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England kick off the one dayers with South Africa today, hoping to banish memories of their first home test series defeat against the Proteas since 1965. Newly appointed one day captain Kevin Pietersen will be relying on the talismanic Andrew Flintoff to get England off to a flyer, but will have to do without the excluded king of spin, Monty Panesar.

Pietersen’s men have had a rain-affected preparation for the one day series. Just days after their fifty over contest with cricket heavyweights Scotland was abandoned, England’s proposed twenty20 match against South Africa also fell victim of Britain’s soggy summer.

While England will no doubt be looking to salvage something from South Africa’s tour with an impressive one day showing, there’s little doubt that the selectors’ eyes lie firmly on next summer’s Ashes. Their first task however will be to keep England’s finest away from the lucrative Indian Premier league. A consistently failing batting line-up will hardly benefit from yet more twenty20 slogging in the IPL.