South Africa on Tuesday finally came back to winning ways as the hosts beat world champions England by 7 Wickets in the first ODI at Cape Town. Earlier South African skipper won the toss and decided to field first giving the batting depth of Englishmen. England stared off to a great start with Roy and Blairstow adding quickfire 51 runs for the first wicket before Roy driving a simple catch to Hendricks off debutant Smuts to give South Africa an opening after that Blairstow, Root, Morgan and debutant Banton felling in quick succession thanks to the triple strike by the wristy Shamshi leaving England reeling at 108/5. Sam Curran did not stayed much long after that and at 131/6 England were once heading towards a collapse but then Joe Denly added 91 with Woakes to give England and a comeback but then Woakes felt at 222 after scoring classical 40. England further never get the going and with Denly departing at 87 England managed to score a fighting 258. For South Africa Shamshi was the wrecker-in-chief with 3-38.
Chasing 259, South Africa got off to a bad start with in-form Reeza Hendricks edging to Blairstow off Woakes at the scorecard reading 25, after scoring 6 runs. But after that it was a Kock-Bavuna show dominating all the English bowlers and punishing the bad balls. The duo added 173 for the second wickets in only 165 balls to throw England out of the game before De Kock missing an angled bowl while trying to slog sweep of Root and finally fell out on 107 off 111 balls with 11 fours and 1 six. But it was late for England, Bavuna was unlucky to get out on 98 after missing a straight one from Jordan. Bavuma scored 98 of 103 balls with 5 fours and 2 sixes. From there Van der Dussen 38*and debutant Smuts 7* took the baton till the end and reaching the destination of 259 Runs with 7 wickets remaining and 14 balls left. De Kock for his century won the Man-of-match award. This was a welcome win for South Africa after loosing 3 straight tests against the same opponent at home. England dearly missed the services of Ben Stokes. English bowlers never looked to apply some pressure on South Africa today bowling bad lengths to the South African Batsmen. The second of the 3-match ODI series will be played on Friday at Durban and England will be looking to come back strongly in the do-and-die encounter. For South Africa maintaining the momentum will be the key.
Brief Scores – : England 258/8 in 50 overs (Denly 87,Woakes 40, Shamshi 3-38) South Africa 259/3 in 47.4 overs ( De Kock 107,Bavuma 98, Jordan 1-31)
South Africa beat England by 7 Wickets with 2.2 overs remaining.