South Africa got themselves firmly back into the five match ODI series, beating England by seven wickets in Tuesday's game.
It was a case of missed opportunities for England, who posted 318-8 from their 50 overs after a Joe Root century, but they'll feel that they could have got many more, with Trevor Bayliss' men losing wickets at crucial times.
The Proteas made light work of the total, chasing it down with 22 balls to spare. Quinton De Kock and Hashim Amla both scored a century, sharing a first wicket partnership of 239 to help their side reduce England's series lead to 2-1.
A big score for England, but they'd have wanted more
For the first few overs at least, it looked like the England openers were going to take the home bowlers to the cleaners. Alex Hales and Jason Roy were scoring comfortably, racing to 30 without loss, only for the latter to be ran out.
That seemed to stifle any progress made, and whilst Joe Root came in to play nicely with Hales, the visitors could only manage 92 from their first 19 overs. Things did pick up, after a spell of wickets started when Hales was caught off the bowling of Kagiso Rabada for 65 off 73, a lower strike rate than usual for him.
Following that, star-man Jos Buttler went for a first ball duck, before skipper Eoin Morgan chipped to debutant David Wiese for a fairly slow eight runs.
After that, Root began to quicken the pace, going to 100 at more than a run a ball, before hitting sixes in successive overs, taking advantage of some slack bowling from spinner Imran Tahir. A mix up between Root and the man at the other end, Ben Stokes, saw him dismissed for 125.
Stokes did step up to the plate though, smashing his way to 53 from 37, before being caught in the deep off Kyle Abbott. With Moeen Ali having gone just before Stokes, and Chris Jordan just after, England were failing to take advantage of their promising start, standing at 291-8 from 47.3 overs.
However, David Willey and Adil Rashid stepped up, hitting a six each, guiding England to 318-8, setting South Africa a difficult looking total to chase.
Amla and De Kock make light work of chase
During the break between innings, many speculated that England had done fairly well to scrape past 300 on a poor pitch, and that the hosts would have to do extremely well to win the game.
Then out came Amla and De Kock, who put the English bowlers to the sword with some superb batting. Racing to 110-0 from 20 overs, they looked much more assured than in the second ODI, whilst England toiled in the field.
Time ticked by, with England using up their review on a failed catch behind, and De Kock went to 100 at a slightly slower rate than Root had. Amla got there too, but only after the visitors had claimed their first wicket, De Kock caught by Root off Rashid's bowling, finally gone for 135.
Looking to bat through the innings, Amla saw Wiese fall, but made a quickfire 50 partnership with Faf Du Plessis. Amla wasn't to hit the winning runs though, with Chris Jordan picking up his wicket as South Africa's 'runs needed' column dropped into single figures.
Du Plessis got the job done though, hitting Stokes for a six off one ball to level the scores, before tucking one neatly into the legside to finish the job off.
