Quinton de Kock will take charge of his first series in the format after being appointed South Africa’s captain on January 21. His team comprises neither Faf du Plessis nor Rabada, who have been rested for this series. de Kock also won’t have Nortje, Chris Morris and also Dale Steyn. He will, however, have Lungi Ngidi, back from his unfortunate injury and interesting talents like opener Janneman Malan, wicketkeeper-batsman Kyle Verreynne and fast bowler Lutho Sipamla.
England haven’t played an ODI since July 14 last year, when they managed to be crowned World Cup champions despite neither them nor New Zealand winning the final at Lord’s. England’s only players to cross fifty in that match, Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler, are missing from the equation for this series.
They will, however, be back for the T20 rubber. That’s what white-ball cricket is all about this year with, semantically, the inaugural T20 World Cup (previously the World T20) set for Australia in October and November. And that’s where the global game’s short-format focus will stay for at least another year: the ICC has canned the Champions Trophy, so another T20 World Cup will be played in 2021.
Even so, average performances in the one-dayers could be saved as assets towards achieving positions in T20 squads. Verreynne, for example, has ridden a tide of local dependence into South Africa’s squad.
Jonny Bairstow faces a different challenge. Having been an observer since he made one and nine in the first Test at Centurion, he needs to remind the people who matter, why he was picked. It won’t benefit Bairstow’s conviction that he performed in the only Test England lost on this assignment, but it won’t bother that he scored a century in a one-day tour match in Paarl on Saturday.
Their far-too-often shambolic showing in the Tests has heaped pressure on the South Africans, whose supporters will gladly accept success in the ODIs as the poor person’s salve for their wounded pride; so they will be heartened by the fact that South Africa have won all five of the games in the format they have played against England at Newlands. Alex Hales, the only player to have scored a century for England at the ground, also isn’t in their squad. Neither are James Anderson and Stuart Broad, their most successful bowlers in Cape Town.
Twenty totals higher than England’s Newlands best of 246/8 have been compiled in the 42 ODIs played there. They emphasize at joint-fourth on the table of lowest totals at this stadium.
However, given the trough South Africa stumbled into during the Test series, factors like that aren’t going to matter. Bigger issues will parse the teams: Things like whether the South Africans have remembered how to play cricket of any sort since their 1-3 series drubbing was sealed at the Wanderers last Monday; and whether England remember what ODI cricket is, considering they have played a dozen Tests and five T20s in the almost six months since the World Cup final.
