England men’s One Day International (ODI) captain Jos Buttler won the toss and elected to bat in the final Champions Trophy Group B match against South Africa in Karachi on Saturday.
The match, being played at Karachi’s National Stadium, now carries the weight of an era’s closure for England with their captain Buttler announcing his resignation before the match, while South Africa eyes a top-of-the-group finish to secure a smoother semi-final path.
South Africa were forced to make two changes with captain Temba Bavuma and opener Tony de Zorzi being ill. They were replaced with Tristan Stubbs and Heinrich Klaasen, who was recovering from an elbow injury and had to sit out South Africa’s opener against Afghanistan in the Champions Trophy.
Aiden Markram took over the captaincy for South Africa in Bavuma’s absence while England have one change with fast bowler Saqib Mahmood replacing the injured Mark Wood.
Yesterday, Australia qualified for the Champions Trophy semi-finals after their Group B match against Afghanistan ended without a result due to persistent rain in Lahore.
Chasing 274 for victory at Gaddafi Stadium, Australia were 109-1 in 12.5 overs when rain stopped play, giving them four points in their three games.
Afghanistan, who have three points from two games, need England to beat South Africa by a massive margin in Karachi on Saturday to sneak into the last four on net run-rate.
Afghanistan’s -0.99 net run-rate is inferior to South Africa’s 2.14 despite beating former world champions England by eight runs in Lahore on Wednesday.
England will need to defeat South Africa by at least 207 runs if they bat first or will have to chase in 11.1 overs (considering a target of 300 in both situations) for Afghanistan to qualify for the semi-finals of the Champions Trophy.
Responding to a question by Dawn.com at the pre-match press conference on Friday, South Africa men’s ODI coach Rob Walter said, “Yeah I think any experience in the subcontinent is valuable.
“Certainly, the tri-series was valuable for us, albeit that there was a large portion of the squad that wasn’t there, but they have been to Pakistan before. But all in all, it was a great exercise.
“[We] would have loved to have had one more game in that final, just to sort of tick it all off. But yeah, we’re pretty happy. We started the competition well on the back of some individually good performances in the tri-series. But as we’ve learned with cricket, conditions change all the time.
“There’s no one way, and there’s no one condition. It’s really about being adaptable.”
He was responding to a query regarding South Africa’s familiarity with the conditions in Karachi being a factor in the Champions Trophy, where they have a decent chance of winning their first ICC ODI trophy in nearly three decades.
In the lead up to the tournament, South Africa played a tri-series against New Zealand and hosts Pakistan, playing a match in Karachi and Lahore. South Africa last won an ICC ODI tournament when they won the 1998 ICC Knock Out Trophy, where they beat West Indies in the final by 4 wickets.
