De Klerk Shines as Proteas Take Control Against England in ODI Series Opener

South Africa recovered from their poor showing in the T20 series as they beat England by six wickets, and they lead the three-match series 1-0 with the second match set to take place at the Kingsmead Cricket Ground in Durban on Sunday.

A chance to rewrite history

The Proteas have placed themselves in a good position to win their first series against former world champions, while England, on the other hand, will need to shake off their disappointing loss quickly as they cannot afford another slip-up for the rest of the series.

South Africa won the toss and chose to bowl first, and they pretty much tightened the grip and dictated proceedings from there on, with the returning Marizanne Kapp doing most of the damage upfront with the new ball.

Kapp dismissed three of England's top four batters, including in-form Nat Sciver-Brunt for a duck.

England recovered from being 106/7 to post a competitive 186 all out at the back of useful contributions from captain Heather Knight (40) and Charlie Dean (47) down the order, but they would still be required to bowl well if they were to make a match off it, and it wasn't to be.

All-rounder Nadine de Klerk played a key role in South Africa's victory, and she told Sportsboom.com afterwards that despite their convincing victory, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to be more clinical with the ball.

“It would be a great opportunity for us to seal the series in the next game, and I think if we looked at the game today and the fact that we had them five down within the first twenty overs and them getting to 180 plus, it was probably a bit disappointing," she told SportsBoom.com. 

“I think we let ourselves down, and they had a few partnerships with their tailenders, so I think going into the next game you don't want to give such good teams a sniff, and you want to kill the game as soon as possible, and we probably didn't do it today.”

A good day out with the bat

Laura Wolvaardt led the way with the bat, and her hard-fought knock of 59 off 114 balls anchored the innings for South Africa and ensured they didn’t lose too many wickets upfront.

But it was De Klerk’s cameo of 48 off 28 balls that eased all the nerves and fast-tracked South Africa to their target with 70 balls to spare. 

The 24-year-old allrounder added that the work done by the top four batters made it easy for the lower order to come in and have the freedom to close off the match on a wicket that was not the easiest to bat on.

“It was a bit hard to be honest; the toss went in our favor, and having a bowl first, it looked quite hard when England was batting, and I thought we bowled pretty well because it looked really tough for our batters.”

“The top four really won us the game by setting that good platform for the rest of us to follow. It looked a bit tough, and I thought their spinners bowled really well.”

“I didn't think it was easy to score; it probably got better under lights later on, so I just kind of got the cream on top of the cake towards that backend after they did that hard work with the first 20-30 odd overs.”

“We were clinical with the bat, and chasing that score on a tricky wicket in just 38.2 overs was a serious performance from this team, and hopefully we take a lot of confidence from this into the next game.”