Proteas captain AB de Villiers remains optimistic despite a 9-wicket defeat to England in the first match of the IT20 series in Southampton.
“It was a slow start, unfortunately we lost a couple of wickets,” said de Villers. "Looking back it was probably the best time for us to bat in the first 6 overs, it got really slow after that.”
Having lost 3 wickets in the first powerplay, de Villiers and right-hander Farhaas Behardien looked to steady the ship.
“We came up about 20, 25 short I think. The leg spinner gave us a few things to hit but we didn't cash in on that.”
“They don't always come off the middle of the bat but I think we'll play them a bit better in the next game.”
The skipper suggested that the margin of victory slightly flattered the hosts, remaining confident that his outfit can restore parity in the second match and set up a nail-biting clash in Cardiff on the 25th.
“We tried to expose all the bowlers today, got it right at times but not consistently enough. I know it doesn't look like that losing by 5 overs but they had the freedom of going after us because they wickets in hand and we had a low total.”
“It would've been a different game if we had 20-odd more.”
England take on South Africa on Friday at a sold out 10,000 crowd at Taunton, before heading to Cardiff for the final game in the Series on Sunday.
With the last few tickets remaining for the finale in Cardiff, secure your seats and join the 15,000 strong crowd here: https://tickets.glamorgancricket.com