In the newly played T20I matches the South Africa was amazed when lost against the West Indies in the 1st T20I match. Because of the failure to cope with the conditions and to study the opponents’ tactics, the team lost the match for 7 wickets. In this article, we will examine three key factors that contributed to South Africa’s loss: weak bowling, pathetic performance by top-order batsmen, and wrong decision-making by the captain.
Lacklustre Bowling
South Africa’s bowling was seriously poor on the day while the batsmen of the West Indies dominated the game. The West Indies players, Shai Hope and Nicholas Pooran, the openers added a half-century partnership, to put the game beyond the reach of the hosts. The South African bowlers just could not get into any sort of a rhythm or consistency and the West Indies piled on the pressure, especially during the Powerplay overs. Among the bowlers, the team’s hero with the ball Aiden Markram was below par as he went for 21 runs in just one over without a wicket. This was further compounded by the fact that the bowling did not penetrate the West Indies batting line-up as well as it would have been expected and the variation was not enough to sustain a strong team effort in restricting the opponents.
The South African bowlers also disappointingly did not cash in on the few chances that they got in getting a wicket. West Indies’ middle-order was reportedly not severity severe enough to unleash a dominant display of batting, but the same could not be said of the South African bowlers who failed to maintain a constant pressure on the opposition. As such the West Indies got a good score on the board and posted a fight figure on the scoreboard. This bowling attack failed on the grounds of not being able to exploit conditions and pick up wickets at right intervals and hence left South Africa chokers.
Top-Order Failure
The South African top-order batsmen did not seize the chance given to them and only Tristian Stubbs and Patrick Kruger scored in Amazing. The South African openers Reeza Hendricks and Ryan Rickelton did not take off as Hendricks was dismissed for 4 runs only off 9 balls. The middle-order batsmen; Aiden Markram and Rassie van der Dussen also had a poor show; the latter never scored and the former was dismissed early.
Getting out early or compiling a small score the top-order batsmen overwhelmed the middle order, who could not rotate the strike to save the match. The team failed to be able to make partnerships and no amount of pressure could be applied on the West Indies bowlers to make the chase of the target possible. Failure of top order batsmen reduced the competitiveness of South African batting order to self-effacing reliance on a few players to get them to victory.
Poor Captaincy of Aiden Markram
The match also saw Aiden Markram being the captain of the team which received a lot of criticism. His captaincy during the series could be described as slightly poor at moments, especially regarding the bowling and fielding changes. By the time Markram decided to switch to his faster bowlers, the West Indies’ batsmen had settled nicely against his slower ones. He also lacked the ability to change the fielding positions with any degree of success and the West Indies’ batting seemed to be able to take advantage of this.
He was unable to encourage the personnel under him and come up with decisions that would post a threat to the rest of the team. Failing to enthuse his team and make sweeping decisions was a sure recipe for South Africa’s downfall. To a large extend the combined poor performance of the team could be attributed to bad captaincy and leadership from Markram.