Cape Town – As heroic as Chris Morris was at Newlands, the Proteas top six batsmen must avoid a similar scenario from playing out in Sunday’s final T20 international against England at the Wanderers.
Morris slammed 17 not out off seven balls, including 14 off five in the final over from Reece Topley’s bowling to clinch a thrilling three-wicket victory off the last ball.
But it should never have come to that. Having restricted England to just 134/8 with an excellent bowling and fielding effort, South Africa didn’t have serious scoreboard pressure to deal with, as the required run-rate was only 6.75 to the over.
There was no need for risky shots in the air, and Hashim Amla showed the way by hitting three fours with his 22 off 21 balls. It was unfortunate that he got out to a leading edge off Ben Stokes, to be caught by David Willey at mid-on.
AB de Villiers (7) ill-judged a pull shot off Chris Jordan and skied the ball to Alex Hales at fine leg, captain Faf du Plessis (25) went for a big hit off Moeen Ali and held out to long-on, JP Duminy (23) and David Miller (13) went out in exactly the same fashion to Adil Rashid and Jordan respectively, and Rilee Rossouw (18) got a top-edge to a sweep off Moeen to be caught at short fine leg.
Playing sensible cricket by keeping the ball on the ground and finding the gaps instead of going over the top should’ve been the strategy from the Proteas, and it would’ve prevented the need for Morris to save the day again.
Surprisingly, skipper Du Plessis didn’t have a problem with his team’s approach. “Not at all. We sat down after halfway and discussed almost trying to take a lesson out of England’s batting. We found that they – possibly for that surface – had tried to go too hard, and by doing that, they offered us a lot of chances,” he said.
“We know with our batting line-up, if we can stand in the last four or five overs, we’ve got a very destructive batting line-up. So that was always the plan. When I got out in the 15th over, possibly it was a little bit of a speed-bump. Myself and JP were going really nicely there, so from that partnership, one of us should’ve batted through, and that’s possibly where we let them back into the game.
“Morry got a nice knock again, and got us across the line when we shouldn’t have. And England should’ve won that game.”
But the Proteas did pull through in the end when it looked like another “choke” was on the cards, and winning tight games is something that coach Russell Domingo and his team have worked hard on to improve in recent seasons.
They did crush Sri Lanka by nine wickets in last year’s Cricket World Cup quarter-final, but again came up short in a cliffhanger semi-final against New Zealand.
Gearing up to next month’s World T20 in India, where they kick off against England on March 18 in Mumbai, Du Plessis said his team will take great confidence out of the Newlands encounter. “Successful teams get over the line, even though at times they shouldn’t,” he said.
“We didn’t play a perfect game, but to still get across the line is just a huge credit to us. I can only speak about the last two years, and I think we’ve made some real strides into that. If you look back to the previous World Cup, we played really well in T20 cricket. We won close games where once again, we should’ve lost those games. We pulled it back.
“And that’s all you can do. You can try to get better in pressure moments, and that’s the only difference between games like these and games in the World Cup. The World Cup is just 10 to 15 percent more pressure, because you know if you lose the game, you’re going home.
“Mentally it’s a big step in the right direction. We want to try and put some scars, I suppose mentally, into England because we are going to see them again in the first game of the World Cup.”
But he acknowledged that the Proteas had enjoyed “a bit of luck” at Newlands, and that both teams made a number of tactical mistakes.
The South Africans will hope that their explosive batting line-up won’t have to rely on the bowlers to rescue them with the willow once again at the Wanderers on Sunday.
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