South Africa tour of England, 2025 Update...

[The Founder]

South Africa tour of England, 2025

England vs South Africa, 1st ODI - Live Cricket


England (Playing XI): Jamie Smith, Ben Duckett, Joe Root, Harry Brook(c), Jos Buttler(w), Jacob Bethell, Will Jacks, Brydon Carse, Jofra Archer, Adil Rashid, Sonny Baker
Preview by Telford Vice

Once it was flat caps and top hats, fish 'n chips and smoked salmon, grittiness and grandiosity, and beer and champagne. It was around 195 miles. Now it's 300 kilometres.

However you sketch the contrasts between Headingley in Leeds and Lord's in London, they are vast. It's north versus south, which means plenty in a society still riven along class and cultural lines. Or does it?

As Australia's players walked through the Long Room at Lord's during the 2023 Ashes, they were verbally abused by supposedly civilised MCC members painted purple by their anger at Jonny Bairstow's entirely legitimate run out. At Headingley, where the next match in that series was played, the Aussies were met by a barrage of boorish booing before play even started.

Maybe the conversation has reached the point where both Headingley and Lord's are veering towards classlessness, and not in a Marxist sense.

None of which will matter much to a South Africa side intent on adding an ODI series win in England to the success they achieved in the same format in Australia last month.

Despite beating West Indies 3-0 in their most recent foray in the format at home in May and June, the home side would seem vulnerable. Before that, they lost six of their seven ODIs. Not that the visitors have been in consistent form. They went to Australia with three wins in their previous 10 matches in the format.

There's a clue why these teams are fragile. England have sent 89 batters to the crease in ODIs in 2025. Of them, only Ben Duckett and Joe Root - twice - have scored centuries. Seventy-seven South Africans have taken guard in the format this year, and Matthew Breetzke, Ryan Rickelton and David Miller made their only three hundreds.

Also this year, New Zealand have enjoyed the benefit of eight centuries and Sri Lanka of five. Both teams have had more opportunities than England and South Africa - the Kiwis have sent 117 batters to the crease and the Lankans 95 - but there's no overlooking the fact of their players' success. Even minnows Scotland have been more successful than England and South Africa at scoring ODI hundreds in 2025 with five from 87 innings, albeit against opposition of similar status.

But the South Africans have a clear advantage over their hosts in that they are not as easily distracted from the task at hand. Maybe it's the cost of having to answer to a large and powerful press pack, something South Africa don't have to put up with. Or perhaps it's the thoroughly English tendency to overthink everything. Whatever it is, England's eyes are taken off the ball with remarkable frequency.

This time they're making excited noises about debutant fast bowler Sonny Baker, whose numbers (see below) don't seem to warrant the hype.

An even bigger story on Monday was Jamie Overton opting out of red-ball cricket indefinitely. "It is not possible to commit to all formats at every level, both physically and mentally," Overton posted on social media.

Overton has played two Tests, taking 4/310. That's an average of 77.50. In a word, meh. Yet The Times saw fit to hit its readers with the headline: "Overton shocks England by ruling himself out of Ashes".

Excuse the rest of us while we roll our eyes.

When: September 2 and 3, 2025; 1pm Local Time (2pm SAT, Noon GMT, 5.30pm IST)

Where: Headingley, Leeds and Lord's, London.

What to expect: Only one men's List A game has been completed at Headingley since the 2019 World Cup - between England and Australia in September last year. Mitchell Marsh and Alex Carey scored 60 and 74 in a total of 270, and Mitchell Starc took 3/50 in a reply of 202. Three men's List A games have been played at Lord's from August last year. The average first innings in those matches is 234, and the team batting first were dismissed once. The games produced eight half-centuries, no centuries, and no five-wicket hauls.

Team News:

England: Sonny Baker, a 22-year-old fast bowler, is in an England squad for the first time and will make his debut on Tuesday. Baker hasn't played a List A match since August 2022, but he has taken 17 wickets at an economy rate of 8.58 in 13 T20s this year. He was less effective in The Hundred this year, when he was joint-65th among the wicket-takers and 52nd in economy rate terms. Jofra Archer is back in the ODI mix for the first time since he played against South Africa in the Champions Trophy in Karachi in March.

Probable XI: Jamie Smith, Ben Duckett, Joe Root, Harry Brook (capt), Jos Buttler, Jacob Bethell, Will Jacks, Brydon Carse, Jofra Archer, Adil Rashid, Sonny Baker.

South Africa: Spearhead and talisman Kagiso Rabada returns to the squad after missing the ODI series in Australia last month with an ankle injury. But the fact that Codi Yusuf has been added to the squad suggests Rabada is not yet back to full fitness. Matthew Breetzke, who has scored from 52 to 93 in consecutive white-ball innings for Northamptonshire and South Africa, has been rested.

Probable XI: Aiden Markram, Ryan Rickelton, Temba Bavuma (capt), Tony de Zorzi, Tristan Stubbs, Dewald Brevis, Wiaan Mulder, Corbin Bosch, Keshav Maharaj, Nandre Burger, Lungi Ngidi.

What they said:

"He's been awesome in The Hundred. We've seen him bowl at some of the best batters in the world and he had them on toast. He bowls at high pace and he can swing it both ways with exceptional death skills as well. To have him in the team and for him to be opening up tomorrow is awesome." - Harry Brook on Sonny Baker, despite the latter's lacklustre stats in The Hundred.

"Winning away from home is never easy, so we won't look past that. We wanted to win that series, and we did. But it also showed us there are areas within our game that we need to improve. We're far from where we want to be, and this series will give us another opportunity to improve. But we need to make sure we keep winning while we're working towards where we'd like to be." - Temba Bavuma on the work in progress that is his team.

Squads:
South Africa Squad: Aiden Markram, Ryan Rickelton(w), Temba Bavuma(c), Matthew Breetzke, Tristan Stubbs, Dewald Brevis, Wiaan Mulder, Keshav Maharaj, Corbin Bosch, Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi, Senuran Muthusamy, Tony de Zorzi, Nandre Burger, Kwena Maphaka, Lhuan-dre Pretorius

England Squad: Jamie Smith, Ben Duckett, Joe Root, Harry Brook(c), Jos Buttler(w), Jacob Bethell, Will Jacks, Brydon Carse, Jofra Archer, Adil Rashid, Sonny Baker, Jamie Overton, Saqib Mahmood, Tom Banton, Rehan Ahmed