A soft spot for South Africa

I'm going to come out and admit that I have a soft spot for the SA team. So despite enjoying England's performances so far and wanting them to win the series, a little part of me is sulking due to SA general ineptness in the one day series so far.

Their performances for the past 18 months have made them on of the better teams to watch - attacking batsmen and bowlers, a captain prepared to take some risks and some exceptional fielders (AB de Villiers being the main example). This series should have been thrilling to watch with Smith and Gibbs against Harmison and Anderson being one of the prime highlights.

I realise that the Test series was the main aim for the Saffers (and thank heavens for that - proof that Test cricket is not going to crumble and fade under the crazy volumes of Twenty20 being played), but surely it can't be that hard to motivate yourselves to perform for a series that would have given them the chance to become the number one team in the world. They have been unlucky with injuries - both Morkels, Steyn coming back from a broken thumb and now the loss of Smith with tennis elbow. The squad appears to have enough batting depth with the return of Gibbs and introduction of Duminy into the starting 11 but lacks world-class backup bowlers.

Unless they pull themselves together today at the Oval this series will be lost. As England are currently 126-1 after 20 overs, losing the series appears to be the most likely outcome. The winter series against Australia was supposed to be the battle between the best two teams in the world - based on their performaces here SA have a lot of work to do to make that series competitive. They'll need a fully fit team and the mental strength to get over what has been a sequence of shocking performances.

ETA: SA are fighting back and have England 159-4 after 28 overs. By 6pm tonight this post may be mostly irrelevant.