Ken Borland

South Africa captain Temba Bavuma conceded on Thursday that the Proteas bowlers had stuck to their usual hard lengths for longer than they should have as a resurgent Pakistan team beat them by 33 runs in their T20 World Cup match at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

South Africa bowled superbly in the first half of the Pakistan innings, reducing them to 55/4 after nine overs, but brilliant half-centuries by Iftikhar Ahmad (51 off 35) and Shadab Khan (52 off 22) saw the desperate Pakistan team lash 130 runs in the last 11 overs, including 80 in the last six.

There were too many deliveries in the slot for the batsmen, which was in stark contrast to how Pakistan bowled, especially after the rain delay when South Africa needed 73 off 30 balls. Pakistan consistently either found the blockhole or bowled slower balls into the pitch.

“From 50/4, the last thing you expect is for them to get 185. But the problem lay with us,” Bavuma admitted. “Our hard lengths have been very successful previously, using our pace and height.

“We were superb for the first 10 overs, but the conditions changed, the ball started sliding on and the short boundaries were in play, and we should have shown more awareness to adapt. Their batsmen started to exploit it and put us under pressure. The wheels fell off.

“We allowed three or four overs to go by, we allowed them to get momentum into their innings, and the damage had been done by the time we tried to change things.

“Hard lengths was probably not the right plan considering the conditions out there, and they were able to get a formidable score. We know Pakistan are really dangerous whenever they get a sniff,” Bavuma said.

Perhaps the biggest positive to come out of the defeat was how Bavuma, who was been through a really hard time with his batting, was able to score a sparkling 36 off just 19 balls. He was especially severe on anything short, and he and Aiden Markram had the Proteas well-placed on 65/2 after seven overs when leg-spinner Shadab dismissed both of them in his first over, just before the rain delay.

“It’s been a while since I hit the ball in the middle and I felt a lot better today,” Bavuma said. “I was seeing the ball well and making better decisions. I just tried to enjoy it and watch the ball more.”

South Africa now have to beat the Netherlands in their final group game on Sunday to reach the semi-finals.

“Maybe this was the performance we needed to bring us back to earth. There are certainly areas we can learn from, and if you’re going to learn, now is probably the time to do it.

“We have a bit of a lifeline because of the way we’ve played well up till now. We didn’t play our best cricket today and came unstuck. It was probably a bit of a wake-up call,” Bavuma said.

The scoreboard shows a 44-22 triumph for the Bulls over Benetton in Treviso, but they had to work extremely hard for the win, with coach Jake White saying how proud he was of the way they stuck together like a family to end their two-match losing streak overseas.

The Bulls were fortunate to only be 9-3 down at halftime, and even though they were much-improved after the break, Benetton were still leading 22-20 on the hour mark. It was a titanic tussle, but the Bulls finished superbly with three tries in the last 10 minutes to not only snatch a hard-fought win, but also claim an unlikely bonus point.

“It’s a massive relief and I’m really proud of the players for the way they stuck together and got the reward for the work they put in at training,” White said. “And it’s wonderful that it’s a bonus point win, I’m really happy.

“The second half was fantastic, after the first half when we did not finish our chances and gave them a couple of soft penalties through silly mistakes. I had a feeling that we would finish well because Benetton looked dead on their feet.

“The talk at halftime was that we’ve got them on the ropes, every time we got down their end, we could feel the ascendancy. We just had to keep going and bashing at the wall, and it did eventually break.

“From a game that could have gone either way, we won with forty points. Not many teams come here and win, so a bonus point win is really good,” White said.

The most outstanding area of the Bulls game was at the breakdown and, were it not for numerous steals in the first half, Benetton would surely have been much further ahead and the mountain to climb away from home would have been too much for the visitors.

“Having Bismarck du Plessis, Marco van Staden and Marcell Coetzee together really helps at the breakdown, they are masters of understanding when to go in and what to do,” White said.

“I was very pleased with the defensive breakdown and we were also able to get quick ball, unlike the last two weeks. When we get go-forward ball, we play so much better.

“It’s a credit to the captain [the man of the match Coetzee] and the belief in the team. Sometimes these sort of wins can be a catalyst to jumpstart the season, turn it around.

“Coming off two losses in a row, 9-3 down away from home, how much more character can the team show? And it gets rid of what happened here last year in the Rainbow Cup final,” a delighted White said.

Enoch Nkwe has been hard at work on Cricket South Africa’s pipelines since he began as director of cricket on July 1, but now the focus is shifting to ensuring the Proteas can win the T20 World Cup in Australia next month.

South Africa’s awful record at World Cups is not something Nkwe has shied away from, and he believes he has a plan to secure that long-awaited trophy.

“It’s been an exciting last couple of months, but we can’t hide away from the amount of work to come on our pipeline, which is our most important investment,” Nkwe said this week.

“But the focus is now on our men’s side, we want them to win the World Cup and we have to make sure their preparation gives them every chance of doing that.

“The challenge in the past has been how to confront knockout games, and we’ve been engaging with the coaches on how to overcome that. It’s actually pretty simple – when we get there we have to back ourselves.

“We need to stick to our identity and what has worked for the team, the system that’s in place. We’ve been working on different models to help the players to get through and win a World Cup,” Nkwe said.

At this stage, that does not include recruiting the services of a sports psychologist, with the Proteas rather focusing on their strengths, like their powerful bowling attack.

“We’ve spoken to the coaches and we did look into whether we need a psychologist or not, but SACA [players’ union] also plays a role in helping individuals,” Nkwe said.

“We believe in our blueprint and we speak a lot about pressure and how it’s about trusting the blueprint, whether we are coming from behind or we’re in front.

“We want to throw the first punch and then stay in control. We have impact players now like Rilee Rossouw and Tristan Stubbs who can take the game forward.

“Of course no coach or psychologist can walk on to the field and actually play, it’s up the players,” Nkwe said.

For Proteas captain Dean Elgar, Friday’s thumping innings win over England in the first Test at Lord’s was maybe not the culmination but the reward for the hard work and progress made by the South African Test team over the last year or so.

The Proteas, with a fired-up Anrich Nortje leading the way with three wickets in two overs, bundled England out for just 149 in 37.4 overs to complete a crushing victory 20 minutes before tea on the third day, even though two-thirds of the opening day were lost to rain.

When Elgar was appointed Test captain in March 2021, the team was a rather rudderless one desperate for a turnaround. Since beating the West Indies 2-0 in the Caribbean, the opening batsman has led South Africa to top spot on the World Test Championship table with series wins over the likes of India and a drawn series against the defending champions in New Zealand.

“I didn’t wake up this morning thinking that I’d be in a press conference before 5 o’clock, so it was a special performance,” Elgar said. “It’s pretty big to do this on a sold-out Friday at Lord’s.

“It’s a good reflection of what we’ve done in the last year. I encourage the team to play every Test like it’s their last and we’ve played bloody good cricket when we’ve got it right, which is why we are number one.

“Everything has been a work in progress since I took over, but I’ve always felt that the basic core of the team had the fundamentals to be a world-leading Test side.

“We’ve obviously grown and we care for each other, we put the individual aside and focus on the team. Everything we’ve been through over the last year has happened for a reason,” Elgar said.

The straight-talking skipper acknowledged that his potent bowling attack certainly made his life easier.

“My margin for error is a lot bigger with four fast bowlers and numbers three and four are actually the fastest of them. But you still need sound game-plans, they need to know their roles and be able to adapt to different situations.

“Like on Day One, it was overcast but then the sun came out, but it was still the best bowling conditions and KG Rabada really brought it. He’s an absolute machine and he stuck his hand up.

“And then we have Keshav Maharaj, who is world-class, an absolute gun and brilliant to have in the team. But the attack is by no means the end product and I need them to want to achieve more.

“Then they could become a really special bowling attack. We’ve laid a pretty true, solid foundation for the team, nothing unrealistic, it’s all achievable. I definitely won’t allow us to go into a comfort zone,” Elgar said.