England ease home

Andrew Flintoff sets the seal on England's win with a straight six off Paul Harris

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England survived a minor bout of last-day nerves to wrap up a six-wicket victory over South Africa in the final npower Test at the Brit Oval.

Set 197 to win, England overcame the loss of three wickets for 24 runs, including two in three balls, as they eased home at 3.15pm on the fifth afternoon.

An ultimately comfortable success may not mean much in the context of a series won 2-1 by South Africa, but it represented an ideal start to Kevin Pietersen’s reign as England captain.

Though he missed out on the opportunity to cap a hugely impressive debut Test in charge by hitting the winning runs - that honour fell to Andrew Flintoff, who smashed Paul Harris for a straight six - Pietersen can take much satisfaction from the attitude and performance of his charges over the last five days.

That a minor wobble today had little impact on England’s push for victory owed much to the contributions of Alastair Cook and Andrew Strauss.

They made 67 and 58 respectively as they put on 123 for the first wicket - their biggest partnership of the series - to all but end any hopes South Africa may have harboured before play of engineering an unlikely win.

England resumed today having failed to score from the eight balls they faced yesterday evening, and negotiated the morning session with only the occasional alarm, most noticeably when Strauss, on four, was caught off a Morne Morkel no-ball.

The umpire’s outstretched arm came to Strauss’ rescue in the ninth over and both batsmen played and missed a handful of times on a surface displaying the sort of vagaries in bounce expected of a fifth-day surface, but England’s progress was largely untroubled.

They batted with considerable application to see off the new ball before expanding their range of strokes in the second half of the session.

Cook pulled the fourth ball of the day, bowled by Makhaya Ntini, through midwicket for four, and Morkel was punished for overpitching as Strauss opened his account with four off his toes during an otherwise pedestrian first half hour.

Alastair Cook pulls for four during a fine opening stand of 123 with Andrew Strauss

Strauss was fortunate to hear the call of no-ball after he clipped the same bowler to Ashwell Prince at a cleverly-positioned leg gully moments later, with England’s total on nine.

Cook and Strauss traded straight drives at the expense of Ntini either side of another Cook pull as South Africa’s discipline wavered, and their chances of an already unlikely victory appeared next to remote when the half-century partnership arrived off 103 balls.

Andre Nel, too, was dispatched for four off the back foot by Cook, who reserved the best shot of the morning for a long hop from Jacques Kallis which was drilled through cover point to take him to an 83-ball fifty containing 10 fours.

With slow left-armer Paul Harris causing relatively few problems despite bowling into the rough outside the left-handers’ off stump, Strauss and Cook were largely untroubled as they took England past three figures.

Cook, however, fell in the third over after lunch, caught by the dependable Graeme Smith at first slip as he chased one slanted across him by Ntini.

Ian Bell saw Strauss bring up his fifty, which spanned 95 balls and contained five fours, but could manage only one whip through midwicket himself before he walked across his stumps to be bowled by Ntini.

Harris finally found sufficient assistance from the rough to have Strauss taken at leg slip via bat and pad in the next over, but two leg-side boundaries from Paul Collingwood in one Morkel over eased England’s nerves somewhat.

Pietersen resisted the temptation to take on Harris as he persisted with his negative leg-stump line, only to fall to a bat-pad catch at short-leg when he came round the wicket with 15 runs required.

The skipper departed with a wry smile on his face, which had turned into a grin by the time Flintoff hit the ball back over Harris' head in emphatic fashion moments later.