Harry Brook slammed a ‘shambles of a night’ after England were comfortably outhit by a powerful South African batting line-up on a rain-shortened evening in Cardiff.
Chasing 69 off five overs to win the first of three T20s, his team managed just 54 for five, with only Jos Buttler passing 10. That followed South Africa’s imposing 97 for five from 7.5 overs in a game already reduced to nine each by soggy conditions that might normally have resulted in a washout.
Technically, this was international cricket, but England showed what they thought of it by removing Jofra Archer from the XI they had named on Tuesday, in case he slipped on the greasy outfield and did himself a mischief ahead of an Ashes series labelled by Brendon McCullum as ‘the biggest series of our lives’.
And while there was no doubt which side deserved victory, with South Africa launching nine sixes to England’s five, it was a borderline decision by match officials to get a game on for the 7,414 patient fans who had braved the weather in the Welsh capital.
Asked whether he could derive anything meaningful from a match totalling 77 balls, Brook replied: ‘I don’t think there’s any point, really. It was a bit of a shambles of a night.’
Pressed on whether the game should have taken place at all, he said: ‘That’s not for me to decide. We’ve just got to go out there and try to perform at our best.’
Brook, whose four-ball duck may yet go down as the least memorable innings of his England career, also expressed surprise that South Africa could get away with employing only three of their bowlers, with both Marco Jansen and Corbin Bosch able to send down two overs each.
‘I’m not one to know all the rules,’ he said, ‘but I’d have thought every bowler would have to bowl one over. But these are the rules we’re given.’
It seemed pointless looking for English positives as they went down to their third white-ball defeat out of four, though Sam Curran – in his first appearance in any format during the McCullum era – took a wicket with his first ball, then hit the first he faced down the ground for six.
His dismissal of Dewald Brevis, one of two South Africans – along with Donovan Ferreira – to hit three sixes, came from a delivery measuring 51mph, which was actually quite quick by the standards of some of the slower balls he has been honing for Surrey and Oval Invincibles. And it completely outfoxed Brevis, who was far too early on his attempted heave to leg, and ended up spooning a simple catch to Luke Wood at backward point.
Wood, Archer’s late replacement, had begun by having Ryan Rickelton caught behind from the second ball of the match, and later added the wicket of Lhuan-dre Pretorius and held a skyer to catch Aiden Markram.
But South Africa are full of muscle, and showed why they are among the favourites for next year’s T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka. Jamie Overton and Adil Rashid disappeared for three sixes each, while Liam Dawson was hit for two in his only over.
England’s required rate was 14 from the start, but Phil Salt – who had earlier fluffed a catch at deep midwicket to reprieve South African captain Aiden Markram – pulled the first ball of the chase to Kwena Maphaka at deep backward square, and England never got going.
They may now need to win both the remaining matches, at Manchester on Friday and Nottingham on Sunday, to deny South Africa a pair of series victories.
