After the first ODI game which was abandoned by the bad weather forecast between hosts Ireland and South Africa. The series has moved to the second game of the series where South Africa once again won the toss and decided to bowl first like the previous game. But as usual the story was same from South Africa bowling and co who were complete and effective and helped Ireland to score 290 runs for the loss of 5 wickets in their allotted 50 overs.
The captain himself Andy Balbirnie had scored 102 runs which featured 10 fours and two sixes who were well supported by Harry Tector who scored 79 runs off 68 balls along with George Dockrill 45 runs off 23 balls and also added quick fire 90 runs partnership for the 4th wicket to help the team to go cross 280 run mark after they were 194 for 3 wickets by the end of 42 overs. In reply the visitors were not in the match from the start of their innings and only managed to score 247 runs and lost the match by 43 runs.
The defeat is not fluke at all as hosts have completely dominated the oppositions in every department of field. For South Africa it’s definitely the transition phase but this defeat will going to haunt them for the long long time. It will not be the surprise from here if South Africa will lost the ODI series to Ireland after having far better bowling attack from hosts.
After the dominating victory Andy Balbirnie had said,
"We've beaten big teams before but we haven't beaten them consistently. We don't have the players these teams have, we don't have the infrastructure or the exposure. A lot of the South African team have played in the IPL. We don't get that," Balbirnie said. "So what we do, when we do play these big teams, we get the most of out of these games and we try to put in our best performance. We are thrilled and beating them once off is great but winning a series at the end of the week will be so important, because it shows we're making strides."
“We’ve played really good cricket over the last two games so it will be disappointing if we drop our standards for the last game. They have just come off a tour of West Indies so they are looking to rest people and rotate people but when we get opportunities to play these teams we want to come out all guns blazing and hopefully turn them over.”
“Harry is a quick learner and a very impressive person. A lot of our guys have been thrown into the deep end, playing big teams but these are the players we need to invest in and put time into,” Balbirnie said. “The last series in Holland, Harry has shown promise. He is looking really impressive in that No.4 position. That was probably the innings of the day.”
While the losing captain has said we will make changes in the final game of the series,
“With Quinny, we are trying to manage his workload and get Janneman [Malan] into the side – he has done very well in white-ball cricket,” Bavuma said. “With Lungi, from a workload point of view, in the last game, his speeds were lower than normal. That was the thinking behind those decisions.”
Check out the Match Highlights here
