Rabada admits South Africa going through a bad phase

CAPE TOWN: South Africa have long taken pride in their team work. While they’ve had exceptional players from time to time, it is contribution from everyone that has made them the top team across formats.

Be it is chasing a world record total in Tests and ODIs, or playing a ‘blockathon’, everyone has chipped in. In limited-over format, the bowlers have been ably supported by fielders.

However, things have come to such a pass now that they are thinking of relying on individual brilliance. Paceman Kagiso Rabada --- one of the stars the hosts are banking on --- tried to do that in the previous ODI as the Proteas made a futile attempt to defend a paltry 118.

Peppering Virat Kohli with short deliveries, he tried to unnerve the India skipper though without success.

On Tuesday, the eve of the third ODI, he minced no words while admitting that someone will have to do something out of the ordinary to script a turnaround. “Guess that’s what you need. In an ideal world, an ideal game, you’d want lots of people to score runs, lots of people to take wickets. All you need now is individual brilliance. So we’ll take it. It is not something we generally talk about,” he said at the press conference.

Rabada said the team has failed to rise to the occasion. “We haven’t come to the party. It is not acceptable at all. India are a good team, have been playing good cricket and have a good foundation. It doesn’t help that we have been going through changes and bad form since the Champions Trophy. We are still trying to catch up.”

Going by what Rabada said, the South Africa camp is unable to come to grips with the problem.

“When you are losing, it is tough to find answers. The most important thing is to not seek too many answers, just like when you are winning you don’t try to seek answers. When you are not doing well, it seems a lot more is going wrong than it actually is. We are just looking for a win and turnaround.”

We haven’t come to the party. It is not acceptable at all. India are a good team, have been playing good cricket and have a good foundation. KAGISO RABADA, On SA’s poor show