Jofra Archer’s six appeal gives England a happy ending to South Africa series
England fast bowler Jofra Archer took six wickets as the tourists ended a losing one-day series in South Africa on a positive note.
Dawid Malan and Jos Buttler both hit centuries as England won the third and final match by 59 runs in Kimberley.
In only his second international appearance since an 18-month absence with an elbow injury, Archer rolled back the years and turned the match in his side’s favour by taking 6-40.
It ensured England ended a five-match losing streak in the 50-over format and avoided a second consecutive clean sweep.
Captain Buttler, who made 131 and shared a fourth-wicket stand of 232 with Malan, called Archer’s first ODI five-fer “fantastic and probably deserving of the player of the match award”.
“When the game was in the balance, to come back there and take the wicket of [Heinrich] Klaasen broke the game open for us.
“It is nice to finish with a win today. Bar 10 or 15 overs of the chase in the first ODI, we have played some brilliant cricket. So it has been a hard-fought series.
“We spoke about trying to building a partnership and felt it would get easier at some point and it is not the biggest ground so we could catch up. We had some excellent hitters to follow us as well.”