South Africa won the toss and elected to bat first.

Amla and Smith were quick off the mark

Amla and Smith opened up the batting for South Africa, and were quick off the mark punishing Taylor and Rampaul in the first 5 overs of the 3rd ODI. Both batsmen looked on form, picking boundaries and chasing singles. Amla had played his part and was dismissed for 34 in the 10th over when he chopped a deceiving delivery from Benn onto his stumps. Smith’s wicket followed in the 17th by LBW

AB the Anchor

We awoke this morning to hear that the Jamaican Prime Minister, Bruce Golding, had declared a State of Emergency on the island for the minimum of one month. After two ODI’s in Dominica, Jamaica becomes our home for almost three weeks for the final ODI, a warm up game and then the first Test. This decision, therefore, is bound to have repercussions on this tour. Although nothing definite has been decided as yet, it is possible that the matches designated for Jamaica will be re-scheduled to another island.

Last night was fun and very different. An sms from my production manager summond me to room 307 occupied by Craig Cozier (Tony Cozier’s son) for drinks. Seemed a good idea, a few sundowners , so to speak, and then dinner somewhere nearby.

Well, sundowners at Tony’s was a gas!! On arrival we were met by a tall thin guy who appeared to be somewhere between Jupiter and Mars as he danced to the blaring music all on his own and in a world of his own. Nothing overly unusual about this other than our friend was dressed in the following manner. Black baseball cap, sunglasses, string of beads around his neck, black ‘designer’ speedo with two cellphones clipped on either side along with his car keys. He must have danced for at least an hour and a half before slowly walking off into the sunset.

Despite South Africa’s victory in the final One Day International against India in Ahmedabad on Saturday this series will be remembered for Sachin Tendulkar’s historic 200 not out in the second match in Gwalior. India held an unassailable lead in the series but the Proteas were keen to salvage pride in their final match of the season.

To lose a home series is massively disappointing but I honestly still have reason to feel quite excited about the challenges that lie ahead for this one-day team and our potential to once again become the number ranked team in the world.

The loss in Port Elizabeth hurt the whole team and we need to get that game out of our systems by Friday. We have to turn things around as quickly as possible.

The amount of cricket we play these days you have to get over losses quickly and we have shown in the past that we can do that and I think we should be able to do it again this week.

We probably haven’t done as well as we wanted to on the previous weekends in the series. We have been good on the Fridays but not so good on the Sundays so hopefully this is another good Friday for us.

The defeat to England in Port Elizabeth has given the squad extra motivation – as if any was needed – to do our utmost to square the series in Durban.

Responsibility is a big thing in international cricket and as international cricketers we have to take responsibility for our performances and I am sure we will on Friday.

The guys have taken everything on the chin after Sunday’s game and hopefully we will bounce back.

It will not be an easy task as England’s bowlers have performed magnificently.

I’ve managed to make some runs in two of the games so far which is obviously satisfying but, unfortunately, far outweighed by the fact that we are two-one down in the series after a horrible game at St.George’s Park.

We simply took too long to read the conditions and adapt to them. A couple of us at the top of the order got out to ‘soft’ dismissals – none more than me – which made things especially disappointing.

One of the hardest and most under-appreciated skills in one-day cricket involves reading the conditions and assessing what will be a ‘par’ score and what might be a winning score.

There were always some players better at doing it than others during my playing days and some who were so useless they simply didn’t bother! Every now and then a group of us would agree before a match that 240 would be a decent score – and then a local man would say ‘180 will win it.’