Published: Oct 06, 2016, 12:37 PM (IST)
Edited: Oct 06, 2016, 01:12 PM (IST)
The third One-Day International between South Africa and Australia went down the wire as the hosts emerge victorious in the final over of the second innings. David Miller’s ton propelled South Africa in hunting down the second-highest run chase in the history of ODI cricket, they also hold the highest run chase record, which again came against the same opponent. Australia posted a massive total of 371 on board in a game, which was in a sense series decider for them after losing the first two games of the five-match series. South Africa came out all guns blazing and chased down the target with immense confidence.
South African skipper, Faf du Plessis heaped praise on this run chase and was certainly out of words to express his glee. He was quoted in a report from ESPNCricinfo saying, “To win a game like that when you’re supposed to lose, when you’re down and out then you have someone put their hand up and take you across the line, it’s as good as it gets, I don’t have any words to be honest.”
“I think there’s a lot of people if you asked them 3-0 to South Africa against the No. 1 team in the world, they would have possibly laughed. It just shows which direction we’re going as a team at the moment, we’ve played some really good cricket in all formats and I’m really excited about what lies ahead. I’m just out of words, I’m so happy at the moment because I never would have thought 3-0 would have been possible against this Australian side, Du Plessis added.
Smith have had an ordinary series so far and and not able to get things going in last few games. Smith on this loss quipped, “I wanted the top four to get the bulk of the runs, someone to go on and get a hundred, we had two blokes do that. It’s a very tough loss. Today was our quarter-final to keep us in the series and when you get to halfway and you’ve got 370 on the board, you don’t lose too many games with 370 on the board. For them [bowlers], it’s about trying to bowl their best ball as much as possible…we just haven’t been able to do it as well as we would have liked.”
“It hasn’t gone to plan so far, that’s for sure. I’m sure the guys will be able to take a lot out of playing against these South African batters. There’s some quality batters in their line-up and you’ve got to learn to play against the best if you want to play international cricket,” Smith added.
“I think as an international team you cannot use that as an excuse, never,” he said. “I’ve been part of a South African team when we had no Dale Steyn and no Vernon Philander in our Test team, and you can’t use that as an excuse.
“You have to find a way as a team to try and compete against the best teams in the world and we didn’t in that series against England and it would have been a lot different with the two of them playing.
“But you can’t use that as an excuse, you have to find a way as a squad to try and compete. There’s a little bit of inexperience there but they would be the first guys not to blame their weakened attack. They’re the No. 1 team in the world and they know they still have to put up a good fight against us.”
