Johannesburg — South Africa made better use of the bowler friendly conditions at the Wanderers on Sunday, to tie up their One-Day series with Bangladesh, although Kagiso Rabada felt the bowlers had performed just as well two days earlier in Centurion.
Rabada finished with 5/39, his second ODI ‘five-for,’ but said that other than the ‘Bullring’ surface being a little more bowler-friendly than the one at SuperSport Park, there wasn’t much that South Africa did differently across the two matches. “I’m still searching for an answer myself about why we didn’t take wickets in the first match,” Rabada replied to a question about what differences there were between the bowlers’ performance in the first two matches.
Last Friday in Centurion, the Proteas had to wait until the 22nd over to claim their first wicket. It was a completely different story at the Wanderers, with Bangladesh finding themselves 34/5 in the 13 over. “There was a bit more bounce, which you generally find at the Wanderers and the cracks came into play as well. With the older ball it gets easier to score, but we used the new ball well, got it in the right areas and then unlike Centurion, the Wanderers was good to us,” he said.
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A hamstring injury to Wayne Parnell, who was one of three changes to the starting team from the side that lost at SuperSport Park, meant Temba Bavuma got an extended spell. “He does sometimes bowl in the nets when we are preparing for Tests, but he stopped doing it when he realised how tough it is and he was waking up the next day with aches and pain. But he did quite a good job today.”
Bavuma conceded just 22 runs in 6.1 overs but couldn’t bowl an extra over because he injured his hand diving into Mehidy Hasan while trying to stop a single off his own bowling. Bavuma said later he would need to go for scans to assess the extent of the injury before knowing if he’d be available for the third ODI on Wednesday.
That one over was bowled by Rassie van der Dussen, who claimed the wicket of Shofriful Islam in the penultimate over of the Bangladesh innings. “He’ll be asking for the ball a bit more now, I suppose,” Rabada chirped.
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As for the pressure the team faced because of losing the opening match of the series — something that has become a habit for them across all three formats — Rabada said it was something players were aware of and were desperate to avoid. “We know we want to throw that first punch, but we keep putting ourselves in this position. We don’t want to do it, because we are making it harder on ourselves. We are not doing it on purpose, but it is something that we have to figure out.”
IOL Sport