SA put East London heroics behind them and turn attention to second T20 against England
After salvaging an unexpected but highly welcome one-run win against England in their opening T20I in East London on Wednesday‚ Proteas batsman Temba Bavuma said they need more of those kinds of wins to help them prepare for pressure situations in tournaments.
The Proteas are known to find various ways of losing pressure matches in International Cricket Council tournaments‚ but they’ve also learnt the hard way that what happens in bi-lateral matches has no bearing on ICC tournaments.
They’ve got a second T20 in Durban to drive home their advantage‚ even though England have more than once shown on this tour that they’re not disadvantaged by losing the opening game.
“We know at the back of our minds that these types of wins‚ we want to be able to scrape them when they really matter in the big events.
"We know that it’s going to be called upon us to be able to do that again and the best time is to start that against top teams like England‚” Bavuma said.
“There’s a lot of confidence we’re going to take from the East London victory.”
SA’s batting started well but faltered‚ but in Lungi Ngidi they had a death bowler who can be counted on despite fitness issues.
Ngidi defended seven off the final over without raising much of a sweat.
Bavuma though knows how critical the match-winning performance was for Ngidi‚ especially after the underwhelming Pink Day ODI performance.
“It was massive for Lungi from a belief and a confidence point of view. He didn’t have the best of games in the Pink ODI by his own admission.
"He would’ve had the hunger and the will to do right for the team and what better moment to do it in the last over when you have to defend only seven runs‚” Bavuma said.
The weather shouldn’t have a say in Friday’s game in Durban‚ but Bavuma knows the second T20I will be a different game with a new set of challenges.
“We can take all the learnings we can from this game into the next one. It’ll be important that we rock up in Durban with all the confidence and momentum.
"It’s another game that’ll probably present different challenges and it’ll be important that we rock up‚” Bavuma said.
“We don’t want a situation where we go to Centurion at 1-all and we probably think we have the upper hand on the England side at this point. It’ll be important that we use the advantage that we have.”