South Africa’s Keshav Maharaj, Aiden Markram punish England in seven-wicket win in first ODI

In Tuesday’s first one-day international at Headingley, south africa smashed a miserable england team by seven wickets after dismissing the hosts for just 131 runs thanks to a 4-22 from Keshav Maharaj.

England was put in to bat by South Africa, and after an innings marred by bad shot choices, the host team got off to a strong start, reaching 82-2 in the 14th over before losing their final eight wickets for only 49 runs.

Only Jamie Smith put up any sort of resistance with a fine 54 from 48 balls, but South African opener Aiden Markram smashed 86 in 55 balls to show the pitch was a good one as he shared a first wicket partnership of 121 in 18.1 overs with Ryan Rickelton (31 not out from 59 balls).

The second match in the three-game series will be played at Lord’s on Thursday. The teams will also contest three Twenty Internationals starting on September 10.

England captain Harry Brook stated, “It was not a great start to the series, just one of those bad days, and we will move on as soon as possible.”

“We had a bad day,” everyone will say, raising a hand. We were unable to form a collaboration. They bowled pretty well, but the ball held in the pitch a little.

“We must now move on from that performance and travel to London.”

England started brightly with successive fours in the opening over from Smith and despite Ben Duckett’s early dismissal, they appeared to be heading towards setting an imposing target.

But after a long summer of Cricket, Joe Root looked exhausted as he edged the ball for wicketkeeper Rickelton to hold onto a juggling catch, marking the beginning of a precipitous decline.

Spinner Maharaj’s varying pace then bamboozled the batters as England were dismissed three balls shy of half of their allotted 50 overs.

Sonny Baker, a rookie seamer for England, began the bowling but ended up scoring 0-76 from seven overs.

Before he was the first of three wickets taken by spinner Adil Rashid late in the chase, who took 3-26, Markram was very harsh on him.

“It was important to start well,” South Africa captain Temba Bavuma said. “We were clinical with the ball, we were under pressure in the powerplay but still managed to get wickets.

“We could have been more clinical with the bat in the end, but that shouldn’t detract from the chase, which Aiden led so brilliantly.”