
England have won the one-day international series against South Africa without setting foot on the ground in the final match - thanks to the Durban weather.
The pattern of the past week repeated itself today at Kingsmead, where drizzle began sweeping across a playing area under full cover from around noon local time - two and a half hours before the scheduled start.
Heavier rain set in as usual by mid to late afternoon, preventing any play and resulting in an eventual abandonment at 1700 local time (1500 GMT).
Although England captain Andrew Strauss had insisted yesterday his team wanted the opportunity to turn their 2-1 lead into a 3-1 victory, the washout was very much in their favour.
England therefore became only the second tourists - after Australia - to ever beat their hosts in an ODI series in South Africa.
South Africa captain Graeme Smith, felt England were good value for their series win.
Smith said: "England deserved the series victory, they outperformed us in the majority of the games.
"They deserve credit for the way they have played cricket and if we can learn lessons from this it can be an important stepping stone for us looking ahead to the next 12 months.
"We've had some good discussions and learned a few styles of play and found some areas to work on. Our next one-day series is in India where we have got the World Cup in a year or so's time, and hopefully by then we will have a pretty good squad and be a squad that develops from this series."
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