England vs South Africa 1st ODI; South Africa defeated England by 62 runs and lead the series 1-0 at Chester-Le-Street on Tuesday as England’s star player Ben Stokes left the field in disappointment. It was Ben Stokes’ last ODI match as he announced his retirement from One Day International to focus more on T20s and Test cricket. Stokes just made 5 runs before he was LBW off-spinner Markram.
South Africa’s Van der Dussen scored his career-best 133 off 117 which leads to a total of 333/5 in 50 overs.
South Africa elected to bat after winning the toss under the deteriorating pitch. Van der Dussen’s 3rd ODI century and Aiden Markram’s 77 off 61 balls followed by the powerful bowling led South Africa to the front to build a wall against England.
Der Dussen, Markram duo sew up 151 runs in total and build a powerful partnership before the third wicket. But Liam Livingstone dismissed both in the same over to help England bounce back. Moeen Ali, Sam Curran, and Brydon Carse picked a wicket each to move England forward.
England’s openers Jason Roy (43), and Jonny Bairstow (63) have begun the show cheerfully with a partnership of 102 in 19 overs. But things soon started changing after Jason Roy fell by Keshav Maharaj with a good low catch.
Bairstow completed his fifty by 53 balls and hit a total of 63 runs. But he too was soon to go out. England kept losing wickets at regular intervals until Joe Root started fighting against South Africa. But a target of 103 of the last 8 overs was too much for Root to score alone when England already lost 6 wickets. The World’s top-ranked Test batsman was bowled out for an excellent 84 by Anrich Nortje and England was bowled out for 271.
England skipper Jos Buttler says it was a tough day in the heat and they failed to break the partnership between Der Dussen and Markram. They failed to make a breakthrough in the middle overs and the wicket got slower as well. It was a pretty hot day and they could not bear the 37° C in the tricky pitch. Even though they bowled well, the target was stiff for England.
On the other hand, South Africa was just brilliant in the match with smarter and well-executed plans. They saw how the pitch behaved in the 1st half and make plans with the ball. They never drift away from the game and got the 1st wicket in the 19th over by skipper Keshav Maharaj. De Kock and Malan set the platform for Der Dussen to play the special innings. For his sensational century, Der Dussen wins the Player-of-the-match award.
England lost the 1st ODI with South Africa after the failure of the 3-match ODI and T20 series against India last week. It’s time for Team England to check their strategies before the second ODI match. The continuous failure of the World’s best team over others may lead the team under pressure to win back their esteemed position at the international level.
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