South Africa won the toss at the Bullring and sent the English to bat first, where they were bowled out for 171 runs in the 20th over.

England seems to be cruising to a big score with captain Eoin Morgan and Jos Buttler putting on a 96-run partnership for the 4th wicket, however, the visitors lost 7 wickets for 9 runs in arguably the biggest batting collapse in T20 cricket.

Kyle Abbott was the pick of the South African bowlers with three for 26, while Kagiso Rabada and Chris Morris each claimed two scalps.

AB de Villiers blasted 71 from 29 deliveries in a knock which included 6 fours and 6 sixes, while Hashim Amla added 69 for the win with 32 balls to spare.

Captain Faf du Plessis says the win gives them the psychological advantage against England at next month’s ICC Twenty20 World Cup in India.

“You always want to imprint something on a team so that when you meet them again, they can almost remember that feeling or the result.

“From a mental point of view it's great, but I suppose from an English team's point of view they'll say, when we meet in the World Cup, it’s a new game, it’s a new opportunity, it’s all square.

“There’s always two ways to look at it.

“For me as a captain, I’d rather be sitting on the winning side than losing two-nil to England. So for us as a team, we will take a huge amount of confidence from this.”

De Villiers, who was the man of the match for his innings, says with 8 out of 9 wins in the shortest format they are feeling confident heading towards the World Cup.

“It’s a huge privilege and honour to play in every game that you do play for South Africa.

“He (Faf du Plessis) is the captain of the T20 side, I can’t imagine what it must mean to him winning eight out of nine games in T20 cricket.

“Test cricket is obviously the most important format I think for all the countries.

“We’ve won two series in a row now, ODI’s and T20’s, against really good outfits (India and England), so we take a lot of confidence in that, moving towards the World Cup.”

South Africa next face Australia in the 1st of three T20’s at Kingsmead on 4 March.

Morgan Piek/OFM News