The South Africa bowling attack decimated England's batting order and bundled them out for just 131 runs in the first ODI of the three-match series. No batter except Jamie Smith managed to cross the 20-run mark as the Three Lions recorded their 7th lowest total at home in ODI history.
In reply, the South Africa batters gave a fantastic display and chased down the 132-run target in just 20.5 overs. Openers Aiden Markram and Ryan Rickelton formed a massive stand of 121 runs to provide the visitors with a solid start. They would lose both Temba Bavuma and Tristan Stubbs cheaply, but the match would be brought to an end by Dewald Brevis, who smacked Adil Rashid's dielivery for a six with his side needing just a run to win the game.
Following the conclusion of the match, former England cricketer Mark Butcher slammed the batters for their abysmal performance. He felt that South Africa's bowling wasn't that great and that the batters should have done far better than what they did.
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“But before we even got to the 25th over, England were all out. It was done. Yes, South Africa were very good, but they weren't that good. You know what I mean? We weren't playing against Marshall, Holding, Garner, et cetera, et cetera, who blew us away by virtue of unplayable bowling," Butcher told Sky Sports.
“We played some horrendous shots. Got no sort of responsibility being held by any of those fantastic, fantastic players England have in that middle order, to say, you know what, we can just absorb for a little while. Let's get ourselves back in and have a reassessment at some point and put a score on the board that our bowlers have a chance of bowling at. None of those things happen, you lose the game," he added.
South Africa's dominant display
Coming to South Africa, Keshav Maharaj and Wiaan Mulder were the stars of the show with the former taking four and the latter picking up three scalps respectively. Markram was the hero with the bat and played a fabulous inning of 86 runs from just 55 deliveries and was assisted well by Ryan Rickelton, who played an unbeaten cameo of 31 runs and guided the team to victory.
The second match of the one-day series between England and South Africa will be played on September 4 at Lord's. The Three Lions will be desperate to level up the series while the Proteas will be looking to seal the series with a second consecutive win.