The captain of South Africa, Temba Bavuma, expressed his dissatisfaction following his team’s three-wicket loss to Australia in the opening ODI of the five-game series on Thursday, September 7. The hosts were in position in the second innings before Australia’s tailender Ashton Agar and injury replacement Marnus Labuschagne partnered for a century for the ninth wicket to enable Australia reach the 223-run mark.
Bavuma, who amassed an unbroken 114 runs, stated that he believed his team would have defeated Australia in the first game. In the lead-up to the eagerly anticipated ODI Cricket World Cup 2023, which is set to start on October 5, the 33-year-old also exhorted the Proateas to be “relentless.”
“If you put a team in that situation, you anticipate being able to end the game quickly. We talk about being persistent. You have to accept it when you are given a sniff against a side like Australia. If the circumstances had been different, they would have taken delight in policing the game, according to Temba Bavuma, who was quoted by Cricketmood.
Temba Bavuma was not unduly critical of his team and is certain that the players will advance in the upcoming home series games.
“We will improve. We have guys on the team who are of the highest caliber. We don’t anticipate them continuing to make the same errors, he continued.
The bowlers should have used their bouncer more, in my opinion.
The Proteas captain responded that his team didn’t generate enough chances when it counted the most when asked what might have gone wrong in the first game of the series. The South African captain also felt that his bowlers could have used more bouncers to spook the Australian batters.
“It was only that we were unable to generate opportunities in that inning. I would have pushed the bowlers to make better use of their bouncer. Not fantastic were the opening 10 overs. Even though we were able to get wickets, at what cost? That was simply a mistake in execution. It was chalk and cheese if you compare our first ten overs to their first ten overs, added Temba Bavuma.
Temba Bavuma doesn’t seem concerned about what it means that Australia has already beaten South Africa four times in a row because they will continue to push themselves to get better.
“We have one ODI loss. Referencing the T20s is useless because they have different individuals. We need to find ways to completely improve our game because we weren’t good enough. We shall push ourselves to become better,” he said.
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