England Vs South Africa: Captains’ reaction after the second ODI in Hove

"It was a runaway train, I guess. We know the quality of Sarah Taylor and Tammy Beaumont once they get going. We've seen that in the World Cup and we couldn't execute our lines and lengths, our plans weren't quite there and they made us pay", said van Niekerk.

The Momentum Proteas failed to repeat their excellent bowling and batting display that resulted in them winning the first ODI by 7 wickets.  The much-praised fearsome struggled to find their line and length as Ayabonga Khaka and Shabnim Ismail were expensive conceding 78 and 72 respectively in their 10 overs taking two wickets apiece with Marizanne Kapp being the only one to keep it tight with decent figures of 2/48.

van Niekerk also said that she believed her side to chase down the daunting target of 332 runs. According to SA Cricket magazine, the Proteas skipper said, "We were definitely one batter short, we bat till eight to nine so for only two only to score above 40 was disappointing, myself included. I chucked my wicket away as well."

In the batting department, only Lizelle Lee (117) and Chloe Tryon (42) put up a fight as they scored 161 off 133 at 7.26 per over while the rest of South Africa only managed 91 off 167 at 3.27 per over. In the field, stand in wicketkeeper Lee also had a poor day behind the stumps.

The winning captain Heather Knight was pleased with how her side showed character after the defeat at Worcester.

"We wanted to take it as a new day, fresh surroundings and make sure we played that way. Amy Jones and Tammy Beaumont got us off to a really good start and then Sarah and Tammy in the middle had a brilliant partnership, they love batting together against this opposition which is great for us."

"When you lose a game like we did, by a big margin, it is almost easier to move on from it quickly, we know we didn't bat well enough and we wanted to put a response in today, move on quickly and carry on playing the type of cricket we want to play. The girls did that brilliantly today."

The two sides meet again in the series-deciding third ODI on Friday in Canterbury and van Niekerk is excited to take the fight to England in the last game.