England’s revival versus South Africa’s rebuild

If you’re an English cricket fan, you can be excused for feeling like this white-ball stuff has gotten a bit too crowded. The Hundred has just concluded, the badly neglected One-Day Cup has taken a 20-day hiatus until the final on September 20, and the Vitality Blast will resume in two days at the quarter-final stage. 

And from September 2, the England men’s cricket team will return to a format it has struggled to adapt to. The first of three ODIs against South Africa is in Leeds, pitting together a team that has just beaten Australia 2-1 against one that has lost six of nine games this year. 

South Africa returned to the ODI game recently and won the first two clashes in Australia to make it a fifth consecutive bilateral series win over the world champions, but then were smashed by 276 runs in the dead rubber. That was in part due to South Africa fielding a rather green bowling attack, and after the shellacking their leader Temba Bavuma admitted that the team is “quite far” from where it wants to be at the World Cup in 2027. 

South Africa’s squad is the same from the Australia tour, which means that more inexperienced players will be tested. The positive from Australia was the batting form of Matthew Breetze, who reeled off fifties in his only two games which makes it four 50-plus scores in his four ODIs to date. South Africa will persist with the new opening combination of Ryan Rickelton and Aiden Markram, and then hope that the others around Breetzke – such as the rookie Dewald Brevis – find some form in a series where Bavuma expects “a lot more balls to go flying”.

England, under Jos Buttler, were blanked 0-3 in India, then lost all three of its Champions Trophy matches. Buttler resigned from the leadership, a few tweaks were made, and England beat West Indies 3-0 at home in June. Which is not saying much, given its West Indies. 

These three ODIs, followed by as many T20Is, will close out England’s home season. The shadow of the Ashes looms, no doubt, and there is a T20 World Cup in the new year but given the lows to which England fell as an ODI team under Buttler, you get the sense that new captain Harry Brook will be determined to give the fans reason to believe that his men can compete in the 50-over format. 

This series sees the return of the in-form allrounder Rehan Ahmed, who has dazzled in the County Championship and The Hundred. The uncapped Hampshire pace bowler Sonny Baker, 22, has also been rewarded with a maiden call-up after impressing in The Hundred with Manchester Originals. He has been tipped as an Ashes bolter, so it will be interesting to see whether Brendon McCullum and Brook give the rookie a shot in the series. 

The challenge for Brook and McCullum is to convince England cricket fans that this team can return to becoming a force in ODI cricket. South Africa will pose a sterner threat than West Indies did, which makes this brief series interesting to track.