Show key events only Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature Live feed Key events: 28m ago WICKET! de Kock b Curran 19 (SA 35-1) 1h ago Teams: SA have the big guns 1h ago Teams: England welcome back Rashid 1h ago Toss: SA win and bat 1h ago Early team news: a debut for Potts 2h ago Preamble: we go again Show key events only Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature 3m ago 13. 54 12th over: South Africa 69-1 (Malan 32, van der Dussen 11) Rassie van der Dussen has been playing himself in, but he eats off-breaks for breakfast and he tucks into Moeen now, hitting a reverse-sweep for four, crisp as a piece of toast. 6m ago 13. 52 11th over: South Africa 59-1 (Malan 30, van der Dussen 7) Here is Brydon Carse, a paradox of a bowler: he’s big, fast, whole-hearted, accurate and has only ever had the wickets to show for it once in international cricket. His first over here goes for a respectable five. Updated at 13. 52 BST 11m ago 13. 47 10th over: South Africa 54-1 (Malan 28, van der Dussen 2) Both sides have a pair of spinners and on a hot day Buttler is keen to give one of his an early go. The slight surprise is that it’s Moeen Ali, who struggles to take ODI wickets these days. Plus, he doesn’t have a left-hander to bowl to as de Kock has gone. But Mo starts well, conceding only three and finding some turn. The PowerPlay ends with SA ahead on points, just. “Hi, Tim. ” Smylers! “I’m not sure about Matthew Potts joining the limited overs team, at least not while Matthew Mott is managing them: my brain apparently can’t cope with both of them being mentioned in the same coverage and remembering which one is which. ” Updated at 13. 48 BST 15m ago 13. 43 9th over: South Africa 51-1 (Malan 27, van der Dussen 2) Sam Curran blots his copybook too, conceding his second four as a would-be waspish lifter turns out to be a gentle long hop. Anyone called Malan, brought up in South Africa, knows how to play the pull. Updated at 13. 45 BST 19m ago 13. 39 8th over: South Africa 42-1 (Malan 20, van der Dussen 0) Buttler shows even more faith in Potts, but it’s just not his day. While the middle of this over is good, it begins with a wide and the fifth ball is an absolute gift, glanced for four by Malan. Potts has 4-0-33-0, and Buttler has a problem, as his other specialist right-arm seamer – Brydon Carse – has been anodyne lately. The stage is already set for some heroics from Ben Stokes. 25m ago 13. 33 7th over: South Africa 35-1 (Malan 14, van der Dussen 0) Curran keeps van der Dussen quiet too, and that is a wicket-maiden. So far Curran is doing a very good impression of Topley: 4-1-9-1. 28m ago 13. 30 WICKET! de Kock b Curran 19 (SA 35-1) The breakthrough! Curran again keeps de Kock quiet and then surgically removes him with a cutter that trims the leg bail. England needed that. Sam Curran of England celebrates after dismissing Quinton de Kock of South Africa. Photograph: Nathan Stirk/Getty Images Updated at 13. 43 BST 29m ago 13. 28 6th over: South Africa 35-0 (Malan 14, de Kock 19) Jos Buttler, like Ben Stokes, believes in showing belief in his players. Some other captains would have dropped Jason Roy by now, with Phil Salt in far better form. And when many a captain would take Potts off, Buttler keeps him on. His faith doesn’t bear dividends right away as Potts goes for seven and offers de Kock another cheap boundary, pushed to long-off. Potts has gone for four fours, Curran only one. 34m ago 13. 24 5th over: South Africa 28-0 (Malan 14, de Kock 12) Curran is getting closer to that immaculate over. He concedes only a single, to de Kock, and beats Malan on the outside edge for a change. Curran has gone for only nine runs off three overs, Potts for 19 off two. We have an email! “Preamble – England batting prospects,” says the subject line from John Starbuck. “For those interested,” he goes on, “you can currently see Haseeb Hameed and Ben Duckett batting together for Notts against Derbys, on the Livestream. ” Don’t send the punters away, John! But that does sound like a nice study in contrasts. 38m ago 13. 20 4th over: South Africa 27-0 (Malan 14, de Kock 11) Just when he seemed to have got through his early nerves, Potts has a shocker. He hands Malan two friendly length balls, both driven for four, one past cover, the other straight. And then he follows up with a wide. When you play with a different ball, as Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow have shown in the past week, it’s suddenly a different ball game. 42m ago 13. 15 3rd over: South Africa 16-0 (Malan 5, de Kock 10) Sam Curran ties de Kock down well for four balls, then spoils it by giving him a freebie – a wide half-volley, duly despatched to the cover boundary. Kumar Sangakkara spots that the offside ring is not in the right place: “they need to be a triangle”. 48m ago 13. 10 2nd over: South Africa 12-0 (Malan 5, de Kock 6) Here is Matthew Potts, handed the new ball ahead of his Durham team-mate Brydon Carse. He was presented with his cap by yet another Durham quick, Mark Wood, who confessed to being more nervous than he was when bowling in the World Cup final. “I probably drove my wife mad by practising my speech 386 times. ” Wood is a natural-born commentator. And Potts is a natural-born bowler, but he struggles a bit now, giving de Kock an easy cut for four, then bowling a wide, before recovering well. 52m ago 13. 06 1st over: South Africa 4-0 (Malan 3, de Kock 1) Reece Topley’s role as the new-ball bowler goes to Sam Curran, another leftie, albeit nine inches shorter and peroxide-blond. He finds some swing and beats Janneman Malan on the inside edge. Malan retorts with a confident punch through the covers that gives Ben Stokes something to do – he saves four but can’t prevent three. Quinton de Kock plays tip-and-run and would have sunk his partner had Liam Livingstone hit the stumps from midwicket. 1h ago 13. 00 The players are out there, and so is the scalding Durham sun. The forecast is for 36 degrees. As Mark Wood said, “it’s the first time I’ve ever heard Chester-le-Street described as a dry pitch”. 1h ago 12. 45 Teams: SA have the big guns No Bavuma, and no Kagiso Rabada either. But there should be plenty of runs in this team, with Quinton de Kock and Rassie van der Dussen ranked fifth and sixth in the ODI world, above any of their opponents. England’s uptown top-ranker is Bairstow at No 8. South Africa 1 Quinton de Kock (wkt), 2 Janneman Malan, 3 Rassie van der Dussen, 4 Aiden Markram, 5 Heinrich Klaasen, 6 David Miller, 7 Andile Phehlukwayo, 8 Keshav Maharaj (capt), 9 Anrich Nortje, 10 Lungi Ngidi, 11 Tabraiz Shamsi. Updated at 12. 53 BST 1h ago 12. 40 Teams: England welcome back Rashid England’s fab five get their final outing together. Can they do better than they did against India, when they were a rather flat five? Reece Topley gets a rest, and the seam attack looks anodyne unless Potts starts as strongly as he did in the Test team. But Buttler will be delighted to have Adil Rashid back, even if his excellence has largely migrated to T20s. England 1 Jason Roy, 2 Jonny Bairstow, 3 Joe Root, 4 Ben Stokes, 5 Jos Buttler (capt, wkt), 6 Moeen Ali, 7 Liam Livingstone, 8 Sam Curran, 9 Adil Rashid, 10 Brydon Carse, 11 Matthew Potts. Updated at 12. 42 BST 1h ago 12. 34 Toss: SA win and bat Keshav Maharaj calls heads, and heads it is. “It looks a little bit dry,” he says. Jos Buttler, always straightforward, admits that he would have batted too. “Hot day. ” He can say that again. 1h ago 12. 32 Early team news: a debut for Potts Matthew Potts, an instant senior player in the Test side, will make his ODI debut. 2h ago 12. 15 Preamble: we go again Afternoon everyone and welcome to . . . another bloody series! It’s not 48 hours since the end of the last one, and here we go again. Is it possible to have too much of a good thing? Discuss with reference to either sunshine or top-class sport. Older readers may remember a soul band of the Seventies called the Three Degrees. (If they came along now, they’d be the 43 Degrees. ) “Is this the beginning,” they sang , “or is it the end?” Today is both: the start of eight weeks of cricket between England and South Africa, and the finale of Ben Stokes’ ODI career in front of his home crowd. He announced his retirement yesterday with a very understandable broadside about the “unsustainable” demands being placed on the players. If you can’t stand the schedule, get out of the kitchen. England may well miss Stokes the batter, who has averaged 47 since the white-ball reset in 2015. They won’t miss Stokes the bowler, who has a mediocre average of 44 in the same period and is ranked 86th in the ODI world. They will miss Stokes the fielder, and perhaps most of all Stokes the sheer presence. But we the viewers, as well as savouring the precious moments of the 2019 World Cup, will still be able to enjoy his big hitting – it’s just that he’ll be doing it in whites. Who needs 50-over cricket when the Test team specialises in barnstorming 50-over run-chases? Stokes’ departure, coming on top of Morgan’s, will open the door for a left-hander in the top five. It looks like an intriguing choice for Jos Buttler and Matthew Mott: do they stick with Dawid Malan, who did well in the Netherlands last month and could also give Joe Root a rest, or twist with Ben Duckett (who seems to have grown up since he last played for England), or promote Moeen Ali and send for Sam Curran to be Stokes-lite, or just forget about left-and-right and bring back the very biddable Sam Billings? All that is for the future. Right now we have England needing a win after losing to India, who inflicted not just two series defeats but the demented scheduling caused by the fifth Test being shoehorned into this summer. And we have South Africa looking for an upset with a reshaped side. Their white-ball captain, Temba Bavuma, has a broken elbow, so Buttler will be walking out to the toss with the left-arm spinner Keshav Maharaj. That is at 12. 30pm UK time – see you shortly afterwards with the teams. Topics Cricket England cricket team South Africa cricket team Reuse this content.