Morgan staying positive despite Centurion loss

England continued their knack of passing the 300-run benchmark, but this time their best efforts with the bat – on the back of Joe Root’s career-best 125 – failed to test the hosts as a double-century opening stand between Quinton de Kock (135) and Hashim Amla (127) set up a seven-wicket home win at SuperSport Park in Centurion.

South Africa therefore still have a chance of sustaining a successful fightback in a one-day series they currently trail 2-1, with the penultimate match coming up in Johannesburg on Friday.

Morgan cited England’s consistent batting, en route to 318-8, as reason to keep the faith with his evolving team – but admitted they never got a foothold with the ball, as De Kock and Amla put on 239 in 36.5 overs.

After South Africa had completed their task with 3.4 overs to spare, Morgan had to reflect on England’s moderate evening with the ball.

“I think we started poorly,” said the captain. “If you look back to the last game (in Port Elizabeth), we looked pretty threatening in the first 10 overs and almost set the tone for the innings.

“Today, it was as simple as we didn’t get enough balls in the right areas. We missed our lengths more often than not, and let two very experienced batsmen get themselves in, and they took advantage of that.”

England were off target with the new ball, and then Morgan could not find anyone to come back and break the opening stand before it made too much of a dent in the run chase.

He is adamant he has plenty of options at his disposal to do just that – merely that they did not manage it this time.

“I think we have a number of them,” he said. “Today, we didn’t hit our straps at all...(but) we’ve obviously got the two spinners, variation with the two left-armers and (Ben) Stokes and (Chris) Jordan, who have a bit of pace.”

England’s confidence, he believes, will not suffer.

“I don’t think massively,” he added. “I think the areas we can look at where we played well were certainly the first innings.

“I thought we batted pretty well, and made 300 again, which is a big plus for us.

“Our batting unit seems to grow every game we play.

“That’s a huge encouragement, we haven’t had any hiccups.”

Unsurprisingly, he singled Yorkshire’s Root out for particular praise, saying: “Joe Root showed his class, with another hundred, and his experience now is that of a leader in the group. That’s great to see.”

After Eoin Morgan chose to bat first, Root and Alex Hales (65) had occasional fortune on their side following the early loss of Jason Roy.

The opener was beginning to find his range, but was wrong when he thought he could take two to Morne Morkel at third-man – and a perfect throw over the top of the stumps just beat his scamper back.

The second-wicket pair could not dominate initially and a clutch of mistimed shots and assorted edges all fell safe.

Root survived a half-chance on 44, De Kock just unable to collect a diving caught-behind away to his right as the ball died from an edge at David Wiese.

All was nonetheless going swimmingly, until Kagiso Rabada’s rude interruption.

First, Hales mis-hooked to Morkel at long-leg; then in the same over, England’s big hope Jos Buttler went first ball.

Buttler had made a century both times he was previously promoted to number four.

AB de Villiers had suggested he might attack him with a couple of slips on the Highveld, after Buttler finished Saturday’s match at Port Elizabeth in the blink of an eye.

Double-bluff or not, there was no slip but a leg-gully lurking, and the wicketkeeper-batsman obligingly whipped a sharp catch straight to JP Duminy.

Morgan then struggled for eight runs from 24 balls, before chipping to midwicket.

But Root reached his hundred from 95 balls, punishing the often errant Imran Tahir in particular to finish with 10 fours and five sixes. His luck ended with a collector’s item run-out, Root’s straight-drive ricocheting off the non-striker’s stumps into the leg-side field and a mix-up with Ben Stokes (53) leaving him stranded.

But Stokes raced to his 50 in 33 balls – and despite a rush of late wickets as Kyle Abbott took two in two, there was still a big finish from England’s tailenders.

South Africa needed to pull off a ground-record chase – and at no point did they seem likely to fall short.

De Kock had an escape on just nine, when Adil Rashid’s throw from short fine-leg would have run him out with a direct hit after Amla sent him back.

Thereafter, with forecast storm clouds and lightning around, the openers’ task was to get ahead of the Duckworth-Lewis rate and stay there.

They did both seamlessly.