada, Wiese picked up three wicket each as South AFrica beat England by five wickets and clinch series by 3-2.

A century from AB de Villiers gave South Africa a 3-2 one-day series win over England with a five-wicket victory in the decider in Cape Town.

Chasing 237, the Proteas were reduced to 22-3 by Reece Topley before De Villiers shared 125 with Hashim Amla.

De Villiers' 24th ODI ton, from 94 balls, got his side home in 44 overs.

Earlier, Alex Hales struck a composed 112, but he was let down by a string of poor shots from his team-mates as England were bowled out for 236.

Their third successive defeat is also a third straight loss in which one of their batsmen has made a century as England's new ultra-aggressive approach to one-day cricket ultimately proved their undoing.

South Africa's comeback from 2-0 down is only the third time that a five-match ODI series has been won from two behind.

England's change of style since their awful World Cup helped them to series wins against New Zealand and Pakistan, as well as a narrow defeat by world champions Australia, but here they were too cavalier.

Indeed, no team has ever chased more than a modest 257 to win an ODI at Cape Town and the tourists, after being asked to bat first, were perhaps guilty of setting their sights too high on a pitch that showed regular signs of uneven bounce.

Their recklessness was typified by captain Eoin Morgan, who charged the first delivery he faced from David Wiese, reached for the wide ball and edged behind for only two.

By then, Jason Roy and Joe Root had been trapped leg before by Imran Tahir and, afterwards, Ben Stokes walked too far across his stumps to be bowled behind his legs by Kagiso Rabada, who then had a leaden-footed Jos Buttler play on.

Moeen Ali, Chris Woakes and Adil Rashid all holed out, frustratingly unable to support Hales, as England lost their last seven wickets for 81 runs and were bowled out with five overs to spare.

After a difficult maiden Test series, Hales showed the sort of temperament needed to succeed in the longer format, standing tall as the entire England batting line-up fell around him.

Wrongly given out caught behind for 20, the Nottinghamshire man successfully reviewed the decision and favoured the area behind square on the off side.

Also accumulating off his pads, Hales became only the fifth England batsman to register five successive ODI half-centuries.

With number 10 Stuart Broad for company, he got through a nervous and lengthy time in the nineties to complete his second century by driving Chris Morris down the ground for four.

By the time he pulled Rabada into the hands of deep square leg, he had taken his tally on the tour to 383 runs, the most ever by an England batsman in a five-match ODI series.

Brief scores
England -
236 (Hales 112, Rabada 3-34, Wiese 3-50, Tahir 3-59)
South Africa - 237 for 5 (de Villiers 101*, Amla 59, Topley 3-41)
Result - South Africa won by 5 wickets
MOM - AB de Villiers (South Africa)
Player of the series - Alex Hales (England)


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