Temba Bavuma bemoans Proteas poor death bowling

Proteas captain Temba Bavuma has called for consistency in the death bowling department after his side crashed to a 43-run defeat to Ireland in the second one-day international (ODI) at the Malahide Cricket Ground on Tuesday.

A sparkling seventh ODI century by Irish opener and captain Andy Balbirnie helped his side to 290/5 in their allotted 50 overs before dismissing the Proteas for 248 with nine balls to spare.

The defeat also meant SA received no ODI World Cup Super League points as they remain in the bottom half while their Irish hosts’ chances of qualification for the 2023 ICC tournament were given a huge boost.

“We haven’t shown any consistency in the death bowling phase. It makes it hard to set a plan and get some sort of direction,” Bavuma said.

He hinted at the possibility of a reshuffle ahead of the final game set to be played at the same venue on Friday. SA trail 1-0 in the three-match ODI series.

“There are other guys on the sidelines who are known to have the skill, so maybe there is a strong case in giving an opportunity to other guys to showcase what they can do in that phase,” the skipper said.

Bavuma also said their performance in the field was dented by the vital catches they dropped. “Those are not standards we pride ourselves on, and dropping catches was always going to make things hard for us.

Pinning his side’s poor bowling performance in the Ireland match down to execution, Bavuma still gave his bowlers the benefit of the doubt.

“Bowling short and wide is never a plan. I’d like to give the bowlers the benefit of the doubt and pin it down to execution. It has been happening a bit too often where we find ourselves in the field, trying to defend both sides of the field. That obviously makes things difficult.”

On resting influential opening batsman Quinton de Kock and fast bowler Lungi Ngidi, Bavuma said both instances were just to manage the players’ workload.