Mark Butcher: England do not have an absorption button in ODIs

Former England batter Mark Butcher was furious to see how England bowed down against South Africa in the first of the three-match ODI series at Headingley. Despite a promising start from openers Jamie Smith and Ben Duckett, England's batting order suddenly started to crumble, and in the end, the lineup fell apart.

Wiaan Mulder and Keshav Maharaj ran over the home team batting line-up to pick up wickets in short intervals. After winning the toss, South Africa chose to bowl first. There was a moment of the match when England was looking comfortable at 102 after losing only 3 wickets. From there, they lost all of their wickets for only 131 runs as the last seven wickets went down for just 29. Smith scored 54—the highest individual for England in the match—and 15 from Jos Buttler was the second best of the night for them. South Africa successfully chased down the target in 20.5 overs, led by Aiden Markram's 86 off 55.

 The lackluster performance of England in the format again sparked several questions about their batting approach. Since the end of the 2023 World Cup, they have won just seven of 21 ODIs.

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No sort of responsibility...

Reviewing the match, former England international Mark Butcher said on Sky Sports, "The extraordinary thing, I think, for me, and the worrying thing for me about England's batting in one-day international cricket ... is that they do not have a sort of absorption button."

"We played some horrendous shots. There was no sort of responsibility being held by any of those fantastic, fantastic players England has in that middle order to say, "You know what, we can just absorb for a little while." Let's get ourselves back in and have a reassessment at some point and put a score on the board that our bowlers have a chance of bowling at", he added.