South Africa head coach Shukri Conrad didn’t mince his words while assessing his side’s “embarrassing” defeat in the third ODI against England at The Rose Bowl. Captain Temba Bavuma declared that their performance “doesn’t do us justice” to their recent track record in the format, considering they have beaten Australia and England 2-1 in the series over the last month.
South Africa hit rock bottom after facing annihilation in Southampton, which ended with a 342-run defeat, the biggest in the history of the format, surpassing India’s previous 317-run win against Sri Lanka in 2023 at Thiruvananthapuram. The third ODI was a dead rubber, considering South Africa had raced to an unassailable 2-0 lead after the second fixture, marking their first series win in the format since 1998.
England came out to bat and notched a herculean 414/5, courtesy of centuries from Jacob Bethell (110) and Joe Root (100). Jofra Archer left the tourists shell-shocked with his scorching pace. South African batters scurried for runs but folded on a mere 72.
Just two weeks ago, South Africa surrendered to a 276-run clobbering against Australia in Mackay, which has now slipped to their second-worst defeat in the 50-over format. After the conclusion of the series, South Africa is now forced to mull over how easily they switch off once the contest is done and dusted, and the result doesn’t matter.
“Any excuse is better than none. We were definitely off today. And against a top side like England, when you’re not on top of your game, you do get exposed. A similar thing happened in Australia, where after going 2-0 up, it was a complete aberration. They got in excess of 400 as well. But if we were going to be poor at something, we’d rather be poor at games that aren’t clutch games. We’re not making light of today’s defeat. That was slightly embarrassing,” Conrad said at the post-match conference as quoted from ESPNcricinfo.
South Africa’s two heaviest defeats have transpired when they fielded first and were accompanied by a lack of discipline as well as dropped chances. During the fixture against Australia, the Proteas bowled 15 wides and put down Alex Carey, who adopted a belligerent approach and finished the innings strongly.
During the contest against England, South Africa bowled 19 wides and dropped two catches, including Jamie Smith on 23 and Jacob Bethell on 44, who continued to run rampant and struck his maiden ODI ton for England. Bavuma admitted that their outing with the ball was “far from ideal, not good enough” and said it “could be complacency”.
Conrad acknowledged that their wayward bowling could have impacted the rest of their skillset and said, “The bowling affects the fielding and the other way around, but nine out of ten times, Matthew Breetzke is taking that catch [off Smith, who offered a chance off a leading edge in the covers].”
“We’re not going to read too much into that, but it’s a difficult one because when that edge is not there and something doesn’t go your way and the harder you try, it’s just not there. I’m not offering it as an excuse because it’s not supposed to be like that, but the fielding wasn’t at the usual high standard that we set. All in all, yeah, it was an embarrassing performance in the field,” he added.
