South Africa will be out for redemption when they take on England in their fourth encounter of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup in Wankhede Stadium on Saturday.
The Proteas were dealt a huge blow, suffering a shocking 38-run defeat against the Netherlands during the week.
Kick-off between the two sides is at 10:30 am.
What could’ve been simply an opportunity to win four matches in a row, has now turned into a must-win clash for the Proteas when they take on England in Wankhede Stadium on Saturday.
The Proteas didn’t do themselves any favours by losing to the Netherlands on Tuesday.
After a delayed start, with the overs reduced to 43 due to rain, the Proteas won the toss, and chose to bowl first.
South Africa’s bowling attack blasted through the Dutch batsman, and at one point had them limping at 140/7 after 30 overs.
However, the Dutch still managed to resurrect their innings – Scott Edwards scored 78 off 69 while a cameo of 23 from 9 balls from Aryan Dutt saw the team past the 200 mark and set South Africa a total of 246 to win.
The Proteas in their response were blown away.
The trusted top six batters only managed to score a combined total of 112 runs, 43 of those coming from the bat of David Miller, while Henrich Klassen contributed a run-a-ball 28 runs.
Try as they may, South Africa just came short, and the fall of wickets consecutively didn’t serve them any good.
Keshav Maharaj’s 40 off 37 balls was the last straw, and when he was dismissed by Logan van Beek, the Netherlands secured the win.
Looking ahead, Captain Temba Bavuma, who has a challenging start to the campaign says the team has put the defeat behind them and is keen on the English challenge.
“We have obviously spoken about the game from a skills department point of view, what exactly that we need to do to get better,” he said.
“Looking at our performances and where things went bad for us from a batting, bowling, even from a fielding point of view.”
“We’ve put that behind us. We’ve obviously got the challenge of England starting and we are, I guess preparing to get ourselves in the right mental state, physically as well, to play our best cricket there.”
England will also enter their fourth clash of the World Cup on the back of defeat.
They also suffered a shocking 69-run defeat to Afghanistan.
England’s batting performance was also below par, as a middle-order collapse left the 2019 winners stranded on 138/6 after the 27th over.
England however, could possibly be boosted by the return of Ben Stokes from injury.
“I think both teams will obviously be looking to eradicate that, to deal with whatever issues that they had.”
“I think both teams will be looking to play their best cricket and I think it could be one hell of a game if you’ve got two teams of this calibre who play close to their best.”
“Obviously, our aim is to stop England from playing close to their best and hopefully the result is in our favour this game.”
“If I was a cricket fan, I’d want to be watching South Africa versus England. I think it will be a tightly contested game. It’ll be an exciting game. Both teams, I guess, will be looking to prove themselves, if I could say that.”
