South Africa’s national cricket team has suffered an embarrassing 2-nil Test series defeat to Australia. The Proteas were trounced by an innings and 182 runs in the Boxing Day Test at the MCG in Melbourne.
Another amateur performance in their second innings in Melbourne saw them rolled out for 204, handing the Aussies a massive victory by an innings and 182 runs, their first home series win over the Proteas in nearly two decades and within four days of play.
The Proteas captain Dean Elgar says he is obviously disappointed with the result. The Proteas’ already shaky batting has gone from bad to worse over the last two weeks.
“Currently a lot going through the mind, I think I kind of made peace with it last night whether it was today or tomorrow it would be a bitter pill to swallow not a lot of positives the negatives out way the positives pretty weak I would say in conditions I would say would be good for test cricket pretty disappointed on how things ended really taking pride in our wickets the way it unfolded is very disappointing.”
This is South Africa’s fourth successive Test defeat following their 2-1 series loss to England earlier this year.
Elgar believes that they need to play more international Test cricket to be more competitive in the World Test Championship.
“We need to be playing more Test cricket and our players need to be exposed to this level. Even though we’re taking hiding like we’ve had in the first two Tests here and the England series that we had, our players need to be exposed to that. Unfortunately, we are all learning in the most ruthless and brutal way but I think there are more learnings out of this than going out and playing against a team that’s of similar strength and we beat them.”
Not all is lost for the South Africans however, they still have a chance to secure a spot in this cycle of the WTC, but only if they can bounce back to win the third and final Test in Sydney, starting next week.
“We are playing for the badge, playing for the pride of our team. We’ve got to believe we can still bounce back and put up a massive effort for the third Test. Playing for pride is of utmost importance for us going forward now. I’m sure there are a lot of guys hurting. I can tell you that. So going forward, I’m sure that conversations are going to be about playing for this badge and we need to try and restore a little bit of pride that has maybe been hurt over the last two weeks.”
The final Test match of the series begins next Wednesday at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
