England win exciting series, but work ahead before World Cup!
The first T20 was held in East London at Buffalo Park
Last December I went there for a recce and at the time it was difficult to imagine how it would look as the ground seems disjointed, but on the night it looked a lot better! A very good Crowd witnessed one of England’s famous collapses together with poor fielding, catching and bowling far too many wides. In the final over England needed just 5 from 5 balls, when just knocking it around for singles would have been the order of the day, but England once again tried to win with one ball, and ended up losing by 1 run.
The 2nd T20 at Kingsmead Durban, saw England rack up the runs with Ali scoring a rapid 39 from 11 balls which put England firmly in the driving seat. However De Kock & Bavruma had other ideas, but for once our catching was spot on and only a few extras, England scraping home by 2 runs.
The third and final T20 was at the lovely Centurion. A beautiful Day a packed crowd was in to witness another nail biter! De Kock winning the toss elected to bat, racked up the runs with a mixture of good shots and poor bowling saw them post 222. A South African asked me do you think you can chase that down? Yes I replied, our bowling might not be the best at present, but one thing we can do is bat! He laughed!!
After losing Roy for just 7, I started to doubt my own comments. However. with butler showing what he hasn’t been showing of late scoring 57 of 29 balls, Bairstow 64 of 34 balls, a brilliant innings by Capt Morgan 57 of 22 balls and a cameo 22 by Stokes saw us home with 5 balls remaining!
Well if that doesn’t wet your appetite for the T20 World Cup nothing will, a great series, every game going to the wire!
That’s the tour now all done and dusted. I would like to thank you all for coming with us, it’s been a pleasure meeting new and catching up with old friends, I look forward to seeing many of you in Sri Lanka, or at the Lashing events or other matches in the summer!
