England wins toss, bats in 3rd ODI vs. South Africa

England have a rare 5-0 whitewash victory on their minds already – but at Centurion they must try to make sure of success by any margin in the third one-day worldwide against South Africa.

His haul of four for 50 in the second ODI on Saturday in Port Elizabeth was the best performance for his country to date, and that helped them to a five-wicket victory to go 2-0 up in the series. “I had a pretty good white-ball season last year and I’ve just tried to recreate the feelings I had playing for Essex last year”.

South Africa batsman Hashim Amla says his side are treating the rest of the series as three finals in a row. We’re out to win tomorrow, get some momentum for the next one and then hope to win in Cape Town as well.

Topley has only played seven ODIs, after making his debut against Australia last September, but believes the task of adapting to life in global ranks has been made easy by the leadership team of the coaches and captain Eoin Morgan.

He added: “It’s gone quite well for me personally, but the bottom line is we’re 2-0 up – which is the more satisfying thing”. He has got such a clear plan and image of what he wants to the team to be.

England’s biggest player going into the series would have been Joe Root and he has played well in the past two games. We have backed up the Test series win brilliantly.

This is an all-important match that will decide whether the Proteas have any chance of winning the series.

Topley is in contention to be selected for England’s World T20 squad to compete in India next month, with the 15 names due to be announced on Wednesday.

“They bat very deep, and I think that allows the English team to attack throughout the game”, he said. “I’m looking forward to finding out what the squad is”.

He said: “I hope if I can keep this good form going, take it into the Twenty20s and World Cup, I can keep going into the five-day arena into the summer”.

“We’re in such a brilliant place at the minute”.

“Him, Trev (Bayliss) and Farbs (Paul Farbrace) just filter that down to us and we have all got a clear way of how we want to play cricket, where we want to be and they give us a lot of confidence about how we want to do our skills and trust our feelings out on the pitch”.

England have been firing on all cylinders this tour, expect them to clinch the series.