England seal ODI series with Pietersen ton

Kevin Pietersen hit his first ODI century for more than three years to steer England to a nine-wicket win over Pakistan at the Dubai Sports City Stadium Saturday to help them secure an unassailable 3-0 lead in the series.

Chasing 223 for victory, England eased home with 12.4 overs to spare after Pietersen (111 not out) and captain Alastair Cook (80) shared an opening partnership of 170.

Cook continued his excellent run with the bat, having made centuries in each of the first two matches in the series.

Pietersen's last one-day international century came against India in Cuttack in November 2008.

"It was a great start," said Cook. "It was nice to put a match-winning partnership together at the top of the order.

"Our bowlers were outstanding too. To keep them down to 222 on that wicket was a fantastic effort."

Earlier, Steve Finn took three for 24 and fellow paceman Stuart Broad grabbed three for 42 as Pakistan were bowled out after winning the toss and deciding to bat.

All-rounder Shahid Afridi top-scored with 51 while Umar Akmal made 50.

"Full credit to the England team," said Pakistan skipper Misbah-ul-Haq. "Their seamers are really bowling well and putting us under pressure ... and it was a wonderful performance by their batsmen.

"One thing we can improve on is we can bat better than this and then try and set a good target and give our bowling a chance."

The fourth and final match in the series is in Dubai on Tuesday.

Afridi hit a 55-ball 51 while Umar scored a 92-ball 50 during their 79-run sixth wicket stand which lifted Pakistan from a precarious 97-5 after Misbah-ul Haq won his first toss in the four-match series and chose to bat.

But Pakistan, trailing 2-0 after losing the first two matches in Abu Dhabi, initially failed to improve their fortunes as they lost Azhar Ali (five), Mohammad Hafeez (29) and Misbah (one) in the space of just two runs.

Two of these wickets went to paceman Stuart Broad, who finished with 3-42, while the impressive Steven Finn added one to his early breakthrough of Imran Farhat (nine) in this pacemen domination period.

Finn - who took four wickets apiece in the first two matches after sitting out the test series - finished with 3-24 off ten overs.

Afridi and Umar repaired the innings, with Afridi hitting three boundaries and a six.

Broad returned for his second spell to dismiss Umar, caught by Samit Patel after hitting just one boundary.

Afridi followed four runs later when he failed to connect properly with a big drive off paceman James Anderson who finished with 2-52.

Pakistan were forced to leave out experienced batsman Younis Khan who was suffering from a fever.

Left-arm spinner Abdur Rehman was also left out from Wednesday's line-up and Asad Shafiq and Adnan Akmal were brought in.

England remained unchanged from the second match. Shafiq (18) also added 46 for the fifth wicket with Umar before he was run out. Umar Gul made 27 not out to give some late momentum to the innings.

Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.