England sweat on Kate Cross back injury as rain threatens washout

Innings South Africa 233 for 8 (Wolvaardt 61) vs England

After winning the toss and choosing to bowl first, England were made to work for their breakthroughs, principally by Wolvaardt, South Africa’s captain, who cemented her status as the ICC’s No.1-ranked ODI batter with a sparkling innings, studded with a range of her trademark cover drives.

South Africa chose to make four changes to the side that lost by six wickets in Sunday’s second ODI – a decision that Wolvaardt had not sounded especially pleased about when it was raised at the toss. Nevertheless, after no opening stands beyond the sixth over in any of their previous five contests, she did at least find in Lara Goodall, opening alongside her in place of Tazmin Brits, a sufficiently doughty partner to add 50 for the first wicket in the powerplay.

England themselves chose to rest their fastest bowler, Lauren Filer, despite her telling blows in that second contest, but their hopes of a similarly flying start were dealt an even more significant blow after just five balls of the match. Cross slumped to the turf in her followthrough, clearly distressed after suffering a back spasm. She was helped from the field, with Alice Capsey bowling the final ball of her over, leaving the seam-bowling duties in the hands of Lauren Bell and Nat Sciver-Brunt.

Bell duly made the first breakthrough in the final over of the powerplay, when Goodall lofted a length ball to mid-on just moments after a firm clip for four off her pads, whereupon Anneka Bosch, another change to the line-up, needed 11 deliveries to record her first run before living up to her name with a trio of crunchy boundaries back down the ground off the spinners.

On 19, however, Bosch drove too loosely through the line off Capsey – on whom Heather Knight had been forced to rely in Cross’s absence – and popped a simple chance to Sciver-Brunt at mid-off. One over later, South Africa’s sturdy start was looking wobbly at 107 for 3, as Sophie Ecclestone skidded a flat trajectory into Wolvaardt’s pad, and extracted the on-field lbw verdict despite ball-tracker confirming it was a marginal leg-sided call.

Not for the first time in this series, South Africa were culpable in their subsequent slide. On 14, Nadine de Klerk reacted too slowly to Marizanne Kapp’s call for a quick single into the covers, and was beaten by Maia Bouchier’s sharp return to Amy Jones, while Annerie Dercksen’s guilty glance at the umpire arguably sealed her fate when Charlie Dean pinned her lbw for 13 – another decision that was shown to be clipping the bails.

At 156 for 5 with 18 overs to come, Kapp and Chloe Tryon had the power and poise to provide the big finish. But both batters fell for two runs in the space of nine balls – Kapp to a misjudged launch to long-on off Capsey for 19, and Tryon to a rush of blood at the end of Ecclestone’s eighth over, as she gave her the charge to be stumped for 20.

Masabata Klaas then spooned a limp drive to mid-off to depart for a seven-ball duck, but England’s hopes of a quick kill at 201 for 8 were thwarted by Mieke de Ridder and Nonkululeko Mlaba, who batted out the final 45 balls of the innings to eke out a handy 32-run stand.