England lost the rain-affected first T20I against South Africa by 14 runs. The conditions were really wet and the game was reduced to nine overs per side, before being further trimmed down to five overs after mid-innings rain and England made a last-minute change to their playing XI.
South Africa got past the finishing line in the T20I series opener against England in Cardiff on Wednesday, September 10, but it was a rain-affected match and the conditions weren’t the best. England skipper Harry Brook shied away from commenting on ‘whether the match should have gone ahead or not’ because of the conditions, as it rained a lot in Cardiff, but it went ahead as a nine-over-per-side per side clash, before being further trimmed down to five overs after mid-innings rain.
England, at the last moment, decided to withdraw Jofra Archer despite having named him in the playing XI a day before. Brook referred to the Adam Hose injury during the Hundred that he wanted to avoid any such incident, given that the tall pacer has been injury-prone throughout his career and neither the team nor he could afford any more injuries amid wet conditions.
“It would have been stupid to play him with the amount of cricket we’ve got coming up,” Brook said after the match. “If he’d have gone out in the boundary and done what Adam Hose did in The Hundred and broken his leg or whatever, that would have been a shambles.
“As soon as we knew that the game was shortened, we didn’t think it was quite necessary for Jof to play. Obviously, the outfield was sodden and he’s got a lot of cricket to play in the next few months with a big series coming up. So, yeah, we, we decided to not play him,” he added. Left-arm pacer Luke Wood replaced Archer in the side and was a rather terrific inclusion as he ended up taking a couple of wickets in as many overs he bowled.
South Africa scored 97 in 7.5 overs before the rain arrived again, forcing further loss of time. England then were set a target of 69 runs off five overs through DLS method and they fell 14 runs short.