South Africa bounced back from their 141-run defeat on Friday to win the second MTN one-day international against Australia at Supersport
Park on Sunday by seven wickets with 23 overs and four balls to spare.
Australia were bundled out for 131 in the 41st over, after Dale Steyn and Man of the Match Wayne Parnell reduced them to 19 for five in the eighth over.
The teams are now level on one-all in the five match series.
”Friday we let ourselves down,” said South African captain Graeme Smith. ”We knew we needed to improve and we knew we were capable of it. Today we wanted to put in a better performance and the bowlers really took responsibility for that.
”It was a really good outing for us. We bowled first and the bowlers got the ball in the right areas. Led by Dale and Wayne, it was great, and everyone else backed them up really well.
”I kind of wish we had started like this on Friday, but it was nice to hit our straps today.” Smith said South Africa prepared the same way for every game.
”Our focus is the same and we talk about similar things,” he said.
”We really prepared well for Friday — we took an extra few days and we probably got the rewards today. Hopefully, come Thursday, we can play
well in Cape Town and really progress up now.”
The Australian captain Ricky Ponting was visibly disappointed at his team’s poor performance.
”Bad batting,” he growled.
”We knew the ball would swing a little this morning but it wasn’t as if it was swinging around corners. There were some poor shots, from some of our top order in particular, and we exposed the middle order to the new ball.
”We haven’t been that consistent of late. If you look back to the one-day series in Australia against South Africa and against New Zealand, we were generally a couple of wickets down early on, so we’re not getting enough consistency out of our top order right now, and that’s an area we need to work on if we want to win this series.
”We’ve got a couple of days now to think a bit about how they bowled and what we did and make sure that we work hard and practice hard down in Cape Town with some new balls, and put in a lot better performance on Thursday.
”Today was as bad as we’ve played in a long time. The beauty is that we’ve got a few days to turn things around, and I’m sure you’ll see a better team on Thursday,” he added.
The third ODI will be played at Newlands on Thursday. – Sapa