“The schedule’s hectic; heavy on our bodies.” – Reeza Hendricks
Telford Vice / Catania, Sicily
ALL white-ball series should be played inside a week. That way there’s no time to think too much about a kind of cricket that cannot survive much thinking about.
England won the first T20I with a bang in Bristol on Wednesday. South Africa returned the favour in Cardiff on Thursday. And here we are, hurtling towards the decider in Southampton on Sunday. To borrow a former slogan from one of CSA’s many former sponsors: simpler, better, faster.
Both teams’ XIs were retained from the first game of the series to the next, and there isn’t much reason to fiddle with them. How do you justify making significant changes to combinations that have done what was asked of them, and done it well, albeit on different days?
Not that the series has been about constants. About the closest we’ve come to that state of grace is the batting of Reeza Hendricks, the only player on either side to score half-centuries in both matches. And Chris Jordan, who followed going for only three runs in the 18th over of South Africa’s innings in Bristol with conceding just four in the 20th in Cardiff.
Rather, it’s the wild swing of contrast that, along with and probably aided by the rubber’s compressed timeframe, has kept things interesting. The South Africans dropped five catches on Wednesday, some of them surely easier to hold than spill. On Thursday, they caught everything that came their way — including chances that seemed impossible to hang onto. On Wednesday, England’s batting bristled with unstoppable attacking intent. Until it was stopped in its tracks on Thursday.
Thus trying to predict what might happen on Sunday is futile and, worse, boring. The Rose Bowl will resemble nothing so much as a giant roulette wheel, and the ball a die ready for the rolling. Because the series has delivered casino cricket, there is every reason to believe the unpredictability will, happily, continue unchecked on Sunday.
This time next week, few of us might remember what happened in Bristol on Wednesday, Cardiff on Thursday and Southampton on Sunday. And that’s the way it should be: this is not cricket to analyse and unpick for hours after it has been played, but cricket to appreciate for what it is when it is being played.
That isn’t to devalue it, but instead to recognise and indeed celebrate that not everything is or should be forever. Especially three T20Is played in five days. Besides, what’s not to like about having dessert before the rest of a meal? Have fun. Move on.
When: July 31, 2022; 3.30pm Local Time
Where: The Rose Bowl, Southampton
What to expect: Rain on Saturday night, which could slow the outfield and quicken the pitch.
Team News:
England: Richard Gleeson’s 38 runs in three overs on Thursday may prompt his replacement by David Willey.
Possible XI: Jason Roy, Jos Buttler (c), Dawid Malan, Moeen Ali, Jonny Bairstow, Sam Curran, Liam Livingstone, Chris Jordan, Adil Rashid, David Willey, Reece Topley.
South Africa: It’s difficult to tinker with an XI that bounced back emphatically 24 hours after being properly beaten.
Possible XI: Quinton de Kock, Reeza Hendricks, Rilee Rossouw, Heinrich Klaasen, Tristan Stubbs, David Miller (c), Andile Phehlukwayo, Kagiso Rabada, Keshav Maharaj, Lungi Ngidi, Tabraiz Shamsi.
What they said:
“You want to win every series you play. We haven’t won one yet this summer and that’s something we’re not accustomed to as a group. But this is the start of a new cycle as a team. We’re still working ourselves out and gelling and we need to do that quickly. Winning a series would be great for that.” — Jos Buttler tries to get a grip on England’s transition.
“The schedule’s quite hectic; quite heavy on our bodies. But if you get onto a good run you can continue with that momentum.” — Reeza Hendricks has done just that in the first two games.
First published by Cricbuzz.
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