With yet another humiliating Champions Trophy defeat, England's embarrassing campaign came to an end. In Jos Buttler's last game as England's white-ball captain, the side once again failed to perform well at the batting end. At the National Stadium in Karachi, England played South Africa and lost by 7 wickets after only defending 179 runs. Heinrich Klaasen and Rassie van der Dussen led South Africa to victory on Saturday in a methodical chase, despite the absence of team captains Temba Bavuma and Aiden Markram.
Van der Dussen, who was still undefeated at 72 runs, and Klaasen, who was recovering from an elbow injury, led the team's chase with a strong 64 off 56 balls. Due to Mark Wood's injury, England's bowling was overworked, but they still put on a tough display for the opening 15 overs.
Ryan Rickleton and Tristan Stubbs were sent back into the bench after Jofra Archer took two wickets in the opening powerplay. But after Klaasen and van der Dussen got their act together, South Africa found it much simpler to chase down the 180-run goal in just 29.1 overs.
In their most recent Champions Trophy match, England just did not have enough runs to hold off a formidable batting order. And that was due to their awful performance during the first inning of the game, where they were once more hit by their own careless shots. In an interview with Ian Award on Sky Sports, former England cricketer Michael Atherton chastised the team for their terrible shot choices. They just ran out of players who could play a steady innings and lead England to a winning total in every game, according to Atherton, who also claimed that most of the England batters were in poor form going into the competition.
As players like Harry Brook and Liam Livingstone lost their wickets on Saturday due to reckless middle-order shots, Aherton's remarks were also correct. With 30 overs remaining in the match, both Livingstone and Brook had an opportunity to demonstrate their abilities by playing a lengthy innings. Nevertheless, within the first 25 overs of the match, England's bottom middle-order was exposed as two contenders for the future captaincy gave up their wickets to Keshav Maharaj. With a maximum score of 37 from 44 balls on Saturday, Joe Root essentially summed up the situation for England, who were bowled out in just 38.2 overs.
With three wickets at the beginning of the innings, Marco Jansen was the standout bowler for South Africa. Wiaan Mulder finished the innings with three wickets, while Kehshav Maharaj dominated the middle overs with a 10-1-35-2 performance.' With the victory, South Africa, who led Group B with an incredible Net Run Rate of +2.395, advanced to the semi-finals. On Sunday, March 2, they will play the losers of the match between India and New Zealand.
