South African cricket captain Shaun Pollock was not at all concerned after his bowling attack was unable to dismiss lowly Canada in a World Cup match at Buffalo Park on Thursday.
Although Canada batted their full 50 overs in pursuit of South Africa’s 254 for eight, the North Americans managed just 136 for five.
While the South Africans achieved their primary objective of a win to keep alive their chances of qualifying for the Super Six stages of the World Cup, the inability to bowl out one of the worst batting sides in the tournament must be of some concern.
Pollock, however, disagreed.
”I’m not disappointed,” said Pollock after the 118 run victory. ”The guys hit the right areas with the ball and if we had taken our chances, we had a good chance of bowling them out.”
South Africa put down five catches, four of which were offered by Ishwar Maraj. Having been granted all those let offs, Maraj went on to set a World Cup record in facing the most balls in an innings.
Having been put down twice by wicketkeeper Mark Boucher alone, Maraj made an undefeated 53 from 155 balls — bettering the previous record by four balls. Pollock admitted that he was rather taken aback that the Canadians made no effort to chase down the total.
”I don’t know what the thinking was,” said Pollock. ”Obviously he (Maraj) needed to anchor the innings but maybe he took it a bit too far.
”I thought if they had wickets in hand they would have gone for the runs and tried to put us under pressure.”
While Pollock was surprised by the lack of fight, Canadian captain was disappointed.
”In one sense, I’m happy we didn’t get bowled out,” said Harris.
”We’ve been bowled out every game so far. But if we were going to lose, I would have liked to have done so by going after the runs.” Harris though defended the South
African attack against criticism.
”South Africa have some world class bowlers. If you played straight on that track, it was difficult to get wickets. ”There was not a lot of sideways movement out there.” – Sapa