The second upset of the ICC ODI World Cup 2023 took place yesterday as Netherlands defeated South Africa in the match which was played at Dharamshala. Earlier the Afghanistan cricket team surprised everyone by defeating the defending champions England and now it was Netherland which gave a rude shock to the Proteas.
The match was rain-affected and it was reduced to 43 overs per innings, the SA skipper Temba Bavuma decided to ball first after winning the toss and his decision was proved correct by his bowlers who bowled superbly and dismissed 6 Netherland batters at the score of 116. However, Netherlands’ skipper Scott Edwards played a superb knock of 78* and he was well supported by tailenders – Roelof van der Merwe and Aryan Dutt who scored 29 and 23 runs not out, respectively. Netherlands posted a total of 245/8 in its 43 overs and in response, the whole South African team was out at 207 runs and Netherlands won the match by 38 runs.
After the match, Temba Bavuma addressed the press conference and accepted that this defeat would certainly hurt. He said, “You got to let the emotion kind of seep in. Don’t think there is any point in trying to forget what’s happened. It is going to hurt, it should hurt. But then you come back tomorrow, you wake up and we get back onto the journey. Our campaign is not over by any stretch of the imagination, but you got to feel the emotion of today and come back tomorrow with head held up.”
Talking about his team’s performance in the match, Temba Bavuma said, “The extras that’s something you can control. Getting 30 (31) extras, that is an extra five overs is always going to hurt you. That is a conversation for us to have – whether it is skill or a complacency thing – but at the end it did count for quite a thing. We were clinical against Australia, but the challenge was always to come back and replicate that performance. The fielding wasn’t up to standard. Again if you look at the way we fielded against Australia compared to today, definitely not the same standard. Those are conversations we need to have. The guys need to answer the questions themselves where mentally they were. That’s definitely not the standard we’d like to show from a fielding point of view.”
Well played Netherlands!
