Twitterati relish England's top-order collapse against South Africa

South African skipper AB de Villiers won the toss and elected to bowl first on a seam-friendly pitch at the Home of Cricket. Left-arm seamer Wayne Parnell, right-arm quick Morne Morkel and all-rounder JP Duminy returned to the side led by de Villiers, with Hashim Amla requiring only 23 runs to become the fastest to 7,000 ODI runs in his career.

For England Liam Plunkett alongside Mark Wood, Ben Stokes, Chris Woakes and Moeen Ali were rested with a debut for the Middlesex player Roland-Jones and a comeback for Steve Finn, David Willey and Jonny Bairstow. Batting first the English batsman got off to a dismal start, with the wicket of opener Jason Roy in the very first over after the opener had scored only four runs.

Meanwhile, for the visitors, it was Kagiso Rabada who struck first as they looked to close in the series 2-1 against their favour. Parnell, who returned to the side struck with the important wicket of Joe Root in his very first over. At 8/2, England were reeling apart in their own backyard, a sign not so pleasing for the fans to see.

Parnell struck once again in his next over with the wicket of skipper Eoin Morgan, who struggled to keep pace with the swinging delivery from the left-arm seamer. Rabada pegged the English team back with the wicket of the opener Alex Hales in the very next over. Jos Buttler walked out to the middle, only to be sent back the hut after scoring a boundary off the very third delivery

English leg-spinner Adil Rashid could not change anything on the scoreboard. At the end of the fifth over, the home side was reduced to a score of 20/6, in contrast to the scores they made in the opening two fixtures of the series. David Willey and Jonny Bairstow put up a partnership of 62 runs before the former was dismissed after trying to loft the ball over covers in Parnell’s over.

Bairstow got a half century and with assistance from debutant Ronald-Jones who scored 37 took the team over the 150-run mark before they were bowled out for 153. But it was a remarkable recovery by the Poms after being six down for 20 runs to post that total. Though South Africa have the momentum at the half way mark, the English bowlers do have something to bowl with.

Twitteratis could not stop themselves following the Great English collapse at the Home of Cricket but also praised them for the comeback: