England Win Trophy With Ease
By Paul Bakel
July 13 2003
England have won the NatWest Series after a crushing seven wicket victory over South Africa at Lord's.
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England have won the NatWest
Series after a crushing seven wicket victory over South Africa at Lord's. After dismissing the tourists for a woefully inadequate 107 on a
cracking pitch, England raced to victory with just under 30 overs to
spare. James Anderson took three for 50 and Ashley Giles, Darren Gough and
Andrew Flintoff all grabbed braces as England ran riot. Then Vikram Solanki smacked 50 off 58 balls and Michael Vaughan a
run-a-ball 30 to make up for last year's final defeat to India. Gough to set the tone early on when he delivered a superb opening spell
of 7-2-9-2 which complimented the expensive but effective Anderson from
the other end. Anderson made the early breakthrough to remove captain Graeme Smith
after he edged a loose drive to Trescothick at slip. Gough, though, claimed the big wickets by removing Herschelle Gibbs for
just nine when he drove loosely and edged behind to Chris Read before
Jacques Kallis followed in almost identical fashion. Anderson returned later on after Richard Johnson, Giles and Flintoff
had all made further inroads to claim his third wicket and only Jacques
Rudolph with 19 and Shaun Pollock 18 attempted to hang around. England were expected to cruise towards victory but instead were rocked
by the loss of Marcus Trescothick, who edged to Andrew Hall at slip for a
duck. However, Vaughan and Solanki combined to put on 87 in quick time with
Solanki taking a prominent role after an inconsistent series. The manner in which he brought up his second half-century for England
was particularly impressive, launching Kallis for a six and a four off
successive deliveries. It would have been fitting if Solanki had been there to witness the
celebrations but instead he chopped Hall onto his stumps just three overs
and 19 runs away from victory after Vaughan had departed in the previous
over by chipping Andre Nel to mid-on. It was left for Anthony McGrath to hit the winning runs and celebrate
with man of the series Flintoff. |
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