Proteas thrash England to seal T20 series at the Bullring

South Africa thumped England by nine wickets in the second KFC T20 international at the Bidvest Wanderers Stadium on 21 February.

A brilliant 125-run first wicket partnership between Hashim Amla and AB de Villiers propelled the home side to a 2-0 series victory.

Proteas T20 captain, Faf du Plessis won the toss and elected to bat first against England on a pitch that had little assistance for the bowlers.

The South Africans made no changes to the team that won the thriller in Cape Town; while England made one change, that of Sam Billings coming in for David Willey.

Proteas speedster Kagiso Rabada had Jason Roy dropped by JP Duminy off the first ball of the match at cover. In his second over, Rabada got his man as he rattled Roy’s off stump to send him packing for nine runs.

Joe Root and Alex Hales looked to be rebuilding the England innings before Root was caught by David Miller off the bowling of Imran Tahir for a well-played 34 of 17 balls.

Hales followed soon after a mix-up with his captain Eoin Morgan and was run out by Chris Morris for 16 runs. Morgan and Jos Buttler rebuilt the English innings and combined a 96-run partnership to bring the visitors back in the game.

Buttler reached his third T20 half-century, off 27 balls, but soon after was caught by Du Plessis off the bowling of Kyle Abbott.

England were 150/3 after 16 overs and looked set to post a big score, but the tables turned as they lost seven wickets for only 14 runs to finish on 171 in 19.4 overs.

In reply, Amla and De Villiers came out guns blazing chasing the 172 for victory and scored 50 in only four overs as De Villiers took 22 runs off Chris Jordan’s second over.

De Villiers blazed his way to the fastest 50 in T20 matches by a South African batsman, off just 21 balls. The former T20 captain was eventually dismissed for a scintillating 71 off 28 balls.

Amla (69 no) and Du Plessis (22 no) saw the Proteas home comfortably in 14.4 overs.

The Proteas have now only lost once in their last nine T20 matches ahead of the upcoming T20 World Cup in India.