Ken Borland

Quinton de Kock was ready to blow England away with a gale-force batting display when rain forced the abandonment of the third and decisive ODI at Headingley on Sunday, leaving the Proteas to share the series 1-1.

De Kock had produced an innings of enormous quality in reaching 92 not out off just 76 balls to steer South Africa to 159 for two in 27.4 overs when a second rain interruption proved terminal for a match that was intriguingly poised.

After a scratchy start, De Kock played some top-class strokes as he raced to a 39-ball half-century, showing a fine degree of judgement when he was not at his most fluent. Ever a threat through the off-side, the left-hander played a couple of sumptuous cover-drives, but also showed a superb touch behind the wicket, highlighted by a phenomenal boundary off Sam Curran, lifting a bouncer over the wicketkeeper.

The Proteas had surprisingly, given the weather forecast, elected to bat first and England’s opening bowlers, the new-ball pair of left-armers David Willey and Reece Topley, blunted South Africa’s desire for an aggressive start with some quality bowling.

Janneman Malan (11) fell in the sixth over, trying to drive Willey on the up but skewing a catch to backward point.

Rassie van der Dussen then came in and 75 was added for the second wicket as De Kock got into his stride. Van der Dussen had made 26 off 38 balls when he slog-swept leg-spinner Adil Rashid into the hands of deep square-leg, leaving the Proteas on 99 for two in the 17^th over.

Aiden Markram was getting himself in when the first rain interruption came with South Africa on 119 for two in the 21^st over.

The teams were stuck in the changerooms for 110 minutes and De Kock and Markram (24* off 34*) then added 40 more runs in the 41 balls they faced before the rain returned and washed out the match.

The three-match T20 series starts on Wednesday in Bristol.

The Proteas’ resident ginger, Heinrich Klaasen, deeply annoyed the English team, especially his fellow red-haired opponents, with his gamesmanship in the second ODI at Old Trafford on Friday night, but the 30-year-old batsman afterwards brushed off the incident as “fun and games on the field”.

South Africa had plummeted to 39 for five after 10 of their 29 overs when Klaasen stopped play to complain about his vision of the ball being disturbed by white sheeting at the bottom of the black sightscreen. Initially the umpires battled to understand what he was complaining about, with England getting more and more frantic for play to resume as the drizzle that was falling was only getting heavier.

By this stage, the Proteas were already badly behind in the contest, needing 164 runs in 19 overs with the last recognised pair of batsmen together at the crease. Their best hope seemed to be for the match to be rained off before they had faced 20 overs, in which case there would be no result.

It took a few minutes for the penny to drop that the ground staff had shifted the boundary boards aside in order to allow them to bring the covers on quickly if necessary, thereby exposing the white sheeting which Klaasen alleged made the white ball difficult to see.

The wicketkeeper/batsman afterwards admitted that he actually had no problems sighting the ball but he was just trying to delay play. England were boiling over with frustration and Klaasen sparked something of a Ginger War as Jonny Bairstow fumed at the batsman and the umpires, and captain Jos Buttler, who has a hint of reddish-brown hair himself, stomped around.

“It was zero percent about the ball disappearing,” Klaasen admitted. “It was starting to rain harder and I was just trying to delay matters. I hoped the umpires would take us off the field before the 20 overs, but unfortunately they didn’t.

“It was just some old-school tricks. The England boys didn’t like it and I knew the abuse would come. I was just trying to upset their game a bit, I thought it couldn’t do us any harm.

“It frustrated a lot of them, but we didn’t come off in the end. What they said to me didn’t bother me at all, it was just fun and games on the field, and off the field hopefully we can still have a beer after the next game. It’s easy for me to keep that sort of thing on the field,” Klaasen said.

England had the last laugh though as South Africa were skittled for a dismal 83 all out and left to mourn a massive 118-run defeat, with paceman David Willey saying “I’m thinking Mother Cricket came around”.

One of the triumphs of this current Proteas team has been the way they have been able to bounce back from disastrous performances relatively quickly and they will need to do that again on Sunday as they play the English side that tore their batting apart to level the series in Manchester, in the decisive third ODI at Headingley.

South Africa, having impressed with the ball to bowl England out for 201 inside their 29 overs at Old Trafford, were bundled out for just 83 in reply. Having made their highest ever score [333/5] in England in the first ODI, the Proteas then slumped to their joint-worst total against the hosts. Their 83 all out in Nottingham in 2008 and Manchester on Friday night are their second-lowest totals in all ODIs, behind their 69 against Australia in Sydney in 1993.

But South Africa’s two highest run-scorers, Heinrich Klaasen (33) and Dwaine Pretorius (17), were both exuding positive vibes after wasting a good chance to win the series.

“We don’t need to change anything, our blueprints are good and we bowled extremely well. With the bat, if our risks come off on Sunday then it will be a different ball-game,” Klaasen said.

“We are playing good cricket, they just bowled extremely well up front, put us on the back foot and we never recovered. We still believe in our plan.”

Pretorius, who led an outstanding bowling display with career-best figures of four for 36, echoed Klaasen’s view.

“All our options to take a risk with the bat just did not come off, but I’m sure we’ll bounce back. It was our first innings here under lights and that definitely had an impact.

“The next game is a day game and it will be interesting to see if that swing England found is still there. The batting unit has really been on fire and it was just one of those days.

“They mustn’t let it go to their heads, they must stay confident. England put the performance in in this match, and we did in the previous game. So it’s going to be a great game on Sunday.

“What happened is not a massive issue, teams are allowed to play well against you and England did, they outskilled us. But the rub of the green did not go our way and cricket does not always work out perfectly,” Pretorius said.

Alarmingly, both Pretorius and Klaasen said the Proteas had practised hard at the swinging ball, which was their undoing as they crashed to 6 for four, their worst ever start in an ODI, in terms of their total when the fourth wicket fell.

“We have been preparing exactly for that swing, we’ve done a lot of work against the swinging ball,” Pretorius said.

“We trained hard for the left-armers and the ball coming in,” Klaasen assured. “But credit to them, they bowled extremely well, kept their lengths and swung the ball nicely.”

The third ODI starts at 12pm SA time.

Duanne Olivier was a member of the South African Test squad on their previous tour of England in 2017, but he had just one Test under his belt then and is obviously a very different bowler to the rookie who played in two of the matches as the Proteas were beaten 3-1.

Having enjoyed match figures of five for 57 on debut against Sri Lanka at the Wanderers in January of that year, Olivier arrived in England in the role of enforcer, pace and bounce being his key weapons. He played in the second Test, when South Africa levelled the series with an imposing 340-run win at Trrent Bridge, and then in the last Test at Old Trafford, which the hosts won by 177 runs.

Olivier took seven wickets in the series at an average of 27.57.

“The way I played in 2017 will be completely different to now,” Olivier told Saturday Citizen. “England play swing quite well and you need to get the ball to nibble around over there.

“That’s what I worked on in my three years of county cricket. But there are times when you can’t do that because the pitches and conditions play a massive role in England.

“It’s important not to complicate things, it depends on the situation whether you can be more aggressive or must be defensive. Maybe my job is to get the run-rate down.

“The important thing is to bowl in partnerships, put pressure on the batsmen. But you have to graft to get wickets. You get pitches where you have to just sit in and build pressure,” Olivier said.

The previous incarnation of the Groblersdal-born paceman seldom drew the batsman forward, he preferred to bombard them, pushing them back and only using the fuller ball if he hadn’t yet found a glove or an edge behind. Olivier, who turned 30 in May, knows he has to have a more rounded strategy in England.

“At times you can be aggressive with short-pitched bowling, but you aim to be fuller, especially early on with the newer ball,” Olivier said. “I don’t mind the batsmen coming at me, I will just try and hit my length and stay there.

“You have to stay within your game-plan and some days it goes for you, some days it doesn’t. We have to be patient, England play a risky game and if they lose two or three wickets early on then everything changes.

“Things happen quickly in Test cricket, and when you have that momentum, it’s about riding the wave, being ruthless when you’re on top. As bowlers, we also want to throw the first punch.

“We believe in our game-plan and we will stick to that, what we believe in, the simple things. Small things can make a big difference in the end and we know we have a world-class bowling unit,” Olivier said.