Africa-Press – South-Africa. The next few days in the Proteas camp will be spent in search of solutions on how to sucker-punch New Zealand in the Tri-Series final in Harare on Saturday.
The Black Caps have been all over South Africa like a rash in white-ball cricket in 2025, dating back to the Champions Trophy semifinal and now in the series in Zimbabwe.
The Proteas squad on duty in Harare is a second-string outfit but will not have taken kindly to being convincingly beaten twice by the Kiwis in a 21-run defeat last week and a seven-wicket loss on Tuesday.
In the most recent defeat, batting was the main issue, while in the first game it was ill-discipline in line and length by the Proteas bowlers that let the Black Caps batsmen off the hook as they recovered from 74/5 to register 173/5.
Other than Reeza Hendricks’ 41, there were no major contributions in the batting, even though the coaches reshuffled the order.
With the ball, Senuran Muthusamy gave South Africa some hope soon after the power play with the dismissals of Rachin Ravindra and Mark Chapman, but man-of-the-match Tim Seifert had already done the damage.
“I think obviously a better batting performance is needed. We’ll reflect and see how everybody went about the game today,” Hendricks said. “We have a couple of days of practice and hopefully on Saturday we come out a lot stronger.
“We’ve played against them now, so we know what they’re bringing and they know what we’re about too. So we just have to reflect on our own games and hopefully we can put up a better performance.”
Proteas coach Shukri Conrad has used the series, his first as white-ball coach since taking the reins from Rob Walter, who is coaching New Zealand, for experimental purposes. He roped in several young players, including Lhuan-dre Pretorius, Kwena Maphaka, Nqaba Peter, Andile Simelane and Dewald Brevis.
This is part of a strategy to get them used to the environment in preparation for the 2026 T20 World Cup.
A win over the Black Caps and lifting the trophy will be considered a bonus and a step in the right direction.
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