South Africa faced another disappointment in the knockout stage of an International Cricket Council tournament, losing to New Zealand in the semifinal of the Champions Trophy in Lahore on Wednesday. But team’s head coach, Rob Walter, believes they are progressing well ahead of hosting the ODI World Cup in two years’ time.
The ODI World Cup in 2027 will be jointly organised by South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia.
But it was a disappointing evening in Lahore for the Proteas, who, after finishing top of their group to enter the semis, failed to overcome the Kiwis. They fell 50 runs short while pursuing a challenging target of 362 runs.
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“You know, in the wins, we managed to put some significant partnerships together. We had guys contributing significantly with the bat. From a bowling point of view, I think our biggest development was our accuracy. We were able to be very accurate as a seam unit,” said coach Walter in the post-match press conference.
“And that’s something that we’ve been working really hard on. Every game we play is a learning opportunity. We just keep trying to take the little lessons. Today is a hard lesson, you feel it a little bit more, because it’s the end of a campaign.”
“But we certainly continue to keep learning from things, little bits here and there, that we can do better. We’re still evolving as a team; there’s no doubt in my mind. Two and a half years to 2027 (ODI World Cup at home) and that’s the eyes on the prize,” he added.
South Africa had previously suffered a loss against India in the T20 World Cup final last year, giving it away from a strong position.
On Wednesday, they were out-batted by New Zealand, who rode on centuries by Kane Williamson and Rachin Ravindra to post a mammoth total.
“I don’t think it was any one particular thing that resulted in the loss, probably a couple. We could have handled the last 10 overs (while bowling) a little bit better. They got away from us a little bit,” said Walter.
“There was a period sort of in the middle of the innings where Kane (Wiiliamson) and Rachin (Ravindra) started to up their rates a bit. And we missed a few opportunities there.
“…when we were batting. We were just starting to get going and that partnership got broken and really slowed us down in the middle and obviously we saw Dave (Miller) play unbelievably well in the end to get a hundred…you know you’re just one partnership away from doing something special,” he concluded.