A DAY FOR THE AGES
- strie4
- 3 days ago
- 6 min read
ENGLAND v SOUTH AFRICA
7th September 2025 at the Rose Bowl
The Rose Bowl Southampton
On Sunday last, I took my wife and two sons to watch the One Day International between England and South Africa in Southampton at the Rose Bowl (I refuse to call my old team’s HQ as the Utility Bowl – it makes it sound like a toilet).
First, I have to say that the new stadium is tastefully designed and magnificently appointed, especially when full for a Test match or ODI. Its capacity is 25,000. There were not quite that number of spectators for this match; I guess it was about 5,000 sort of a full house. Much as we old-timers loved our former county ground, it was beginning to look run down and in need of more than a lick of paint. The infrastructure was dilapidated and the stands ramshackle, but it was home and when full to the rafters (4,500 at most), the old place really rocked, worryingly on occasions literally so. The new stadium is set in pleasant rolling countryside incorporating an 18-hole golf course.
2 / 5
The concourse is spacious, affording ample room for food outlets and bars, enabling spectators to amble around in comfort, so unlike the cramped walkways of Lord’s, the Oval and the other established Test venues. They are of course city-based. What the Rose Bowl inevitably lacks is the history and tradition of the old Test grounds. And I have to admit that the atmosphere on Sunday, especially as the home side was in the ascendant, was a little subdued, so unlike, say, the raucous support in the Western Terrace at Headingley, or the Hollies Stand at Edgbaston. For all that, the Rose Bowl was built for international matches. So far, it is my belief that it has not been allocated enough.
As for the match….what a game! You might say that as one side won by a whopping 342 runs, jeopardy was in short supply. There was no white-knuckle ride, no nerve-shredding finish. As my wife pointed out, had the innings been reversed and the side batting first had only scraped together 72 runs, there would not have been much of a cricket match to watch. In fact, it would have been over before lunch (oh, sorry, they don’t have a lunch break in one-day matches). The Rose Bowl is not a pocket-size ground. In fact, it has the largest playing area in the country, which made it even more astonishing that England scored 414 – 5 off their 50 overs. At about the half-way stage of their innings, when a large score looked in the offing, one of my sons leant across and asked me what I thought would be a par-for-the-course total. I admitted that I didn’t have the faintest idea. “In my day,” I replied, “a score of around 250 was usually regarded as being pretty safe. But there, what do I know?” What indeed? The game has advanced on so many fronts since the 1970s and bigger and bigger scores is one of them. Not for the first time, I marvelled at the array of scoops and ramp shots and reverse sweeps that was on display, strokes that hadn’t been invented when I was playing. But I will say this. Had these shots been tried in the pre-helmet days, the Accident and Emergency Units in local hospitals would have been full to overflowing. I also accept that fielding has improved immeasurably. There were always good fielders in all teams, but there were also one or two carthorses. Today, everybody can field. Though it has to be pointed out that four simple catches (two from each side) were spilled on Sunday. But I do miss the perfect throwing of yesteryear. There was nothing like a bullet throw from the deep nestling in the wicket-keeper’s gloves on the full inches above the top of the bails. They never do that these days. The practice is to throw in the ball on the bounce, to rough it up a bit in order to encourage reverse swing. We would get a bollocking if we landed the ball before it reached the wicket-keeper. The shine on the ball had to be maintained at all costs. ‘Reverse swing’? Never heard of it. Unless you were referring to the gay nightclub in town.
The batting of Joe Root was a masterclass of technique and effortless strokeplay. So adept is he at manoeuvring the ball around the field that you cannot remember a single shot played in anger and then you look up at the scoreboard and you see he has stealthily accumulated 20 runs without anybody noticing. Then he starts to unfurl stroke after stroke that ooze sheer class. He is without doubt England’s greatest post-War batsman, and his place at the top of the world rankings is unassailable.
Jacob Bethell is – or very soon will be – a force of nature. He clobbered the South African bowlers to all parts. It is astonishing to realise that this was his first century in First-Class cricket. I too wondered that he might have been promoted too early, before he had earned his spurs in county cricket, but the England management had obviously identified in him something special. On this evidence, it was an inspired punt. Yet once again I have to add this proviso. Yes, 414 was a mammoth score but the South African bowling was abysmal. 19 wides! That gave England an extra three overs (and one ball). To bowl a wide may be regarded as a misfortune, to bowl two looks like carelessness, as Lady Bracknell might have said. To bowl nineteen should be a criminal waste.
And then there was Jofra! There is no more thrilling sight than a genuinely fast bowler in full flight. There is always that visceral possibility of genuine danger to life and limb that crowds respond to, rather like gladiatorial combat or bull fighting. There have been fast bowlers who make it seem like a huge physical effort to propel the ball at speed. Think of Tyson, Hall, Griffith, Lillee, Willis, Roberts, Daniel and Hampshire’s own, Butch White, who had a run-up like a charging bull. Then think of the smooth and seemingly effortless actions of Larwood, Lindwall and Holding. Archer is one such. His run-up is loose and lissom and his action fluid and supple, but he generates real pace and extracts surprising and disconcerting lift. The South Africans didn’t fancy him at all. When their score was 24-6, with Archer having the astonishing figures at one stage of 5-3-5-4, most of them back in the dressing room were probably packing their bags for the flight home. To capitulate to 74 all out and to lose by the highest margin (342 runs) in the history of ODI cricket was a pretty dismal showing. Not that the crowd making their way home cared too much about that. Talk was of keeping fingers crossed that Archer remains fit for the Ashes series Down Under this winter; he has had a chequered injury history.
It is not often – I could remember no other occasion – when two Barbadians (Bethell and Archer) have been the main architects of an England victory, though both, I pointed out to my two sons, were latterly educated on a sports scholarship at an English public school, respectively Rugby School and Brighton College. In fact, the majority of this team were privately educated: Jamie Smith (Whitgift), Ben Duckett (Stowe), Joe Root (Worksop), Harry Brook (Sedburgh), Josh Buttler (King’s Taunton), Will Jacks (St George’s, Weybridge). Brydon Carse was born and went to school in South Africa, Jamie Overton and his twin brother, Craig, were educated at West Buckland School in Devon and Adil Rashid attended Heaton School and Bellevue Sixth Form College in Bradford. What an indictment that is for the education system in this country.
This England team may not be one for all seasons, all schools but that performance was “one for the ages!” (My son’s words, not mine.)