THE PROTEAS
Error-strewn Aussie ODI opener leaves SA skipper ‘bitter’
when he had two, both of those “dollies” by Miller and Imran Tahir. Then Vernon Philander dropped a harder one when Bailey had 37, and Farhaan Behardien hurt himself in diving forward off the mid-wicket boundary, but spilled the chance with Bailey on 47.
The right-hander went on to make 70, the last 20 runs of his innings coming off six balls.
“I have no problem with a dropped catch,” said De Villiers. “I want us to create chances. I’m more disappointed with the catches we pulled out of, those instances where I want us to get a hand on the ball, and we don’t even manage to do that. That’s frustrating.”
One of those instances involved Tahir, who pulled out of diving for a catch after Steyn had induced a top edge by Dave Warner in the third over, with the Australian opener on two.
Once Warner had survived that chance, though, he sought to dominate, and that opening stand with Aaron Finch of 94 was about the only period in the match where Australia were in total control.
Once those two had departed in the 15th over to Philander – Warner to a superb boundary catch by an otherwise poor Ryan McLaren – Australia’s innings wobbled.
Steyn launched a brutal assault on his sworn enemy. Five of the six deliveries he bowled at Michael Clarke were bouncers aimed at the Australian captain’s head; four of them he fended off, but when Clarke tried to hook the fifth one, he gloved the ball through to wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock.
At 145/5 in the 30th over, Australia were in trouble.
However, like the lax showings in the two matches in Mt Maunganui a few weeks ago, South Africa’s plans went awry.
“We pulled it back nicely, but then lost it again and didn’t have the ruthlessness to finish it off,” said De Villiers.
Australia, courtesy of the chances offered to Bailey and poorly bowled lines and lengths from the tourists, were able to smash 105 runs in the last 10 overs.
Even so, as De Villiers pointed out, 301 was an achievable target. Mitchell Johnson is Australia’s main bowler and if they could see him off, they stood every chance.
Johnson, however, picked up the two openers, Hashim Amla playing a dreadful stroke.
There were more mistakes from Behardien – a surprise selection ahead of Rilee Rossouw – and Faf du Plessis, which piled the pressure on De Villiers and Miller.
The latter was badly in need of a score and produced an excellent innings, making a run-a-ball 65 in partnering his skipper and taking his side into a position where they were bossing the game.
Then came more mistakes and ultimately, defeat.
“It’s not the end of the world. I feel really bitter, though,” De Villiers remarked.
“I really don’t enjoy losing games, and we would like to come back from this. I’m expecting a much better perfor mance on Sunday.
The series’ second match is at the same venue tomorr o w (5.20am start SA time). THIS has been one of the toughest weeks for the Springboks in a long time.
They may have lost to Australia and New Zealand under Heyneke Meyer, but they had never surrendered in the UK and Europe in their previous two tours to the northern hemisphere under the current Bok coach.
And the fact that they came off such a high of finally beating the All Blacks, and then going down to an injury-depleted Ireland side last week, would have made the defeat even more difficult to deal with.
Not to mention the three weeks that they had to prepare for the tour opener against the Six Nations champions.
They’ve been hard on themselves since arriving in the British capital on Sunday, and rightly so. Captain Jean de Villiers spoke yesterday about how important the mental preparation has been this week going into today’s clash against England at Twickenham. He added: “We had a lot of physical preparation!”
But what will be of far greater importance today is their execution, particularly on attack. They were able to work their way into the Irish 22, but battled to finish off. And De Villiers has discovered the reason for that.
“My feeling was more that we were half-a-second off the pace in all facets of play. Even though we dominated territory and possession, and I thought our first phases were really good, we were probably just off it a little bit,” the 33-year-old skipper said.
“And that happens in sport and definitely happens in rugby. The difficult thing about that is that it’s not a tangible sort of thing that you can change – that is something that comes from within, and you need all 23 guys to make that mental change, to make that intensity change or whatever you want to call it.
“That’s been the key focus for us – to change