It was a wet day in Cardiff and night, but somehow the umpires and groundsmen were able to eke out a game of a little less than 13 overs and a result as South Africa zoomed past England, who needed to chase 69 runs to win in just five overs.
A game of a total of 12.5 overs, with England being tasked to chase down 69 off five of them in wet conditions at Sophia Gardens in Cardiff, just felt a bit bizarre, given multiple inspections were held to sneak in a few overs somehow to get the game. England eventually fell short by 14 runs but what else could they have done, given they had to go after the bowling from the word go, requiring 14 runs per over. Phil Salt’s dismissal off the first ball of the innings, when he creamed it straight to the deep square leg fielder, pretty much summed up the contest.
To South Africa’s credit, each of the small cameos from Aiden Markram, Dewald Brevis, Tristan Stubbs and decisively from Donovan Ferreira in the end played a part in the Proteas ensuring that even if rain arrives between two innings, which it did, they had scored those extra two sixes as insurance. A total of nine sixes were hit in the Proteas’ innings of 7.5 overs before the rain cut the fun short, compared to England’s five in as many overs.
Jos Buttler hit three of them and, unfortunately for England, he was the only to play a 25-ball 11, while for South Africa, there were three. Ferreira scored exactly the same number of runs as Buttler, at the identical strike rate but he benefited from Markram giving a 14-ball 28 at the top and Brevis smashing a quickfire 23 off 10.
Sam Curran got Brevis off his ‘moon ball’, the very first delivery of his spell as he returned to international cricket after eight months. Luke Wood picked a couple of wickets early in the piece. However, England lacked the firepower in the middle and just needed to brush up that side of their batting,ย where the scores of 7, 0 and 5 from Jacob Bethell, captain Harry Brook and Tom Banton respectively didn’t help their cause.
South Africa will be glad to get off the mark in such a clash, where the margin between a win and a loss was negligible, and will now be keen to wrap up the series on Friday in Manchester.
ย