Rohan Chandran reports on the game from Bangabandhu Stadium, Dhaka:
After winning the toss and electing to bat, England got off to a cautious start in front of a thirty thousand strong crowd. However, once Surrey's Alistair Brown departed to a straightforward catch by Jacques Kallis at point, Mark Ealham took centre stage.
Against an opening attack of debutant Alan Dawson, and veteran off spinner Patrick Symcox, Ealham launched a blistering assault. He was particularly severe on the hapless Symcox, striking him through the covers, over long on, and behind square leg for successive boundaries in one over, the bowler's last.
England reached their fifty in the 9th over, following which Pat Symcox was pulled from the attack, to be replaced by the medium pace of Jacques Kallis. The former Middlesex all rounder put an immediate brake on proceedings, conceding just one run in his first over, the tenth, as England moved on to 56 for the loss of Brown, with Ealham on 30, and Nick Knight, who averages nearly 50 in one day cricket, on 13.
Earlier in the innings, there was some confusion in the scorers box, where CricInfo's reporters are located, when the stadium lost power for a brief period. Not only were the umpires unable to see the scorers electronic signals to them, but the scoreboard operators, and official scorers all found themselves with conflicting versions of the score. Happily, all errors were resolved, and, apart from Nick Knight perhaps wondering why he lost half a dozen runs in mid over, no damage was done.
A worried Cronje brought in Kallis and himself and the result was no better. Kallis was bowling too slowly while Cronje simply couldn't control the run flow. But, thankfully for South Africa, Ealham skied a leading edge off a slower ball to the effervescent Jonty Rhodes at point who with his ever- present smile accepted the catch. Ealham had set the stage for a good total but it was to be squandered by the Englishmen.
Graeme Hick was into the crease and soon out of it, not making more than 2 runs, leg before the wicket to Kallis. Knight soon followed, edging to wicketkeeper Mark Boucher, while Graham, the son of England's coach David Lloyd was out leg before the wicket to Nicky Boje's arm ball, without even troubling the scorers. England then were 95/5.
Adam Hollioake, the captain of this England outfit in Dhaka. Has gone from hero to villain in the space of 3 one-day series. He joined Neil Fairbrother, dubbed as a one-day specialist by the English media. The two started off tentatively but slowly started accumulating the runs. This partnership eventually became a match saving partnership for England. Though the run rate fell from more than 6 an over to under 4.5, wickets did not fall in a heap.
From this platform, the two started to increase the run rate. The left-handed Fairbrother and the right handed Hollioake both crossed their fifties, when Hansie Cronje introduced Mike Rindel to bowl, who promptly had Fairbrother bowled. Russell joined Hollioake and in trying to step up the run rate, got caught by Dale Benkenstein in the deep midwicket area of Dawson after a useful little innings. Leading the English tail, Ashley Giles joined Hollioake as the runs continued to accumulate in singles.
A huge 6 from Hollioake, and some sloppy fielding allowed England to add 24 runs off the last two overs, and at the end of the innings, the captain was unbeaten on 83. This has been a series of captains' innings so far following the fine efforts of Campbell and Fleming yesterday, and this was a superb piece of batting from Hollioake, rescuing his team from a precarious position, ably supported by the experienced Fairbrother. The advantages of such a skilled batsman coming in at seven were ably demonstrated.
A target of 282 is not an easy one to chase under the lights. But, with the kind of bowling attack that England possess, it was always going to be difficult to defend this!
South African opener Daryll Cullinan started off in a murderous mood, and Mike Rindel was not far behind. Cullinan started smashing the balls right away. He was particularly strong square of the wicket, with strong cuts, and followed them with a few well executed pulls and drives. Cullinan raced to 48 from merely 34 balls with 11 fours, when Rindel came into his own with two well executed shots and one lucky edge. In merely 10 overs, South Africa had raced to 83 for no loss, containing no less than 17 boundaries. Martin, Austin or Ealham simply couldn't contain the flow. The batsmen were extremely harsh to Ealham in particular whose figures stood at 2-0-26-0.
Hollioake finally resorted to spin with Giles coming on. Until then boundaries were coming in at roughly 2 an over but Giles bowled his first over accurately (except for a wide) and gave no run at all off the bat.
Hollioake continued with Ealham for the 12th over as Cullinan played a ball uppishly but short of midon. Following the example of Giles, Ealham also started bowling with a little more purpose, tying Cullinan up. An offside cordon of backward point, cover point, and extra-cover was however not enough to prevent Cullinan from executing a brilliant cover drive to take himself to his 50, coming only off 40 balls with 12 boundaries.
Giles continued the next over. Rindel took some risks, coming down the track but mistimed (safely) to deep midwicket for a single. Giles never gave any chance for easy runs in that over however.
Ealham continued, as did Cullinan. Another straight driven boundary, his 13th. For a change, Cullinan pushed a single to cover. Cullinan 58 off 46 and Rindel 34 off 44 balls.
Giles started bowling the first over after the fielding restrictions. A single to Cullinan was followed by a couple of runs to Rindel, played to deep cover. Two more singles followed, as South Africa reached the hundred, in exactly 16 overs.
After the drinks break, Giles started coming round the wicket to Cullinan, and over the wicket to Rindel. Runs were hard to come by and the crowd found came, but only in singles. Hick's offspinners, though not troubling the batsmen suceeded in containing them.
Rindel attempted to up the pace and came down the track against the spin of Ashley Giles, but was well caught by Ally Brown at deep midoff. Rindel's 41 runs came off 61 balls with 6 boundaries. Two quick wickets fell thereafter. Fairbrother at deep midwicket took a good catch dving forward to mop up Cullinan's attempted hoik over the midwicket boundary, and Kallis was run out by Holliaoke.
Rhodes and Cronje took up the challenge and started to build steadily towards the England total, pushing Ealham and Martin for ones and two around the ground.
Hollioake briefly experimented with the improbable bowling combination of Ali Brown and Austin. A Rhodes mis-hit on drive almost gifted Brown a wicket. Brown, however, was granted only one over, and was replaced by Ashley Giles, up to that point the tidiest of the English bowlers. Cronje demonstrated a taste for the unorthodox too in reverse sweeping Giles' second delivery for a quick single.
Hopeful that Giles could keep the batsmen on the back foot, Hollioake chose to set a defensive field and sent five fielders to the boundary ropes. But the English fielders were wilting in the heat and South Africa made a series of easy singles with some positive hitting. In the 40th over Cronje signalled the start of the final chase, hitting a massive six off Austin over the cover boundary. The following over Giles was sent over midwicket, Cronje swinging with a mighty heave outside off.
In the next over Cronje sent Hollioake's first ball to the midwicket boundary. Cronje likes to force the pace in the final run in, but this time his luck ran out. Attempting to hoist a third six off Hollioake's flipper the next ball, he sent up a skier which Brown took comfortably running in to point. But Hollioake's insistence on mixing it up was, as usual, only partially successful.
An attempted fast leg break in the next over was dispatched for four, and neither he nor Martin could stop the South Africans scoring. Hollioake's bowling went from rapidly allsorts to out of sorts and the last over he sent down a no ball, a full toss a hapless long hop and was finally dispatched for four through the offside by Benkenstein to wrap up the South African victory.