Salt sprinkles his stardust as England rediscover their mojo

The blows soared into the Manchester night, brutal popcorn spraying the crowd, increasingly giddy but never sated. Here Jos Buttler tonked Kagiso Rabada over long on for six, there Harry Brook tumbled a scoop like a man slipping out of bed in a silk dressing gown, everywhere Phil Salt peppered the rope. By the end, one boundary was blurring into another, a fizz-pop of 18 sixes and 30 fours as England passed 300 for the first time in a T20 to reach 304 for 2, the highest total ever scored in a game between two Test sides.

Salt was the foundation stone and the architect, batting through the innings and grinning broadly as the crowd, zipped up in fleeces, stood to applaud him off. He was unbeaten on 141, off a barely believable 60 balls. The proud owner of England’s new highest T20 score, having taken the record off himself. He pounded 18 from Marco Jansen’s first over, and continued, without mercy; he even had the energy to slam an attempted full toss for six in the final few balls.

After the cold, wet, “shambles” of the first T20 – a 12.5-over Duckworth-Lewis-Stern potato-gun fight in Cardiff which left England trying and failing to flay 69 in just five overs – this was the perfect antidote.

A game that almost answered the question of why England are playing nine short-form matches in September as the nights draw in and the season ebbs away.

With a T20 World Cup coming up in India and Sri Lanka in February and March next year, England are yet to pin down their best XI. So although conditions in Cardiff, Manchester and Nottingham in September don’t much resemble Ahmedabad in the early spring, this series, and the subsequent three games in Ireland later this month, the three T20s in New Zealand in October before the Ashes, and three more in Sri Lanka after Christmas, are all part of an extended filleting process.

Salt took paternity leave in June, and his place at the top of the order for the series against West Indies was taken by Jamie Smith. Smith impressed, as he has in every format he has turned his hand to, and might have been the incumbent, but he and Ben Duckett were rested after a long summer, so Salt was back. He got a first-baller at Cardiff and dropped a catch. But here, at the end of the season, was a neon reminder to the selectors of what he can do.

Salt’s record in T20 cricket is mind-boggling. He has four T20 hundreds, the same as all the other England centurions (Alex Hales, Dawid Malan, Liam Livingstone and Buttler) combined. He has been part of an IPL winning team for the last two years (Kolkata Knight Riders in 2024 and Royal Challengers Bengaluru this spring). He attacks from the first ball like no one else – and Friday night was a timely reminder of that unique selling point.

“In order to knock a man out of possession, you need to do something they can’t do,” he said. “From quite early in my career, I looked at that and thought if I can be the most dangerous in the first six, 10, 15 balls of the game, that’s quite a unique tool. It’s something I’ve always worked on from that point.”

The absence of Duckett and Smith has also reunited Salt with Buttler – who had recently migrated down to No 3. Their harmony was clear once more at Old Trafford, as Buttler dazzled to fifty off just 18 balls, before the pair crashed through the previous English powerplay record to finish with 100 for 0 after six overs. “It’s the way we bounce off each other well,” Salt said. “We’ve got pretty set roles. It’s my job to get us off to as good a start as soon as possible and give Jos the opportunity to take a couple of balls, because when he does, he goes on and gets a match-winning score.”

It all leaves captain Harry Brook with some difficult decisions, but he was typically phlegmatic. “We like headaches,” he said.

Sam Curran also impressed, picking up a couple of wickets and showing his variations as South Africa tried and failed to keep up with the ridiculous run rate, even if Donovan Ferreira nearly managed to crash Adil Rashid over the Point.

After a 146-run loss, the only way is up for South Africa at Trent Bridge today. Only Gambia and Mongolia have conceded more runs in a T20. Head coach Shukri Conrad didn’t mince his words: “The bowling attack was way off, we were bereft of ideas, we lost our discipline. An abject performance. We’ve got to give the guys the opportunity to get things right.”

With the series at stake, and players of both sides jostling for position ahead of the World Cup, today at Trent Bridge suddenly feels like a fitting end to the season’s international cricket in England. If, and it’s a big if, the rain stays away.

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