Ben Stokes stars as England Lions win low-scoring contest against South Africa A

Ben Stokes took four wickets and hit a useful 31 with the bat as England Lions beat South Africa A by four wickets in the first unofficial ODI of a five-match series.

Stokes took 4-22 in an impressive bowling performance from the Lions, with Harry Gurney (3-26) also shining as they dismissed their hosts in Bloemfontein for 172 inside 40 overs.

After a promising start to their reply, England lost four wickets for 45 runs to sputter to 88-4 but Stokes’ knock and handy cameos from Sam Billings, Samit Patel and Liam Plunkett saw them to a hard-fought win with more than 15 overs to spare.

James Vince – in his first game as Lions captain – won the toss and opted to field first, a decision which brought immediate reward as Gurney dismissed Reeza Hendricks for a duck in the second over.

An imposing five-man pace attack of Mark Wood, Boyd Rankin, Gurney, Plunkett and Stokes chipped away with wickets at regular intervals – Wood (0-19) unfortunate to be the only one of the five not to take a wicket during an economical seven overs.

Stokes dismissed South African Test batsman, Dean Elgar, for 21 and took the key-wicket of Theunis de Bruyn (19), who hit 202 not out and 161 in the two unofficial Tests between the sides.

A 56-run partnership between Dane Vilas (18) and David Wiese (39) for the sixth wicket brought some promise for the home side but when Vilas departed, edging Gurney through to Billings behind the stumps, South Africa then lost their final four wickets for 28 runs.

Stokes wrapped up the innings by bowling Marchant de Lange after earlier getting rid of the dangerous Wiese.

Bright start

Chasing 172, the Lions’ opening pair of Jason Roy and Alex Lees started brightly with 42 from the first eight overs.

But Lees’ dismissal for 12 to the impressive Chris Morris (2-23) sparked a mini-collapse – Vince fell for a duck, caught behind off De Lange (2-33), who also accounted for top-scorer Roy (43) lbw.

Stokes and Billings (19) steadied the ship after the departure of Jonny Bairstow (13) and looked to be taking England to a comfortable victory.

But when Stokes fell to Kagiso Rabada, and Billings to Morris four balls later, the Lions were suddenly 134-6, still 39 short of their target.

A tense finish seemed on the cards but it wasn’t to be as Samit Patel (17no) and Liam Plunkett (22no) made little fuss of the remaining runs to give the side a 1-0 series lead.