Key events
26th over: England 129-7 (Buttler 8, Archer 0) Jofra Archer has done well at the death in this tournament, throwing the bat, but now he has time to make a painstaking 50, which may not be his thing. At the other end, poor old Jos Buttler is in danger of ending his stint as captain with 12 not out.
WICKET! Overton c Ngidi b Rabada 11 (England 129-7)
Another one bites the dust. And it’s another fine piece of fielding as Overton plays a mis-timed chip over the bowler and Lungi Ngidi runs back, keeps his eye on the ball and dives to grab the catch.
25th over: England 129-6 (Buttler 8, Overton 11) When Maharaj drops short for once, Overton is alert to it and he cuts for four. That’s only the third time England have found the boundary since the end of the 12th over. And this is a fast outfield. One odd thing about their tournament is that they managed to reach 300 twice with so many batters out of form – Salt, Smith, Brook, Livingstone.
24th over: England 124-6 (Buttler 8, Overton 6) Buttler and Overton are getting them in singles, which is probably wise as there’s just the tail to come.
And here’s Graham O’Reilly. “If this was footie, it would be the manager who was ‘let go’, not the captain. Why did anyone think that Baz was the answer to a completely different question to that which got him the gig with the Test team? Make the 5-day guys play with a bit of one-day pizazz, OK. But the short-game boys didn’t need that – they already knew what they were doing. All he’s brought is incompetent team selection and death-wish batting. There must be multiple choices who could do better.”
22nd over: England 116-6 (Buttler 5, Overton 1) Aiden Markram doesn’t have to do anything at the moment: he can just leave England to self-destruct. But he opts to give Mulder a rest (5-0-20-1, another one in the eye for McCullum’s all-pace policy) and brings back Ngidi, perhaps in order to boost his confidence. His over goes for just two singles.
21st over: England 114-6 (Buttler 4, Overton 0) So England, who always have a collapse up their sleeve, have produced two of them today, losing three wickets for 28 early on and now three for 15.
On the bright side, Jamie Overton has a 90 in a Test match, and he’s got time to make another one here.
WICKET! Livingstone st Klaasen b Maharaj 9 (England 114-6)
Bad to worse. Liam Livingstone, who had just played a nice lap for four off Maharaj, goes down the track, misses, and is easily stumped.
20th over: England 103-5 (Buttler 2, Livingstone 1) That’s a big scalp for Mulder and in the space of two overs, England’s revival has fallen apart. Brook finishes his first Champions Trophy with 47 runs, so he, Salt and Smith have managed 101 between them in nine innings. Root, by contrast, finishes with 225, second only to Duckett (227) among the leading scorers in the whole tournament.
WICKET!! Root b Mulder 37 (England 103-5)
Nooooo! Mulder goes wobble-seam, beats Root’s inside edge, brushes the pad and rattles his stumps. That is just what Buttler didn’t need.
17th over: England 100-4 (Root 37, Buttler 1) Before the wicket, Root had found the boundary with a reverse sweep, and then nearly succumbed to another one. So it could have been ever worse.
Now here comes Jos Buttler, for the last time as England captain. Walking to the wicket, he seems to have the world on his shoulders, but when he gets there he brightens and exchanges a fist-bump with Root.
WICKET! Brook c Jansen b Maharaj 19 (England 99-4)
The pressure tells! Brook sends a skyer into the legside and, just when the commentators think he’s got away with it, Marco Jansen somehow swoops to take the catch by his ankles.
16th over: England 92-3 (Root 31, Brook 18) Mulder continues and manages to stifle Brook, who ends up playing a pull from outside leg stump. He connects well but can’t evade the man at deep square, and England have now gone four overs without a boundary – a good effort from South Africa in the face of a true pitch, a fast outfield and a gifted pair of batters.
15th over: England 87-3 (Root 29, Brook 17) Aiden Markram decides it’s time for some spin, so on comes Keshav Maharaj. And yes, this is the third type of bowling seen today that England won’t have been able to practise against in the nets – slow left-arm. Root and Brook are watchful, taking just a single apiece. The second, an off-drive from Root, carries them to the 50 partnership off 48 balls.
14th over: England 85-3 (Root 28, Brook 16) Rabada does manage to put the plug in this time, conceding only three. And that’s drinks with England counter-attacking breezily after their early collapse. We may yet get a decent contest, but they can’t afford to lose more than one wicket in the middle overs.
13th over: England 82-3 (Root 27, Brook 14) No fireworks in this over from Mulder but there’s a wide, then another, and a couple of leg-byes. A caption informs us that Root now averages 50 in ICC tournaments, the only Englishman to do so (min 20 innings). He is well ahead of the next man, Graham Gooch with 44. He has been a model of consistency, the thing batters yearn for but seldom achieve.
12th over: England 77-3 (Root 27, Brook 13) Rabada tightens his line and almost bowls an excellent over, but then Root threads an on-drive through the gap at midwicket and it’s so well timed that it goes all the way. Lovely stuff.
11th over: England 70-3 (Root 22, Brook 12) Jansen takes a well-earned breather (5-0-29-3) and Wiaan Mulder comes on with another type of bowling this England side don’t see in the nets – bustling medium. He immediately finds some movement and has an LBW shout against Root, but Markram doesn’t feel it’s worth a review. After a few dots, Root flicks over square leg for six! It’s his second six of the tournament, in 215 balls.
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.
