The Times - UK (2020-12-02)

62 2GM Wednesday December 2 2020 | the times

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Dawid Malan and Jos Buttler put on a

T20 batting masterclass to help

England take the series 3-0 and put

them above Australia as the No 1 side in

the world rankings.

The touring side were chasing 192 to

win, which looked a real challenge after

some sloppiness in the field, but such is

the depth and destruction lurking in

England’s batting order that they

simply cruised home with 14 balls

remaining, as Malan and Buttler put on

an unbeaten 167 off only 90 balls — a

world-record partnership for the

second wicket.

You really do wonder if anyone can

beat England in this format at the

moment. They are that formidable.

And leading that pre-eminence is

Malan. Ranked No 1 in the world, he

took his game to new levels with a

magnificent 99 not out from 47 balls.

He hit the winning single but had not

done his sums correctly. He wanted a

century and he deserved one, too.

Much has been made of his relative

sluggishness at the start of his innings,

but here he hit his first two legal balls

(with a wide in between) for four and

then his third (a free hit) for six. It was

some flyer.

He did have a bit of luck. He was

adjudged leg-before to Lungi Ngidi on

16 but the decision was overturned on

review and he should have been run out

for 36, but Quinton de Kock fluffed the

opportunity. But otherwise he struck

the ball with astonishing cleanness, and

orthodoxy, too. Only the reverse-

sweeps off Tabraiz Shamsi could be

classed as inventive.

It says everything about his simple

brilliance that he put the electric

Buttler in the shade. The England

opener took six balls to get off the mark

but still passed his fifty off only 34 balls.

Only one run had come from the first

over of England’s innings, bowled by

the left-arm spinner George Linde, and

just when it appeared that Jason Roy

had banished his recent demons by

hitting Linde for six he was leg-before

to Anrich Nortje.

It was England’s only setback with

the bat. They were 56 for one at the end

of their powerplay (South Africa had

been 44 for one). Then came the killer

charge. The 11th over was bowled by

Lutho Sipamla and went for 21, as

Buttler attacked him with ferocious

ruthlessness, hitting his first two balls

for six. In the next over Malan passed

his fifty off only 26 balls, his fastest for

England, with a delightfully controlled

lofted drive over extra cover off Shamsi.

Nineteen came from that over.

The game was up then. South Africa

were broken.

They had had such high hopes at the

interval. They had won the toss and

batted, a decision based upon this being

Broad’s tally of 65 as England’s leading

wicket-taker in T20Is.

The home team’s problem in this

series has been that they do not bat long

in their order, and therefore have been

a lot more conservative than they

would like in the middle overs. Here it

meant that the ever-excellent Adil

Rashid got through his four overs for

only 20 runs, with 12 dot balls.

Then, this time, things changed

markedly. Faf du Plessis and Rassie van

der Dussen rallied muscularly, taking

Tom Curran for 16 in the 16th over, and

Even Buttler can’t

keep pace with

masterful Malan

Steve James

Cape Town (South Africa won toss):

England beat South Africa by nine

wickets

South Africa v England

Third T20 international

Umpires A Paleker and B Jele

TV Umpire A Holdstock (SA)

Reserve Umpire S George (SA)

Man of the match D Malan (Eng)

SOUTH AFRICA R B

*†Q de Kock

c T K Curran b Jordan

17 12

T Bavuma

c Jordan b Stokes

32 26

R R Hendricks

c Buttler b Stokes

13 14

F du Plessis

not out

52 37

H E van der Dussen

not out

74 32

Extras

(nb 1, w 2)

3

TOTAL (3 wkts, 20 overs) 191

PJ van Biljon, G F Linde, A Nortje,

L Sipamla, L Ngidi and T Shamsi did

not bat

Fall of wickets: 1-34, 2-61, 3-64

Bowling: S M Curran 3-0-35-0;

Archer 4-0-44-0; Jordan 4-0-42-1;

T K Curran 2-0-24-0; Rashid 4-0-20-0;

Stokes 3-0-26-2

ENGLAND R B

J J Roy

lbw b Nortje

16 14

†J C Buttler

not out

67 46

D J Malan

not out

99 47

Extras

(b 4, nb 1, w 5)

10

TOTAL (1 wkt, 17.4 overs) 192

J M Bairstow, B A Stokes, *E J G Morgan,

S M Curran, T K Curran, C J Jordan,

J C Archer and A U Rashid did not bat

Fall of wicket: 1-25

Bowling: Linde 4-0-26-0; Nortje 4-0-37-1;

Sipamla 2.4-0-45-0; Ngidi 3-0-23-0;

Shamsi 4-0-57-0

Third T20 international

the wrong idea. Ultimately players

win games by executing their skills

under pressure and holding their

nerve when it counts and by making

good decisions in the split-second

they have to react.” Absolutely.

Players win and lose matches, no

matter the quality of information they

I

t is unlikely that the messages

hanging down from England’s

balcony during the third T20

international as their bowlers

went around the park in the final

five overs of the innings — “4E”, “2C”

“4C” and the like — stood for “bowl a

high full toss” or “put it in the slot to

be smashed into the stands”, but they

represented the next stage in the

evolution of the game’s shortest form.

England analyst offers glimpse of future with

Mike Ather ton

Chief Cricket

Correspondent,

Cape Town

We will get to these soon enough,

but the only message that mattered

by the end of the night was that

England had hammered South Africa,

lowering the hosts’ flag at a ground

that used to be a fortress.

It was the first time that England

have managed a clean sweep in a

one-day series against South Africa

and it was completed in utterly

convincing style, with Dawid Malan

and Jos Buttler raining sixes into the

stands and South Africa powerless to

prevent the onslaught.

Readers of The Times would not be

surprised, perhaps, at the signals —

in the form of numbers and letters,

described as a “live information

resource” — that were being sent to

the field during South Africa’s innings.

It was during the spring lockdown

that we published a long email

conversation with Nathan Leamon,

England’s limited-overs analyst, who

revealed that he had been running

real-time simulations to send

messages to the captain, Shan

Masood, during his stint in the

Pakistan Super League with the

franchise Multan Sultans.

Leamon is on this tour and a

similar experiment has been

happening during this series,

although it was only last night that

we picked up on it.

Readers who remember the piece

with Leamon will recall his words:

“We ran models of the game and fed

that information to the captain in real

time with a system of signals. It is the

first time I know of it being done in

cricket but I suspect it will become

more common.”

Actually it had happened before,

during the World Cup in England in

1999, but then Bob Woolmer, South

Africa’s coach, fed information to

Hansie Cronje via an earpiece, which

was not, and is not, allowed. Signals

are fine, although there is so much

happening towards the end of a

T20 international that there is a

danger of confusion, not that the

England captain Eoin Morgan ever

gives the impression of uncertainty

or bewilderment.

Leamon’s follow-up should not be

forgotten: “There is an important

caveat, though, because it is the sort

of thing that can easily give people

The coded messages seemed of little

use as England went around the park

the same pitch as used for the first

match of the series, but it turned out to

be the best surface.

England would have batted first too

and went in unchanged while South

Africa made two enforced alterations,

with Kagiso Rabada suffering an

adductor strain that will force him out

of the forthcoming one-day inter-

national series and Heinrich

Klaasen ill.

Jofra Archer had said

before play that the

batsman he found

most difficult to

tame in T20

powerplays was

De Kock, an

adversary at the

recent IPL.

And the reasons

were clear when

De Kock hit Archer

for a four and six to

his favoured long-leg

region in successive balls

of the fourth over, but his

great mate Chris

Jordan has no such

fears and his

introduction for

the next over led

to De Kock skying

to mid-off.

It was third time

in a row (in just six

balls for only seven

runs) that Jordan had

snared the left-hander

in this series. With that

wicket, he passed Stuart

d said Malan reverse-sweeps in his 99 not out from 47 balls as England

the

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Malan re

No3’s incredible T20 record

53.43

Malan’s T20

international

average is the

highest of

anyone with at

least 300 runs,

ahead of Babar

Azam (50.93)

and Virat Kohli

(50.80)

10

T20 international

fifties for Malan.

He has played 19

matches. The

other 27 players

ever to have

reached the

mark have

played 42 or

more

11

Only 11 players

have played as

large an innings

in a T20 against

a Test-playing

nation at a

higher strike

rate