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 Take Trophy With Ease

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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