De Villiers century completes South Africa’s series comeback
ENGLAND’S coach and captain are convinced it was a lack of experience that cost them in the series defeat against South Africa.
Eoin Morgan’s team led 2-0 six days ago, yet ended up losing 3-2 after a fivewicket defeat in the deciding one-day international at Newlands.
AB de Villiers’ unbeaten 101, his 24th ODI hundred in his 200th match, cancelled out Alex Hales’ 112 as England lost a third successive match.
There was minimal support for Hales as the tourists were bowled out for 236 in 45 overs.
Then, even after Reece Topley had taken three early wickets, De Villiers and Hashim Amla (59) eased South Africa into position to prevail with six overs to spare.
Coach Trevor Bayliss conceded England had not come up with their best cricket when it was needed.
He said: “We’ve certainly got some work to do there, and that will come with experience.
“At some point, that experience has got to pay dividends. I hope playing against someone like De Villiers and the way he went about the innings today is something we can learn from.”
This is just the third time any team has hit back from 2-0 down to win a fivematch series, and Bayliss believes his young team will become more consistent with maturity.
“I think to win series, we’ve got to take a leaf out of De Villiers’ book, the way he paced his innings,” he said.
“The best batter in the series did his job today, and showed everyone how to do it.”
Morgan told a similar tale as he came to terms with defeat, less than a week after England had been talking about inflicting a 5-0 whitewash on the hosts.
“I don’t think we did enough - we were outplayed today,” said the captain.
“We did have chances in previous games to wrap up the series, but we weren’t good enough.
“The opportunities would have been executed if we had more experience in the side, but we’re growing and learning.
“We started with the ball exceptionally well, but it just wasn’t enough.”
De Villiers was proud of South Africa’s resilience, but had praise for England too.
He said of the opposition: “They’re a fantastic one-day team.
“To come back from rock-bottom, in the 2015 World Cup, to where they are now ... the talent was always there, but mentally they had to go through a few obstacles.
“They will be a team to deal with over the next few years. In the 2017 Champions Trophy, 2019 World Cup, they’ll be around.”
Asked what ultimately decided the outcome in a hard-fought series, he added: “I think the difference was probably hunger.
“We were just maybe a bit more hungry than England - to come back from 2-0 down is something special.
“We had something nice going at SuperSport Park (in the fourth ODI), and that’s where things turned around.”
Bayliss identified England’s fielding as their most obvious weakness.
Adil Rashid dropped a crucial catch in the penultimate match, and the coach said: “They are quite simply a better fielding team than us at the moment and we’ve got to keep working at that.
“I just feel at times that some of us don’t necessarily want the ball to come anywhere near us.
“That’s something we’re working on, and will continue to work on.”