Cardiff [UK], September 11 (ANI): England skipper Harry Brook acknowledged his team's underperformance in both batting and bowling against South Africa in the first T20, and highlighted the difficulty of the match due to limited batting overs.

In a thrilling encounter at Cardiff, South Africa edge past Australia by 14 runs in the first T20 via the DLS method in a rain-affected match on Thursday in London.

The game was initially delayed by two hours before the hosts won the toss and elected to bowl, in what was supposed to be a nine-over contest.

However, after the first innings, rain again interrupted the game, which made it a five-over match.

'It was a long, long day. I don't think we need to make any excuses. We probably didn't execute as well as we should have with bat and ball. It's bloody hard when you only bat for five overs,' Harry Brook said as quoted from ESPNcricinfo.

England opted to remove Jofra Archer from their XI announced on Tuesday for the first T20. Brook noted that the decision to keep Archer out was an admission of the risk involved. Brook even cited Adam Hose's horrific ankle injury sustained during The Hundred as a worst-case scenario had Archer played.

'It would have been stupid to play him with the amount of cricket we've got coming up. If he'd have gone out in the boundary and done what Adam Hose did in The Hundred and broken his leg or whatever, that would have been a shambles,' he added.

'As soon as we knew that the game was shortened, we didn't think it was quite necessary for Jof to play. Obviously, the outfield was sodden, and he's got a lot of cricket to play in the next few months with a big series coming up. So, yeah, we decided not to play him,' he concluded.

Archer had a scorching three-match ODI series against the Proteas, ending with eight wickets, the joint-highest, getting two back-to-back four-wicket hauls.

Archer made his Test comeback in July against India, securing nine wickets in two appearances on his return to white clothing after four years of staying away from it due to injuries and workload management. (ANI)