Australia was the opponent in the tenth game of the ICC ODI World Cup 2023 with South Africa. When South Africa was chosen to bat first, they produced a respectable total, partly as a result of Quinton de Kock’s outstanding effort. De Kock, who served as the South African team’s anchor, changed the game with his second straight World Cup century.
Even though the pitch made it difficult to score runs, particularly when the ball wasn’t going on to bat, Aiden Markram nevertheless played a crucial role by scoring a quick-fire half-century. At first, it appeared as though South Africa would score 325 or more, but Australia mounted a powerful recovery in the closing stages to reduce the run flow in death overs.
Glenn Maxwell was Australia’s star bowler, making the most of the difficult pitch conditions. De Kock and Markram stayed steadfast even as the ball started to lose some of its initial zip. Throughout the midst of the game, Markram maintained his composure admirably. Both Maxwell and Mitchell Starc claimed two wickets.
When it came to the chase, Australia never really seemed to be in it and continued dropping wickets frequently. None of their hitters could stand up to South Africa’s ferocious bowling lineup, which was spearheaded by Kagiso Rabada, who claimed three wickets.
With his 46 runs, Marnus Labuschagne did offer some opposition, but ultimately South Africa won easily by a wide margin of 134 runs.
POTM Quinton de Kock said:
It was a great win for the boys, to be honest, we didn’t know how the pitch would play, we assessed the conditions beautifully and then applied ourselves well with the bat. The guys who spent time on the wicket, got a hand on the conditions and then used their scoring options. 311 was an above par score, I have played here for the Lucknow team (in the IPL), it becomes harder to bat second.
The wicket does change a bit. It was sweaty and humid, the bowlers were on top of their game, no real loose balls and they picked early wickets. I think we are keen to prove ourselves, we played well, but it’s just 2 games, the World Cup is a long tournament and games come quickly around, we will take it on a match-by-match basis.
Winning Skipper Temba Bavuma said:
I do think 311 was a couple over par, probably 290-300 was par. I guess I’m glad we lost the toss because we wanted to chase as well. I was scratchy with the bat, found it hard but Quinton (de Kock) needs to be given credit for the way he played. I think I’d be really greedy if I said there are things we can improve. It was almost the perfect game. The bowlers bowled really well, they have been under some slap but looking at all the phases, I think the guys really dominated
. I’ll take that as our second game. Need to acknowledge the batting effort, the bowling effort was all about being clinical. Lungi (Ngidi) taking the new ball and KG (Rabada) showing intensity is what we’re looking for. In our team, character is the biggest thing we’ve spoken about. You can’t overlook the good work we’ve done, let’s take the confidence and learnings. Let’s celebrate it and come back for the next one.
Losing skipper Pat cummins said:
I thought Quinton (de Kock) batted really well, couldn’t get a breakthrough. From where they were, we were quite happy with 310, thought it was chaseable. Looked like hard work out there tonight, their bowlers bowled really well, think it nipped around a bit more under lights. (On if it would’ve been easier to bat first) Really hard to say, if we want to be challenging in this tournament we need to find ways of performing regardless of batting first or second.
Don’t think much needs to be said tonight, everyone’s hurting, we’ll try and take a couple of days off and then make amends to come back stronger in the next one. There’s a few things we need to tidy up.
India
