CRICKET ONE-DAY INTERNATIONAL: ENGLAND WON a rain-interrupted, reduced and generally mucked about with fourth one-day international by seven wickets with 14 balls to spare yesterday.
Required by Messrs Duckworth and Lewis to make 137 to win from 20 overs, in a gloom that would make the Styx look like the John Lewis lighting department, they overcame a stodgy start that brought only 19 runs from the first six overs, and just two boundaries in that time, to blaze their way home.
They defeated not just South Africa but what, from the height of the media centre, looked like the mother of all storms just away to the west. Kevin Pietersen's luck continues with the weather: decide on holidays next year only after a consultation with the Golden One.
Inevitably Pietersen had a large hand in achieving what in reality was a modest target, had this been a genuine rather than faux Twenty20 match, giving the innings its impetus at precisely the right moment, with 40 from 34 balls before holing out at deep midwicket.
By then, though, he and Owais Shah had added 74 for the third wicket after Matt Prior and Ian Bell had succumbed cheaply to some excellent new-ball bowling from Dale Steyn and Andre Nel. But the captain's departure was merely a prelude to more pyrotechnics from Shah and Andrew Flintoff, whose unbroken fourth-wicket partnership of 44 came from only 24 balls, Shah fully justifying the place at number three bestowed on him by Pietersen in making 44 not out from 40 balls.
Flintoff just strongarmed his way nonchalantly to 31 not out from no more than a dozen deliveries. This, when added to his bowling, seven overs of which brought him three for 21, held the show together on an otherwise lacklustre day for the pacemen and brought him the man-of-the-match award.
Earlier, after a start to the innings delayed because of heavy rain, and subsequently thrice interrupted, South Africa had managed 183 for six from 32 overs and one ball, an effort underpinned by a vibrant 74 at a run-a-ball from Herschelle Gibbs.
He hit nine fours, mostly rifle-shots through the offside, as the England seamers, particularly Steve Harmison, allowed him too much width and the freedom to swing his arms.
England now find themselves on the verge of a frankly bizarre situation where a win in the fifth match at Cardiff on Wednesday, to complete a clean sweep, would see them elevated in the official ICC rankings to second in the world.
If this causes a few eyebrows to be raised then it is not without justification. There is something rather quaint about a ranking system that allows a team to lose their previous two one-day series by three matches to one, as England did away and then home to New Zealand, but then permits them to leapfrog the same team and, bar Australia, every other of the six sides who were above them only a few weeks ago.
• Guardian Service
