Charlie Dean celebrates a wicket with Nat Sciver-Brunt and Amy Jones

Dean took wickets with the last ball of the 17th over, Marizanne Kapp driving to mid-off, and the first two balls of the 19th, with Nadine de Klerk caught at slip and Sinalo Jafta pinned lbw. This gave her three in three balls and making her the third woman, and the first this century, to take a hat-trick for England in ODIs. However, neither Dean nor her England teammates seemed to realise at the time. Captain Heather Knight packed the field for the ball after her hat-trick, with oohs and aahs as Nonkuleluku Mlaba played and missed, unaware that Dean had already achieved history.

“I actually didn’t realise I had a hat-trick,” she said in the post-match presentation, “because it was the last ball of one over, and you asked me to talk you through it and I was like, ‘What’s she on about?’ We didn’t know, but it’s pretty cool, I’ll take it!”

The hat-trick came during a dramatic collapse, with Dean also striking earlier in the 17th over and Sophie Ecclestone taking another wicket in between, making losing track understandable. South Africa lost five wickets for four runs in 12 balls, sliding from 72-2 to 76-7 in a match-defining spell. Laura Wolvaardt and Annerie Dercksen had put on a half-century stand after two early Lauren Filer wickets, while Chloe Tryon top-scored with 45, doing her best to repair the damage, but South Africa had little chance of defending 135.

A half-century opening stand between Maia Bouchier and Tammy Beaumont took England more than halfway to the target, and while the tourists had a mini-slide of their own, slipping from 69-0 to 82-3, Danni Wyatt-Hodge and Nat Sciver-Brunt steadied the ship. England coasted home four wickets down with 26 overs remaining to set up a series decider.

Dean was named Player of the Match for her hat-trick heroics.

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