England had a day full of horrors against South Africa in the first ODI at Headingley, but none of them would want it to vanish from their memory as earnestly as the debutant Sonny Baker. Baker, who was handed the debut ODI cap by Jos Buttler in the presence of his family, did not see anything going his way after that. He followed up his first-ball duck with a miserable time with the ball, leaking 76 runs in his seven wicketless overs, bagging the worst bowling figures by an English bowler on debut.
However, England’s captain Harry Brook threw his weight behind the young pacer after admitting the entire team had a tough time in the game.
“It’s not probably the ideal start, having to defend 130,” Brook admitted at the post-match presentations. “It’s not good enough. I can’t say much more than we’ve just had a bad day. Nobody wants to come and watch that.”
“Everybody will get behind him,” Brook added. “That’s the nature of this group. We are such a tight-knit group. We’re all good mates. We spend a lot of time away from the game together as well.
“He’s had a tough day, but the way that he just kept on cracking on and digging deep, to keep on running in and try and get wickets there for us, even after getting a little bit of tap, was awesome to see. And that’s exactly what we asked of every bowler.”
Baker was handed the new ball to begin the proceedings for England, who were defending 132 in an ODI game. Unfair as it was to throw him to the wolves, Aiden Markram and Ryan Rickelton added to his misery. Markram took him down for three fours in the first over before sending him for 20 in his next. Fifty-seven of his 86-run knock came against the debutant bowler, but Markram said he was just trying “to get ahead of him.”
“I definitely didn’t pre-plan anything,” he said of his assault on Baker. “I’ve never faced him before, and there’s some really good talk about him and his abilities. So really I was just trying to watch the ball. You want to see the action first, but if you can get a few away early, and you can get ahead of him, then you try and do that. But it won’t always be the case. If he’s got it on a string, he’ll be a really good bowler, for sure.”
Despite leaking far too many runs for England to afford in the chase, Brook handed the ball to Baker for a second spell in the 12th over. He confirmed in the post-match conference that he knew the match had slipped from their grasp, so he hoped the debutant could get a wicket to keep his day from turning as sour as it clearly was.
“I was just trying to get him a wicket, to be honest,” Brook said. “Obviously, we didn’t get off to the greatest of starts with the ball. After the start that they got, I knew that we were never really going to win the game. It was just a matter of trying to get him a pole at that time, and the lads were trying to develop and upskill their skills, which they’ve been working on in practice and trying to take them into a game.
“The way that they chased that, with Markram coming out and going really ultra-aggressive, was the perfect way to chase a low score, especially in the powerplay, when you’ve only got one or two people out,” he added. “It is tough to defend. So [Baker] might have missed his execution the odd time, but Markram played some extraordinary shots, so hats off to him.”
