Curran delivers under pressure to level series
England hold nerve in another final-ball thriller Moeen and De Kock put on epic six-hitting show
England held their nerve to level the Twenty20 series on a pulsating evening of six hitting at Kingsmead that made sitting in the stands a dangerous way to spend a Valentine’s night in Durban.
A high-scoring, thrilling match went down to the final ball with South Africa needing three to win and a capacity crowd on its feet.
Tom Curran stayed calm to bowl a back-of-the-hand slower ball that
Bjorn Fortuin attempted to ramp over short fine leg but instead he looped a catch to Adil Rashid. Curran double fist-pumped, the crowd fell silent and the series now shifts to Centurion for a Sunday afternoon series decider in Pretoria.
South Africa won the first game by one run, England this one by two. Sunday should be a cracker.
“With two balls to go it was their game to lose,” said Eoin Morgan, the England captain. “They were in an unbelievably commanding position. The ball that had been reverse swinging had been hit out of the ground and we were back with a normal ball. It was tough work. But I thought Tom Curran did an unbelievable job to get the wicket and full credit to our bowlers who responded really well.”
A total of 28 sixes were smashed into the crowd by both teams with two talented left-handers leading the charge. Moeen Ali hit 39 off only 11 balls, including four sixes and three fours, to win the man of the match award.
He gave the England innings liftoff and propelled them to the second highest total at Kingsmead.
But Quinton de Kock bettered him for big blows, smacking 65 off 22 balls with a phenomenal eight sixes to give the South Africa run chase an injection of rocket power.
Chris Jordan was England’s best bowler with two for 31, including a pivotal 17th over that cost just five runs and piled the pressure on South Africa. In his next over he removed two batsmen with successive fast yorkers to edge England close to victory. It took Dwaine Pretorius’s defiant hitting to revive their hopes.
England’s tactic of opening with
Jos Buttler is not working after he was caught behind driving hard at a quick, length ball from Lungi Ngidi in the third over. The management will now have to consider if his potency as a finisher is more important, especially when Jason Roy and Jonny Bairstow are a brilliant opening combination.
They put on 50 in 22 balls, but started the trend of batsmen getting in and not staying the distance. Roy hit 40 from 29 balls and Bairstow was bowled for 35 off 27. When Morgan cuffed a slower ball to long off for 27 it felt like England were imploding at 125 for four.
But Moeen only needed 11 balls to change the course of the innings and, as it turned out, the match. He launched his second ball for six, oozing elegant menace as he clattered 39 off the first 10 balls he faced. No other England batsman
‘Tom has been bowling well and has just come from the Big Bash – he has a big heart’
has scored that many off his first 10 deliveries. The 11th ended in the hands of long off but by then the damage was done. Moeen and Ben Stokes had put on 51 in 18 balls of carnage.
Stokes has poor international Twenty20 figures, for him, and took 10 balls to hit a boundary but an incredible hit off Pretorius fired the pistons. He swivelled 180 degrees to hit high into the second tier of the stand at midwicket, the outstanding shot in his highest T20 score for England.
De Kock paid Moeen’s off spin plenty of respect for two overs but then launched a vicious counterattack. Morgan gave Moeen one over too many in the powerplay and De Kock made him pay, smacking three sixes, two over midwicket.
He belted Mark Wood’s first ball, a full toss, over midwicket for six.
When he tried the same off another full toss, he did not quite get his timing right and Stokes took a good catch on the rope.
At 92 for one from eight overs, South Africa looked in control but they ran out of hitters. David Miller clipped a wide full toss to long off and, as the dot balls mounted, England fought their way back.
Rassie van der Dussen dragged South Africa back from the brink and when the final over started not all hope had been lost with 15 needed to win. England should have been home and dry, but Pretorius smashed Curran’s second ball for six and cracked the fourth for four through extra cover. It felt like the winning moment.
But Curran then produced a brilliant yorker that tailed in and hit Pretorius on the boot. He was given lbw, a decision upheld after a lengthy review amid crowing from England who believed Pretorius only appealed the decision under influence from the South Africa bench, which is not allowed.
It left Fortuin to come in and face the final ball. The crowd’s hypnotic chanting of Shosholoza – a song sung in the Zulu and Ndebele languages – cut through the night air with the game on a knife edge.
Curran shut out the noise and fell back on his favourite slower ball and the game was over.