Paul Collingwood said he was proud to score an unbeaten century on the day he became England's most capped one-day international player.
The 33-year-old was undefeated on 105 as the tourists overhauled South Africa's 250-9 in 46 overs to take a 1-0 lead in the five-match series.
"I'm obviously proud to break the record," Collingwood told BBC Sport.
"But then to go out there and put a performance in like that, it makes it a very special day."
In winning his 171st cap, the Durham all-rounder overtakes the previous record, which was held by former captain Alec Stewart.
"You look back on records at the end of your career," Collingwood added after the seven-wicket win. "In the context of world cricket, it's not that many appearances.
"But for England it's a nice record to have and, even though I'm sure there's some young lads who will play more games than me, I'm still keen to make a few more appearances."
He always contributes. In one-day cricket especially, he has the ability to take the game away from the opposition
Andrew Strauss on Paul Collingwood
Collingwood shared in a third-wicket stand of 162 with Jonathan Trott (87), who opened the batting after Alastair Cook was ruled out with a back injury.
"He played a lovely anchor role and put us into a really strong position," said Collingwood.
"When someone comes into international cricket, it's easy to tell them to keep doing what they do in county cricket, be he's just focussed on what he does well for Warwickshire. Today was a prime example of that."
As well as his exploits with the bat, Collingwood also picked up 2-24 with the ball and took a spectacular catch at point to dismiss AB de Villiers.
With over 4,000 runs, 99 wickets and 98 catches to his name, he stands on the verge of becoming the first Englishman, and only the ninth man in history, of doing the 'treble' of 1,000 runs, 100 wickets and 100 catches in one-day internationals.
"He always contributes," said captain Andrew Strauss. "In one-day cricket especially, he has the ability to take the game away from the opposition.
"He's playing with more intent now, which is great to see because he's got all the shots."
As well as Cook, England were still without injured pair Stuart Broad and Graeme Swann, but Strauss was confident that both would be available for Friday's third match of the series in Cape Town.
"Stuart Broad is looking promising, he's been bowling in practice," added Strauss.
"We're still very hopeful with Graeme Swann but we're also hoping that we don't get any more injuries in the next few days.
"We will keep Liam Plunkett in the squad as a precaution, but we're confident that our injury crisis is getting better by the day."
In Swann's absence, young leg-spinner Adil Rashid filled the role as England's frontline slow bowler, but conceded 27 runs in three wicketless overs.
"We've got to be patient with him because he's in the early stages of his career," said Strauss. "He will only improve by playing.
"It wasn't an easy wicket to bowl spin on and the South African spinners struggled as well."
England have now beaten South Africa in their last six completed one-day internationals, with Proteas captain Graeme Smith blaming a below-par total for his side's latest defeat.
"I thought we were about 30 runs short," said Smith. "We could have definitely got to 280, we just gave away a couple of soft dismissals.
"Every time we started to gain momentum or build a partnership, we lost a wicket.
"The run [of defeats against England] is not something I've thought about, I like to look at each series as a new event.
"There's a lot of cricket to be played in this series and new challenges for our players to face. It's up to us to work hard in Cape Town because we want to play well on Friday night."
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