England drew first blood in the three-match T20 International series against the Proteas Women by winning the first game by 4-wickets in East London on Sunday.

South Africa had a bat first at Buffalo Park and scored 142/5 in their 20-overs with Nadine de Klerk scoring 29 not out, while Annerie Dercksen scored 26 not out. Charlie Dean took 2/21 for England.

In reply, Nat Sciver-Brunt scored 59 and Amy Jones scored 31 as the Lionesses chased down the target with 4-balls to spare to take the lead in the series and in doing so also bury the ghosts of the 2024 ICC Women’s T20 World Cup.

The seamer, Eliz-Mari Marx, was the pick of the South African bowlers with 3/19 in 3.2 overs, while the allrounder, Nadine de Klerk, took 2/20 in her 4-overs.

It was England's first game since their disappointing defeat to the West Indies which led to them being eliminated from the global showpiece.

Sciver-Brunt told OFM Sport that the win against the back-to-back T20 World Cup finalists certainly helped with their confidence going forward in the multi-format series.

“Yeah, obviously there's always another game, isn't there? And yeah, we can't really dwell too much on what we did in the World Cup,” said Sciver-Brunt.

“We obviously reviewed it and talked about it quite a lot as a team, and obviously where we felt like we made some mistakes, but also where we did in the tournament as well. But yeah, obviously being a multi-format series in South Africa.

“I mean, the crowd here today were pretty special as well. You can see that there's some improvement in South African cricket. So yeah, it's a really exciting series to be part of and yeah, it's sort of the start of our winter preparations for the Ashes as well, obviously being a multi-format series.

Annerie Dercksen - Cricinfo

“It’s tough to play all three formats and come up against the same opposition every time. But both teams will be doing their preparation and be really excited for it.”

Sciver-Brunt added that it wasn't an easy win in the series opener, but they are happy to get off to a winning start.

“The conditions were a little bit tricky towards the end there and South Africa made it pretty tough for us, but we're really happy to have got over the line, having not probably done our best that day in terms of the skill that we produced.”

The 2nd T20 International will be played on Wednesday at Willowmoore Park in Benoni.

Morgan Piek OFM Sport