A fitting end to England’s Champions Trophy campaign and Jos Buttler’s captaincy - Chris Waters

This was their third defeat out of three as they exited the Champions Trophy, their seventh in successive one-day internationals and their 10th in 11 games since Brendon McCullum took over as white-ball coach, a move that is already starting to look as ill-advised as America’s decision to give Trump a second term.

While McCullum lives to fight another day, his aura shattered by recent results, Buttler has called time on his white-ball captaincy, announcing his decision on the eve of this match.

England had wanted to give him a winning send-off in Karachi. Instead, they played as though they regarded him in the way that Trump regards Zelensky.

The tone for a miserable, seven-wicket defeat, sealed with all of 20.5 overs remaining and which confirmed South Africa’s place in the semi-finals, was set by Phil Salt, who came out swinging like JD Vance on steroids. A couple of fours, a couple of wild hacks followed by a top-edged pull to mid-wicket and out, all by the end of the opening over. If Salt continues in the one-day team, it can only be because he knows something about his superiors that the rest of us don’t; he is a T20 square peg in a 50-over round hole.

Jamie Smith does have a future in the team, but whether that is at No 3 is a moot point. Another top-edged pull to mid-wicket and he was gone too, his promotion to a key position in the order for this competition - despite never having batted there for England - backfiring badly.

When Ben Duckett got a leading edge back to Marco Jansen, England were 37-3 and the left-arm seamer had all three wickets. It could have been 38-4 but Wiaan Mulder dropped Joe Root in the gully off Kagiso Rabada’s first ball, a difficult chance, the shot hit with power when Root had three, but the catching height was good and the disappointment among the South Africans was clear.

Instead, Root, in tandem with Harry Brook, his Yorkshire team-mate, shared 62, the highest stand of the innings. Brook’s disappointing run continued, though, when he skied Keshav Maharaj, the left-arm spinner, to deep mid-wicket, where Jansen, sprinting from long-on, judged a fine catch.

Root was bowled for the top score of 37, cleaned up by Mulder as he played across the line, and Liam Livingstone stumped off Maharaj, the batsman yorking himself as he came tearing down the pitch, as though trying to trap a £10 note threatening to blow away in the wind. It was another poor shot, betraying scant confidence and possibly a scrambled brain too, and England were effectively done at 129-7 when Craig Overton chipped Rabada to mid-on, where Lungi Ngidi took a good catch running back.

Seeking one last hurrah in the captaincy role, Buttler did not get a single boundary away in an innings of 21 from 43 balls, ended when he drove Ngidi to mid-off. He added 42 with Jofra Archer, who fell in the previous over when he pulled to mid-wicket, another lazy shot. When Adil Rashid edged behind, England were all-out for 179 in 38.2 overs. The match, at that stage, had already long been over as a contest.

Having chosen not to take a look at Rehan Ahmed or Tom Banton in a dead rubber match, yet more baffling thinking by McCullum and the management, the sense of passivity was scarcely lifted in the South African chase.

Archer and Saqib Mahmood huffed and puffed, the latter replacing the injured Mark Wood, but Archer’s lack of celebration when Tristan Stubbs played-on for a duck in the third over spoke volumes.

Stubbs was one of two changes for South Africa, with Temba Bevuma and Tony de Zorzi unwell, which meant Aiden Markram replaced Bevuma as captain. The other change saw Heinrich Klaasen return after an elbow injury – and after Stubbs’s departure was followed by that of Ryan Rickleton, also bowled by Archer to one that kept low, Klaasen and Rassie van der Dussen sped South Africa towards victory with a third-wicket stand of 127 in 122 balls.

Van der Dussen struck powerfully down the ground en route to the top score of 72 not out, while Klaasen showed his class, not least with two glorious cover-driven fours off the back foot of Archer, making 64 before slicing to short-third as he tried to end the game with a six, which David Miller then did.

In the final analysis, Van der Dussen and Klaasen had ganged up on England as surely as Trump and Vance ganged up on Zelensky.

At least the press conference went ahead afterwards.