Harry Brook called the rain-affected circumstances of England’s T20 defeat to South Africa a “shambles” after a truncated nine overs per side contest was reduced even further.
England lost by 14 runs on the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method at soggy Sophia Gardens in Cardiff after a run chase of only five overs.
Rain in the Welsh capital had cut the contest by more than half with the match delayed until 8.50pm – two hours and 20 minutes after the scheduled start.
The Proteas had reached 97 for five from 7.5 overs before a short shower ended their innings prematurely, leaving England a tough revised victory of 69 from 30 balls under DLS calculations.
England captain Brook said: “It was a bit of a shambles really, wasn’t it? You can’t take much from that.
“There was so much going on. They got nine overs, we got five overs.
“But you can’t take much from it and it wasn’t worth it.
“It was a long, long day. I don’t think we need to make any excuses up.
“We probably didn’t execute as well as we should have done with bat and ball. It’s bloody hard when you only bat for five overs.”
Despite the contest being shortened again when England went into bat, South Africa seamers Marco Jansen and Corbin Bosch were allowed to bowl two overs each rather than five bowlers having one over apiece.
Brook said: “I don’t know all the rules to be honest, but that was a bit…
“I would’ve thought that every bowler would have had to bowl one over.
“But these are the rules that we get given, and we’ve just got to play our best cricket and perform to our best.”
England had named their XI on Tuesday but made a late change because of the wet conditions.
Jofra Archer was omitted after his four-wicket burst in the record ODI victory against South Africa on Sunday.
Luke Wood was brought in and took two wickets at the top of the order, as well as pouching a steepling catch.
“It would have been stupid to play him with the amount of cricket we’ve got coming up,” Brook said of Archer’s omission.
“If he’d have gone out in the boundary and done what Adam Hose did in The Hundred and broken his leg or whatever, that would have been a shambles.
“I thought we could have chased whatever they got off nine overs. I don’t know how the DLS works for the second half.
“I thought we bowled nicely, they hit a couple of sixes, but that’s how T20 cricket works.”
The second game of the three-match series takes place at Old Trafford on Friday with the finale at Trent Bridge on Sunday.
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