It’s home sweet home for Yorkshire and England batsman Dawid Malan

Dawid Malan grew up a stone’s throw from the Boland Park cricket ground in Paarl and went to the local boys’ high school.

He returned to the ground yesterday to help England win the T20 series against South Africa, top-scoring with 55 as they followed their five-wicket victory in Cape Town with a four-wicket win to take the three-match series with one game to spare.

At the ground where he made his first-class debut in 2006, the Yorkshire left-hander showed why he is officially the world’s No 1-ranked T20 batsman, his innings helping England to chase down a target of 147 on a sluggish pitch with one ball to spare.

Remarkably, it was his eighth half-century - to go with one century - in just 18 T20 international appearances. Having forced his way into a side that is almost impossible to get into, Malan has made himself almost impossible to drop.

After another Yorkshire player, Jonny Bairstow, won Friday’s opening contest, striking a T20 international career-best 86 not out, Malan kept up the strong White Rose theme running through the series.

It is one to which Adil Rashid has also contributed, the Yorkshire leg-spinner returning England’s best figures of 2-23 from four overs yesterday as South Africa made 146-6 after being sent into bat.

Rashid’s first wicket, that of Reeza Hendricks, who was bowled aiming a slog-sweep, was his 50th in T20 internationals. Number 51 soon followed, Faf du Plessis lured out of his ground and stumped by Jos Buttler.

It left South Africa 75-4 after 10.1 overs after the earlier wickets of Temba Bavuma, who was bowled by the excellent Jofra Archer, England’s most economical performer with 1-18 from four, and Quinton de Kock, who top-scored with 30 before lofting Chris Jordan to a tumbling Tom Curran at mid-on. It was Jordan’s 65th T20 international wicket, drawing him level with Stuart Broad as the most for England.

Perhaps surprisingly selected again after Friday’s match, when he returned his most expensive T20 international figures of 1-55, Tom Curran fared not a great deal better this time with 1-37, his wicket coming courtesy of an ugly swat across the line by Heinrich Klaasen to mid-wicket.

It was not a good day for the Curran brothers all told, Sam – who starred with the ball with three wickets on Friday – conceding 24 runs from the only two overs that captain Eoin Morgan entrusted him with. Between them, the Currans conceded 61 runs from six overs, somewhat out of keeping with the rest of South Africa’s innings.

It was a stodgy, disjointed effort by the hosts, who at one stage went eight overs without locating the boundary and were grateful for a sixth-wicket stand of 44 inside six overs by George Linde and Rassie van der Dussen, which finished when Linde was run-out going for a third run following the rarity of a misfield by Ben Stokes.

Stokes did not bowl on Friday but he sent down two overs here after Morgan’s decision not to go back to Sam Curran.

England’s target looked manageable enough, despite the much larger boundaries than in Cape Town, but they found themselves wobbling at 55-3 in the ninth over.

Jason Roy had skied Lungi Ngidi to cover, ending a restless, scattergun sort of innings that would have done little for his confidence after recent struggles, and Buttler and Bairstow had fallen to the left-arm wrist spin of Tabraiz Shamsi – Buttler bowled aiming a mighty swing and Bairstow lofting to deep mid-wicket.

Shamsi struck again en route to T20 international career-best figures of 3-19 when Stokes, one ball after slog-sweeping him for six on to the sunlit grass bank, tried to repeat the feat only to spoon the ball up apologetically to wicketkeeper de Kock.

With England behind on the comparison scores from the second over right up until the 17th, it was by no means a walk in the park to the winning line.

Malan, though, played the situation superbly. Having first got himself in by manoeuvring the fielders and dispatching any bad deliveries, he cut loose towards the end, going to his half-century with a straight six off Ngidi having struck his previous two balls to the boundary too in a decisive 18th over that cost as many runs.

It took a brilliant boundary flip-back catch by Hendricks to remove Malan, the type of fielding that once was a rarity but is now commonplace to the point of monotony. Morgan saw England over the line with an unbeaten 26, Sam Curran the other wicket to fall when he played on to Kagisa Rabada in the final over.

Job done for England, and a case of home sweet home for the magnificent Malan.

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