Temba Bavuma, captain of the South African cricket team has acknowledged that “wheels probably came off” for South Africa on the field at the Sydney Cricket Grond (SCG) as they suffered their first loss of the T20 World Cup.
However, he views this as a manageable cause for panic since they still have a lot of control over their development in the tournament.
In the seventh over, Pakistan had been shrunk to 43 for 4, but they were able to score 185 for 9, with 117 coming off the following ten overs.
This was due to a considerable deterioration in South Africa’s fielding, despite the fact that the latter portion of Pakistan’s innings took place under the rain.
Bavuma did not feel his assault was nimble enough to respond to changing circumstances. However, with the last group game against the Netherlands, they could still make the semi-finals despite losing the top place to India if they defeated Zimbabwe. Watch T20 World Cup matches and never miss out on the fiery and blazing moments in this international tournament.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a concern,” Bavuma added. “It’s “Probably is a bit of a wake-up call. I thought the first ten overs, we were superb. We were able to get them under pressure. Then after that, the wheels probably came off.
“Conditions changed a little bit with the ball going to skid [on]. I think in terms of our awareness, in terms of adapting to that, we were very slow. We allowed them to get momentum into their innings, and they were able to get a formidable score on the board.
“We’re going to use our pace. We’re going to use our bounce. Unfortunately for us today, it probably wasn’t the right plan considering the conditions out there.
“Like I said, I don’t think it’s a big concern. Yes, there are talking points for us, areas that we can learn from. Maybe it’s a performance that we needed to kind of bring us down back to earth.”
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Bavuma did not want to blame an unusually high amount of fielding blunders on a moist ball and slick underfoot conditions.
“Maybe the intensity lowered a bit for the guys. Individually, the guys know, but it’s definitely not the standard of fielding that we pride ourselves on,” he said. “I guess we had a bit of a lifeline probably because of the way we played up until this point, but I think from now on it’s about us playing our best cricket. If we come unstuck, we come unstuck. Today we didn’t play our best cricket.”
David Miller was unable to play for South Africa because he was sidelined by back spasms; nevertheless, Bavuma emphasized that this should not be a huge problem for the games that are yet to come.
And the skipper himself was able to produce his greatest Twenty20 International score since the last World Cup with a score of 36 from 19 balls, which momentarily placed South Africa ahead of the DLS objective.
“It’s been a while since I hit the ball in the middle,” he said. “I felt a lot better today… I guess I just tried to enjoy it, to be honest.”
