Harry Brook insisted he would not read too much into England's T20I defeat to South Africa, a match he described as "a bit of a shambles".
England were
beaten by 14 runs by South Africa in the first of three T20I matches in Cardiff, which was affected by rain and delayed for over two hours.
The match was reduced to nine overs, and South Africa smashed 97-5 from 7.5 overs, with Aiden Markram top scoring with 28 before another downpour halted their innings.
That delay subsequently gave England an adjusted chase of 69 from just five overs, of which they fell 15 short. Only Jos Buttler (25) and Sam Curran (10) reached double figures.
England and Brook opted to remove fast bowler Jofra Archer from their line-up on safety grounds, after ruling the conditions at Sophia Gardens were too treacherous for him.
Archer's replacement, Luke Wood, was called up for his eighth T20I cap and was the pick of the home attack, ending with impressive figures of 2-22.
"It was a bit of a shambles really, wasn't it?" said Brook, whose 0 from four deliveries was his first duck in T20Is. "You can't take much from that. There was so much going on.
"They got nine overs, we got five overs. You can't take much from 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. "
Defeat by 14-runs (DLS) in our Vitality IT20 series opener
— England Cricket (@englandcricket) September 10, 2025
We head to Manchester on Friday night for the second match of the series pic.twitter.com/UXeabpVsMT
Brook stopped short of saying that the match should not have gone ahead, but did admit the decision to leave Archer out was because of the potential risk involved.
Archer featured in all three ODIs against South Africa and took 4-18 from nine overs in their record-breaking 342-run victory in the final match of the series, which they lost 2-1.
The 30-year-old is expected to be a part of England's Ashes squad, with Brook citing Adam Hose's horrific ankle injury sustained during The Hundred as a worst-case scenario had Archer played.
"It would have been stupid to play him with the amount of cricket we've got coming up," said Brook.
"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.
"As soon as we knew that the game was shortened, we didn't think it was quite necessary for Jof to play.
"Obviously, the outfield was sodden and he's got a lot of cricket to play in the next few months with a big series coming up. So, yeah, we, we decided to not play him. "
The second match of the series gets underway on Friday at Old Trafford before the final game at Trent Bridge two days later.
