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10th over: England 62-3 (Root 14, Brook 12) Brook is playing the McCullum way – when up against it, go even harder. He gives Rabada the charge and plays a gorgeous shot, a cover drive from just outside leg. Then he tries it again, Rabada follows him, and Brook can’t connect. That’s the best and worst of Bazball in a nutshell. But it’s definitely not wimpish.
The Powerplay ends with England rattling along at a run a ball. But not many ODIs are won by teams that have lost three wickets at this stage.
9th over: England 57-3 (Root 13, Brook 8) Root, facing Jansen, celebrates his escape with a classical straight drive and an exemplary pull, getting on top of the bounce in a way that eluded Salt and Smith.
8th over: England 47-3 (Root 4, Brook 8) If England were to lose Joe Root now, their capitulation would be complete. And he’s dropped! As Kagiso Rabada replaced Ngidi, Root went for one of his favourite shots, the glide past gully, and hit it straight to Wiaan Mulder, who couldn’t hold on. Harry Brook, widely tipped to be England’s next white-ball captain, grabs the wheel with two square drives for four, both beautifully struck – one wristy and subtle, the other scorching across the turf.
7th over: England 38-3 (Root 3, Brook 0) So Jansen has 3-19 off four overs. And England seem to have reached the stage we’ve seen all too often on tours of Australia: reduced to rubble.
WICKET! Duckett c & b Jansen 24 (England 37-3)
Duckett’s strength becomes a weakness as that clip to leg turns into a leading edge and the ball loops back to the bowler. Hello darkness, my old friend.
6th over: England 37-2 (Duckett 24, Root 3) Ngidi finds his line and concedes only two singles.
“Why is Jamie Smith in at 3,” splutters Patrick Kennedy. “Root claims 4 as the senior pro, but Brook loafs at 5 and Buttler leads (?) from 6… Smith is a keeper/batter and gets sacrificed for the wimps in the middle order! No wonder England are Rubbish - oh and Salt needs to work out the difference between 50 and 20 overs.” Fair comment on Smith and Salt, but please, let’s not call any of these players a wimp.
Root is one of England’s all-time greats in Test cricket, and pretty good at this too. Brook has it in him to be even better than Root, and Buttler is England’s greatest-ever white-ball batter. They all face lethally fast bowling, and formidably high pressure, all the time. They are the opposite of wimps.
5th over: England 35-2 (Duckett 23, Root 2) Duckett picks up his first four off Jansen, who, like Ngidi, strays onto the leg stump. And then, in another action replay, Jansen does it again and Duckett helps himself to two more. This game is so easy when you’re in form and so fiendish when you’re not.
4th over: England 28-2 (Duckett 17, Root 1) Duckett, still quite unruffled, glances Ngidi for four more – but then he’s nearly run out! He plays a nice square force, turns for the third run, and would be out by several yards if South Africa had anyone at the stumps to gather Stubbs’s excellent throw (Markram did amble in, rather too late). So Duckett survives and he’s now the leading scorer in this Champions Trophy, with 220, just ahead of Ibrahim Zadran (217).
3rd over: England 20-2 (Duckett 10, Root 0) So England’s two in-form batters are together again. And their two top-order flops just keep on flopping: Salt finishes with 30 runs in the tournament, Smith 24. McCullum gambled by putting Smith in at No 3, giving him an unfamiliar position in an unfamiliar format, and the gamble never looked like paying off.
WICKET! Smith c Markram b Jansen 0 (England 20-2)
Same again! A short ball, a miscued pull, a top edge, a simple catch. Jamie Smith’s first ICC tournament ends not with a bang, but a whimper.
2nd over: England 18-1 (Duckett 9, Smith 0) England have two players who have held their heads high throughout this troubled tour – Ben Duckett and Joe Root. Duckett, facing Lungi Ngidi, plays two serene clips for four, as if he hadn’t even noticed that he’d lost his opening partner.
1st over: England 9-1 (Duckett 0, Smith 0) Marco Jansen’s left-arm angle was a foreign language to poor Salt, who hadn’t even been able to face it in the nets as England left all their lefties at home. He managed a spank over cover for four but played and missed twice, almost gave a catch in the ring with a shovel to leg, and then got that top edge. One of the worst run-a-ball innings you will ever see.
WICKET! Salt c van der Dussen b Jansen 8 (England 9-1)
Oh dear. As a top edge soars into the air and plops into the hands of midwicket, Phil Salt’s miserable tournament is complete. And so, perhaps, is his ODI career.
The players are out there and the pitch is a biscuit, albeit with a few cracks. Correction to the team sheet: South Africa’s keeper is Klaasen, not Rickelton.
And here’s our man on the ground. “Greetings from Karachi, Tim, where the public address system hype person has just announced the two teams to err pretty much nobody,” says Ali Martin. “Did walk past Shahid Afridi in the media centre just now. He looks very dapper in a pink suit and aviators. It’s his birthday today, apparently, 48 years young. In other news, it appears Australia and (in all likelihood) South Africa will both fly from Pakistan to Dubai today, with one of them then doing an Abe Simpson and heading straight back to Lahore, depending on the result of India versus New Zealand tomorrow. What a farce.”
It’s grim, the way the ICC bosses pander to India. Volodymyr Zelenskyy they are not.
Teams: South Africa
Bavuma’s place goes to Tristan Stubbs, and Heinrich Klaasen is back to give the middle order an air of friendly menace.
1 Ryan Rickelton (wkt), 2 Tristan Stubbs, 3 Rassie van der Dussen, 4 Aiden Markram (capt), 5 Heinrich Klaasen, 6 David Miller, 7 Wiaan Mulder, 8 Marco Jansen, 9 Keshav Maharaj, 10 Kagiso Rabada, 11 Lungi Ngidi.
Teams: England
Mark Wood picked up yet another injury on Wednesday, so England bring in Saqib Mahmood, whose swing should add some much-needed variety. That’s the only change: Brendon McCullum is not a coach who believes in giving everybody a go.
England 1 Salt, 2 Duckett, 3 Smith (wkt), 4 Root, 5 Brook, 6 Buttler (capt), 7 Livingstone, 8 J Overton, 9 Archer, 10 Rashid, 11 Mahmood.
The other captain is ... Aiden Markram
There’s illness in the South African camp and Temba Bavuma is one of those who are stricken. Aiden Markram takes over, possibly not on the strength of his oratory. At the toss, he’s a little terse, but polite. “Happy to chase,” he mutters, “against a strong England team.”
Toss: a win for Jos!
Jos Buttler calls heads, and heads it is. He decides to bat first. “Honoured to do it for one last time,” he says. “A bit of sadness – it’s such an honour and it’s not panned out as I would have liked it to. But, some good moments along the way…” He can say that again: he won a T20 World Cup. And even in the bad times, he has led with dignity and decency.
Preamble
Well, this is exciting. South Africa have all but qualified already, and England, after yesterday’s damp squib involving Australia and Afghanistan, can’t even climb off the bottom of the group. If the coaches had a full set of reserves, they might be tempted to make 11 changes.
Still, there’s always pride. And personal achievement. And the arc of a career. There are wickets to be taken, hundreds to be scored, nudges to be given. One side have semi-final places to play for; the other have markers to lay down for a rebuild. And Jos Buttler has one last outing as England’s white-ball captain. He may have had a torrid time lately, but he was good enough to lift a World Cup.
The rubber may be a dead one, but this is a contest between the second-fastest scorers in the 2025 Champions Trophy so far and the third-fastest. And it’s not the South Africans who are second.
Play starts at 9am GMT. See you about 8.35 with news of the toss and the teams.
