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Following his side's three-wicket loss to Australia, South African skipper Temba Bavuma said that his side should have taken full advantage of the opportunity to win the match against Aussies and wants his team to be relentless ahead of the World Cup in India from October 5 onwards.
Batter Marnus Labuschagne made a timely statement after his omission from the World Cup 2023 squad with a gutsy, match-winning half-century and century stand with Ashton Agar to guide Australia to a three-wicket win over South Africa in the first ODI of a five-match series on Friday night. SA was well ahead in the game at one point, having reduced Australia to 113/7 while defending a target of 223. But an unbeaten 112-run stand between Labuschagne and Agar helped Australia snatch the win from the jaws of defeat. "If you get a team in that position, you expect yourself to be able to clean out the game," he said afterwards as quoted by ESPNCricinfo. "We speak about being relentless. When you get given a sniff against a team like Australia, you have got to take it. If the situations were reversed, they would have prided themselves on cleaning up the game," he added. This is not the first time SA's attack has lacked this season. In the first T20I last Wednesday, they conceded a massive 226 and were unable to defend 190 in the third T20I. The skipper maintained that both white-ball formats should be looked at with different eyes because they have different players as bowlers like Lungi Ngidi and Gerald Coetzee played both series and South Africa's insistence of just one seam bowling all-rounder Marco Jansen in ODIs, means they will lack on resources even if they go wrong. Bavuma was careful with his words and not overly critical, noting that there was some rust after almost five months of inactivity. "We will get better," he said. "These are world-class players we have in the team. We do not expect them to keep making the same mistakes," he added. On a slow pitch with variable bounce, three of Proteas' wickets fell to short balls and the same was the case with three Australian wickets. Towards the end of the innings, SA was barely bowling bouncers and let the game drift away from them. The powerplays were also contrasting, with SA being at 25/1 at the end of ten overs and Australia at 69/4. Though Australia lost wickets, they scored at a better rate. Bavuma felt that his bowlers took too long to find their lengths. "The first ten overs were not great. We managed to get wickets, but at what cost? That's just a mis-execution thing. If you look at our first ten overs versus theirs first ten overs, it was chalk and cheese," he said. After losing four successive games to Australia at home, including a 3-0 whitewash in T20Is, Bavuma is not too worried. "We have lost one ODI game," he said. "There is no use referencing the T20s as that is different personnel. We were not good enough and we need to find ways to improve our game holistically. We will challenge ourselves to get better," he added. Coming to the match, South Africa was bundled out for 222 in 49 overs. A century from Temba Bavuma (114 in 142 balls with 14 fours and a six) and his fifty-run stand with Marco Jansen (32) helped SA cross 200 runs. Josh Hazlewood (3/41), and Marcus Stoinis (2/20) were the pick of the bowlers for Australia. Sean Abbott, Ashton Agar, Adam Zampa and Cameron Green got one wicket each. Chasing 223, Australia was at 113/7, but a 112-run stand between Labuschagne (80* in 93 balls with eight fours) and Ashton Agar (48 in 69 balls with three fours and a six).Kagiso Rabada (2/48) and Gerald Coetzee (2/44) were the pick of the bowlers for SA. (ANI)
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