Loss of Duminy bigger blow than series defeat

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Cape Town

IT took three matches, but Australia and SA finally delivered a worthy contest worthy in their T20 series in Sydney on Sunday. Unfortunately, for Proteas fans, their team ended up on the wrong side of the equation.

Worse yet, JP Duminy’s lingering knee injury has forced him out of the one-day series starting in Perth on Friday.

He will be replaced in the squad by Farhaan Behardien, while Marchant de Lange has been added to the group to bolster resources for a series that will encompass five matches in 10 days.

Each side had won a seven-wicket landslide going into Sunday’s decider, in which the Aussies held their nerve to triumph by two wickets with a ball remaining.

SA will be pleased with their fightback - they took 4/22 in 21 balls after Australia had rattled up 40 without loss. Duminy’s men also kept the series in the balance until the death: the home side needed two to win when lost their eighth wicket to the fourth-last ball of the match.

But the fact that SA’s batsmen squandered their best start of the series to total 145/6 was closer to the truth. After 10 overs, they were 84/1. The match was won and lost when they sacrificed five wickets and scored just 61 runs in the second half of their innings.

“We would have liked to have get to around 160, but to defend as well as we did, I was happy with the bowling performance,” Duminy said. “Here and there we let it leak a little, but I was happy with the way we fought. We never gave up.”

In their previous two opening stands, Quinton de Kock and Reeza Hendricks put nought and one run on the scoreboard before they were separated after three and two balls. On Sunday, they were together for 8.4 overs and shared a stand of 75.

But De Kock’s 48 and Hendricks’ 49 was the best of SA’s batting. Their second-biggest stand was the 29 put on by Hendricks and David Miller, whose 34 not out was the visitors’ only other double-figure effort.

James Faulkner doused SA’s ambitions of setting a bigger target by dismissing Behardien, Duminy and David Wiese in the space of six of his deliveries.

Australia’s batting was equally underwhelming, but Cameron White guided them effectively with his unbeaten 41.

Robin Peterson and Wiese took three wickets each, and it looked like Kyle Abbott would have something to bowl at when Australia needed 10 runs off the final 12 balls.

But, as Duminy said: “Who would be the best guy (to bowl) if we had four or five to defend off the last over? I was backing Kyle to do that. Unfortunately, he only had three runs to defend.”

The Aussies will thus be on the front foot leading into the one-day series. But Duminy did not struggle to find positives.

“(Young players) will know that if this is the level you want to play at, you’re going to have to be at the top of your game most of the time,” he said.

“There are a few guys who have done well for us, and they will take confidence into the one-day series.”