After a comprehensive win for West Indies last night against Australia at St. Kitts, things have got far spicier in the ongoing tri series. The Proteas did themselves no favor by making a mess of a straight forward run chase at the same venue a few days ago against Australia. Due to losing that game, the South Africans now need to win their upcoming fixture against West Indies, in order to ensure that they remain in the hunt for the finals ahead of the third round.
The ever dependant Hashim Amla, in a recent media briefing urged his side and the batsmen, especially to step up and shoulder the responsibility. Against Australia, the stage was all set for South Africa to finish the game, but some poor strokes from the lower middle order meant that the Australians were gifted with an easy win. Considering that as a turning point, Amla mentioned that the South African batsmen would have to learn from their errors.
“As a team we have always backed ourselves for somebody in the top six to take it through and bat as deep as possible,” Amla said. “Obviously we are very disappointed after our last game. We got ourselves into a very good position to win it and we didn’t quite take it through. We lost some wickets at crucial times and that cost us. Hopefully we don’t make the same mistake in the next game.”
“It’s the responsibility of the batsmen,” Amla said, further elaborating. “That’s what we enjoy doing and that’s what we would like to do. We didn’t manage to do it in this game and I guess that does happen occasionally where you are not going to get it right, but we want to get it right as often as we can.”
The right hander was quick to mention that the wicket at St. Kitts was good for batting and the batsmen needed to capitalize on that. “It is a good wicket. It’s a higher-scoring ground than in Guyana, where 200 was a good total. Here 260 seems like a good score,” he added. “In this day and age, where we’ve seen scores of 350 in one-day cricket, it’s sobering to see 250 being a difficult score to get.” “The key is to try and get the team to score around 250 or 260. It’s a good enough wicket that you can to chase it down if you bat well,” concluded Amla.