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England captain Harry Brook admitted “nobody wants to come and watch that” after his side suffered a humiliating seven-wicket loss to South Africa in Leeds on Tuesday.
An opening one-day international scheduled for 100 overs was finished inside 46, with England dismissed for a mere 131 as they lost their last seven wickets for just 29 runs at their skipper’s Headingley home ground.
Jamie Smith (54) played the only England innings of note as left-arm spinner Keshav Maharaj (4-22), the world’s top-ranked ODI bowler, and all-rounder Wiaan Mulder (3-33) did the bulk of the damage.
South Africa opener Aiden Markram, with 86 off 55 balls, continued the rout as the Proteas went 1-0 up in a three-match series ahead of Thursday’s second ODI at Lord’s.
“It’s not good enough. I can’t say much more than we’ve just had a bad day,” said Brook.
“Nobody wants to come and watch that,” he added after a chastening defeat which ended the six-game winning streak, all against the West Indies this season, that marked the start of the Yorkshireman’s reign as England’s white-ball captain.
England came into the match with no 50-overs-per-side preparation against a South Africa side fresh from a 2-1 series win in Australia.
But Brook, involved in a thrilling drawn Test series with India that was followed by the recently concluded Hundred competition, refused to blame the schedule for a woeful defeat.
“In my eyes that’s an excuse,” he said. “We’re not a team that makes excuses up.”
Markram was especially severe on Sonny Baker, whose first seven overs in international cricket cost 76 runs –the most expensive return by an England debutant in ODIs.
Brook, explaining why he let Baker suffer such punishment, said: “I was just trying to get him a wicket, to be honest.”
“He hasn’t had the greatest of days, but the energy he brought and the desire to just keep on hammering away was awesome to see… Markram played some unbelievably good shots in there as well, so hats off to him.”
Maharaj, meanwhile, was taken aback by England’s display.
“We didn’t expect the England batters to fall short like that,” he said. “The way we started, we put on a lot of pressure with the ball.”
Maharaj, who praised Markram for “taking the game by its horns,” added: “It was a long journey from Australia, but a lot of momentum was carried from that series and we stayed true to our processes.”
