Shukri Conrad laments “embarrassing” performance as Proteas suffer record ODI loss

The loss was the heaviest ever recorded in One Day International history.

They had already wrapped up the series with the first two wins in Leeds and London, which effectively made the match in Southampton a dead rubber, but that will probably do little to offer solace after the monumental defeat.

"Similar thing happened in Australia where after going 2-0 up, they got 400 as well. So yeah, there must be some truth in that and if we were gonna be poor at something, we'd rather be poor at games that aren't clutch games but not making light of today's defeat, that was embarrassing," Conrad said.

South Africa won the toss – the only thing they won on the day – with England then posting a mammoth 414 in their 50 overs.

A timid batting display then saw the Proteas bowled out for 72 - their second lowest total since the 69 they scored in Australia in 1993.

At some point they were even 7/4 inside five overs.

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"Before we go out to bat, we get everyone together and we talk about how we wanna go about things and Aiden [Markram] loses his bat loses his wicket to a pretty innocuous delivery but that probably summed up the day,” the coach added.

“From there before you know it you fall down and obviously the disruption of Temba [Bavuma] not being able to bat, that played a part as well. So, very difficult to explain but if you're not on top of your game, if the edge is not there then you are gonna get exposed the way you did and Jofra [Archer] running in the way he did together with Brydon [Carse] that pretty much sums up why we found ourselves at 10/4, 10/5, whatever it was."