Dawid Malan feared he would never play for England

An impressive debut from Dawid Malan helped England seal the T20 series over South Africa with a 19-run victory at Cardiff.

Jason Roy and Alex Hales were reunited at the top of the order but the former’s innings was abruptly ended as he made just six runs, perhaps still haunted by his freakish dismissal in the second T20 match.

The English opener was given out for obstructing the field, the first dismissal of its kind in T20 internationals and generally a rare occurrence.

Dawson hit the penultimate ball to the long-off boundary to reduce the runs required to four from the last ball, but Phehlukwayo fired the final delivery right in the blockhole to ensure his side closed out the victory. He, however, planned to return to the format in September, when Bangladesh will tour South Africa.

England take on South Africa in the deciding T20 in Cardiff today.

“I wasn’t surprised (with the score), it’s a wicket that has played extremely well this year in domestic and worldwide cricket, in recent years we’ve had some very good marks”, said former county captain and England opener Morris.

“Everyone wants to play. there is not much point worrying too much about it”.

Jos Buttler, standing in as captain for the rested Eoin Morgan, paid tribute to Malan’s knock, while also praising the character of 20-year-old leg-spinner Mason Crane (1-38), who came in for some punishment at the hands of AB de Villiers before snaring the South Africa captain for his first global wicket.

“It is a very hard situation to be in and I am a huge fan and love playing worldwide cricket”.

Ireland and Afghanistan have attained Test status after they were granted full membership by the International Cricket Council.

AB De Villiers and David Miller were run out in the middle stage of the innings and South Africa were eventually dismissed for 191 runs.

“We’ll take it for what it is”. Roy was clearly aghast but Morgan insisted it had been a “50-50 call”.

“You’ll see everybody play at least one game – this is an opportunity to give people a chance and see what they can do on the worldwide stage”.

“You have to deal with the fact that you have got to score runs, but you might not be in for the next game”.

“We showed a lot of fight and proved it’s still an honour to play for South Africa”.

“It’s another big game, the series is on the line, this is what we want to play for”, Smuts added.

Speaking to the European Central Bank reporters network, Overton added: “Making my England debut at the County Ground would be unbelievable and something I never thought could happen”.