AB de Villiers took yesterday’s seven-wicket defeat to the Black Caps on the chin and admitted that his team had been blitzkrieged by a wondrous Martin Guptill effort.
“He was playing very well. It was a fantastic knock, and it was tough at times to set a field to him. I felt that we maybe gave him too many boundary balls early on, some balls that were a little bit soft, but you have to give a lot of credit to him,” De Villiers conceded.
Guptill’s sensational 180 not out, off just 138 balls, was the stuff of dreams, especially as it was on his comeback game. If there were any doubts that he was itching to get back into the thick of things, the lanky assassin smashed 180 reasons all around Seddon Park to quash the questions.
As De Villiers reiterated, it was a “very special innings”, but one which saw the South Africans' standards slip with the ball. “We came unstuck against a better team, but I was not completely happy with our skill set. We need to get our act together for the final match,” De Villiers gruffed.
The numbers from Martin Guptill's demolition of South Africa's bowling https://t.co/3pjRLokETp #NZvSA pic.twitter.com/ll770gxAgF
— ESPNcricinfo (@ESPNcricinfo) March 1, 2017
The final match, of course, is a return to Eden Park – a ground of much significance for both sides. With the 2015 World Cup semi-final still fresh in the memory, and the whiff of the ICC Champions Trophy on the horizon, both sides know very well that there are psychological blows to be revisited or remedied come Saturday (3am start).
“There is a big final to play and there is a lot at stake. It is a big pressure game, and it will be great if we can come through at Eden Park, which is a great stadium to play cricket at,” De Villiers said, welcoming the challenge to return to old haunts.
“We want to finish the tour on a high and I felt that we haven’t hit our straps as we wanted yet with bat and ball. Hopefully, we will do that in the last game."
The skipper was quizzed if he would have gone in with a second spinner in hindsight, but he was adamant that the team was right. “Not at all. Look, they played Imran Tahir, the No 1 bowler in the world, very well tonight. So, I don’t think another spinner would have made a difference. I tried to use JP (Duminy) upfront, but it didn’t turn as much as I expected it to, which was weird,” he bemoaned.
He was not seeking excuses from the surface, though. Instead, he looked within at what his team was without.
“We were beaten by the better team today,” he maintained.
De Villiers, who chiselled out an increasingly fluent 72 to lift the Proteas to 279/8, insisted that they figured 280 would be sufficient on that surface. “I thought it was enough after what happened in the last game, with the ball turning more, and the pitch getting slower. It didn’t do that this time, which means it was a really good ODI wicket for 100 overs,” he conceded.
De Villiers also backed his top-order, especially Hashim Amla, to come to the party in the final match of what has been a productive test of skill, character and nerve for both sides. “They are world-class players and I believe that they will come to the party. Luckily we bat deep, and we have posted really good scores, so there is no need to panic. I believe that this top order is the best in the world,” he said.
That top-order will have a chance to prove precisely that on Saturday at what is expected to be a packed Eden Park, with patrons ready to relive the intoxicating drama of the last 50-over contest these two sides delivered on that same patch two years ago.
It is a tantalising prospect, and the performance will speak volumes for both teams’ mental strength. The final instalment of the series couldn’t have been scripted better, and Eden Park is primed for someone to go "Martin Guptill" on it.