Amla special guides SA to victory

Cricket Final one-dayer: De Villiers comes to party as Proteas level series

Hashim Amla piled on the runs once again as he led South Africa to a series-levelling seven-wicket win in the fifth and final one-day international against England at Trent Bridge.

South Africa, chasing a modest 183 for victory, collapsed to 14 for three inside five overs in this day/night fixture.

But opener Amla responded with a superb 97 not out and, together with Proteas captain AB de Villiers (75 not out) he shared an unbroken fourth-wicket partnership of 172 that put England’s meagre total of 182 in its proper context.

Victory, with more than 15 overs to spare, saw South Africa share the series at 2-2.
Amla, who made a brilliant 150 in South Africa’s 80-run win in the second ODI in Southampton, was named man of the series for a total of 335 runs in four innings at an average of more than 111.

That followed on from his corresponding award in the Proteas’ 2-0 Test series win over England where he scored a South Africa record 311 not out at The Oval. Amla’s combined tally for both series was a colossal 817 runs at 116.71.

“It’s been a good summer for me and I’m glad we got to level the series,” said Amla. “I think the way we bowled set the tone, then me and AB were able to finish it off.” De Villiers added: “We’ve been a little bit inconsistent, but there’s a lot of positives, especially the way we played today. We showed a lot of guts — 2-2 away from home is a good effort.”

One consolation for England was that, despite this defeat, they remained top of the 50-over world rankings having won 12 of their last 14 completed matches.

“It’s been a disappointing day — 180 on that wicket was nowhere near enough,” said England captain Alastair Cook, who top-scored for his side with 51.
He added: “It’s frustrating, we came into this game trying to wrap up the series but you can’t do that if we bat like we did.

“However, we’ve had a really good year in one-day cricket and hopefully we can take that forward to India in the new year.”

Score board

England

Cook c & b du Plessis    51
Bell lbw Peterson    10
Bopara c de Villiers b Steyn    0
Bairstow c Ontong b Morkel    29
Morgan c Amla b Duminy    0
Kieswetter c Amla b Morkel    33
Patel c de Villiers b Steyn    9
Woakes (not out)    33
Tredwell b Peterson    6
Anderson c Morkel b Peterson    0
Dernbach c de Villiers b Parnell    2
Extras (LB-3, W-3, NB-3)    9
Total (all out, 45.2 overs)    182
Fall of wickets: 1-23, 2-24, 3-79, 4-82, 5-99, 6-124, 7-156, 8-175, 9-175.
Bowling: Steyn 9-2-24-2, Peterson 10-0-37-3, Morkel 8-0-41-2, Parnell 8.2-0-38-1, Elgar 4-0-20-0, Duminy 4-0-11-1, du Plessis 2-0-8-1.

South Africa

Amla (not out)    97
Smith c Tredwell b Dernbach    1
Du Plessis c Kieswetter b Anderson    3
Elgar c Kieswetter b Anderson    1
De Villiers (not out)    75
Extras (LB-1, W-8)    9
Total (for 3 wkts, 34.3 overs)    186
Fall of wickets: 1-8, 2-11, 3-14.
Bowling: Anderson 9-2-41-2, Dernbach 7.3-0-56-1, Woakes 6-0-35-0, Tredwell 6-0-30-0, Patel 2-0-11-0, Bopara 4-0-12-0.