Proteas played on Rizwan’s arrogance says Linde
JOHANNESBURG – South Africa basically asked Mohammad Rizwan to continue to try and dominate them.
He duly obliged, but unlike his last four T20 innings’ against the Proteas, this time Rizwan succumbed, to the first ball of the match.
“I’m actually glad he came down the wicket first ball,” said George Linde on Monday. “We tried to play on his arrogance a bit – that’s not to say he is arrogant – but just try and force a false shot out of him. For two balls we were going to try and keep mid-off up and see if he’d give us a false shot, and luckily, first ball, he did.”
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Rizwan’s was the first of Linde’s three wickets, to which he added three catches and later contributed an unbeaten 20 with the bat to rightly earn the player of the match prize. His were the best figures in what was a fine performance with the ball by the South Africans.
Lifted by Rizwan’s early dismissal, they swarmed all over Pakistan, restricting the tourists to 140/9.
It was an inadequate target and was duly treated that way by South Africa’s batsmen who chased down 141 in 14 overs with Aiden Markram’s 54 off 30 balls the top score. “We should have won the first game. We were not good in certain stages especially the last five overs, which is where we lost the game,” Linde said of last Saturday’s four wicket loss. “Today the bowlers showed up, it was unbelievable, you can’t ask for more from the bowlers. We had a point to prove, and we did that.”
South Africa retained the same starting side as Saturday, providing the players with an opportunity for redemption, which they duly took.
“In sport you always get abuse unfortunately. All I can ask is for South Africans to be patient. There are a lot of new guys, we just need a bit of time, some experience and I can promise you, we are going to scare teams.”
⚠️ Result | #Proteas win by 6 wickets
— Cricket South Africa (@OfficialCSA) April 12, 2021
The series goes to 1-1 with two left to play
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Sisanda Magala provided an illustration of the type of courage there is in the Proteas squad, recovering from a horrible first over in which he conceded 18 runs, bowling three no-balls and three wides amongst that. He conceded just 14 runs in his next three overs - two of which were the 18th and 20th - and picked up the wicket of Pakistan’s captain Babar Azam along the way.
“It showed his character,” Linde said of Magala. “I believe it and I know a lot of guys (in the squad) believe it, he’s the best T20 ‘death bowler’ in the country.”
“We weren’t too worried after that first over because we knew what was going to come next. He knew what he had to do and he corrected it and showed his character.”
The third match of the series will be played in Centurion on Wednesday.