One thing we did well was that we never lost wickets in clusters: Rassie van der Dussen

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Ahmedabad . In the 2023 Men’s ODI World Cup, it has not been good for South Africa to bat second innings compared to batting first. Barring a one-wicket win over Pakistan, South Africa had lost in chases against the Netherlands and India.

But on Friday at the Narendra Modi Stadium, South Africa successfully chased down 245 against Afghanistan and won by five wickets in their last league match before the semi-finals. The successful chase was led by Rassie Van der Dussen, who scored an unbeaten 76 off 95 balls.

Coming into this match, we wanted to put ourselves in that position. So if we had won the toss we would have bowled anyway, because we wanted to put ourselves in that position, knowing that they have a particularly strong spin attack. I think it was controlled to a great extent. There were one or two nervous moments, but that always happens in chasing.

You just have to communicate well with the people coming in, he said in the post-match press conference. One thing we have done well is that we never lost wickets in clusters. Whoever came had a little partnership and almost finished it. By doing this, they were never actually in the match. Even though it looked like we needed about 50-50, with five wickets in hand, nine times out of ten you’re going to get there.

Even as Afghanistan continued to take wickets, Van der Dussen remained strong and his patient approach ultimately led to success in the chase. He made a 50-run partnership with Aiden Markram and a 43-run partnership with David Miller. He was also involved in an unbeaten 65-run partnership with Andile Phehlukwayo to give South Africa victory in 47.3 overs.

This innings was a bit like a chess match – their spinners were bowling at certain times and we knew their three main spinners were the biggest threat and at certain stages we had to step back a bit.

Van der Dussen said, the message given to Andile coming there is that he has to take wickets now, so he is going to bowl to his best bowlers now, so it is difficult. I gave him some good plans as to how the wicket was playing and he managed to be successful in that and then as soon as those three guys bowled, we knew we could target other guys.

South Africa’s next challenge at the World Cup will be against five-time champions Australia in the second semi-final at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Thursday. The Proteas had won the previous encounter against Australia in the league stage in Lucknow by 134 runs.

But South Africa last appeared in the World Cup semi-finals in 2015 and most of the players did not have much experience of playing knockout matches. Van der Dussen acknowledged that Australia knows the feeling of playing knockout cricket more, but backed his team to continue their winning mentality.

I think it will probably be different in the sense that many of their players have been in similar situations before and they have a good reference of what it has been like to win a World Cup and play in semi-finals for two (four) years. Firstly, in terms of it, they’ll probably know a little bit more about what it’s about.

But this is the day when the team rocks, gets active and executes its plans. We came into this tournament knowing that if we get a chance to win, we have to win because we missed the semi-finals by a very narrow margin. It was just like that – the second game against Australia, we came into that.

“It has almost been a winning mentality for us right from the beginning,” he concluded. So, I don’t think there will be much difference. This would be a good match; They are a great team. He has played a lot of cricket in the last few months. Some players are playing well. Some of our players are playing well and it is going to be a good match.

–IANS

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