England captain Harry Brook has backed Sonny Baker to rebound from a tricky start to his international career after the young seamer was given a rough introduction by South Africa.
Brook oversaw a difficult welcome for Baker, who saw his first seven overs in international cricket swatted for 76 – the most expensive return by an England debutant in ODIs – as the hosts were beaten by seven wickets.
The young seamer could have been withdrawn much sooner and spared more pain, but Brook was keen to give the 22-year-old every chance to settle amid a brutal attack from Aiden Markram (86 off 55 balls).
“I was just trying to get him a wicket, to be honest. He got a little bit of tap there, but he just kept on coming and coming and coming,” he explained.
“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. He might have missed his execution the odd time, but Markram played some unbelievably good shots in there as well, so hat’s off to him,” said Brook.
“He’s had a tough one but the way that he just kept on cracking on and digging deep to try and get wickets there for us was awesome to see, and that’s exactly what we ask of every bowler.”
Brook watched England serve up the worst performance of his brief captaincy reign as they were hammered at Headingley and admitted: “Nobody wants to come and watch that”.
The Yorkshire crowd were treated to a mismatch rather than a cricketing spectacle, with South Africa needing less than 46 of the scheduled 100 overs to confirm a thumping seven-wicket win in the first match of the Metro Bank ODI series.
England were toppled for 131 after being sent in, Jamie Smith standing alone with 54, and watched as their opponents treated the chase like a T20. They were spared the indignity of defeat coming before the floodlights were turned on, but only just.
Brook won all six matches against the West Indies as he kicked off his tenure in style earlier this summer, but he made no attempt so sugarcoat the scale of his first defeat.
“It’s not good enough. I can’t say much more than we’ve just had a bad day,” he said.
“Obviously, you want to keep on winning and winning, don’t you? But we’ve mis-executed a lot of our skills today. Nobody wants to come and watch that.
“You can take a little bits and bobs from it, but you just got to get rid of these games, I’m afraid. We’ve got to put it behind us as quickly as possible and move on to the next match.”
England’s preparations for a series opener against a major international rival were slender, to say the least. With several squad members involved in The Hundred eliminator and final over the weekend, they held one sparsely-attended training session on Monday and only came together as a group later that evening.
That does not explain the enormous gulf between the teams in Leeds, though, and Brook refused to take the easy explanation.
“In my eyes that’s an excuse. We’re not a team that makes excuses up,” he said.
“At the end of the day, that batting performance wasn’t good enough. I think everybody will hold their hands up and say that.”
The series continues at Lord’s on Thursday.
PA
