Toss England bowl first vs South Africa
With the series locked at 1-1 and South Africa targeting top spot on the WTC points table – they currently sit second, 12 points behind Australia – both sides have it all to play for.
Torrential rain which hit London overnight had cleared by match morning, although the outfield remained wet enough to prompt umpires Richard Kettleborough and Nitin Menon to delay the scheduled toss by half an hour.
“Massively disappointed for Jonny, he’s been absolutely phenomenal this summer,” Stokes told Sky Sports. “He’s been the spearhead of what we wanted to achieve this summer. Harry Brook gets that opportunity, he thoroughly deserves the situation he finds himself in.”
A quarter of an hour before the players were due to take the field, heavy storm clouds engulfed the ground and, sure enough, the rain arrived to further delay the start of play, which had already been pushed back by 30 minutes.
England: 1 Zak Crawley, 2 Alex Lees, 3 Ollie Pope, 4 Joe Root, 5 Harry Brook, 6 Ben Stokes (capt), 7 Ben Foakes (wk), 8 Stuart Broad, 9 Ollie Robinson, 10 Jack Leach, 11 James Anderson
South Africa: 1 Dean Elgar (capt), 2 Sarel Erwee, 3 Keegan Petersen, 4 Ryan Rickelton, 5 Khaya Zondo, 6 Kyle Verreynne (wk), 7 Wiaan Mulder, 8 Marco Jansen, 9 Keshav Maharaj, 10 Kagiso Rabada, 11 Anrich Nortje