"Fighting Spirit got us through, again" – Markrak

Quinton de Kock won successive man-of-the-match awards for his 65 from 38 balls as South Africa beat England by 7-runs in their second Super-Eight match in St.Lucia on Friday but expressed no surprise that conditions were not as conducive for batting as many had precicted.

South Africa beat England by 7-runs to make it two wins out of two but it was yet another tense, nail-biter with England requiring ‘just’ 25 runs from the final three overs with six wickets in hand.

“We’ve played a couple of games here in the Caribbean Premier League and it definitely doesn’t play the same in the day as it does ay night, so a couple of us knew that, it doesn’t play the same even though it’s the same wicket,” de Kock said.

On the back of his match-winning 74 against the USA de Kock might have been riding the crest of a confidence wave. Apparently not:

“I don’t really carry confidence forward, I just start each innings on nought and try to bat for as long as possible and score as many runs as I can for the team,” de Kock said.

“Quinton came out with a lot of intent and really took on the Power Play and we couldn’t really match that, so we were probably 20runs behind them. We bowled really well and restricted them well, but the Power Play made the difference,” said England captain, Jos Buttler.

Leading by example with the willow 🏏

Quinton de Kock receives the @Aramco POTM after his 65 off 38 balls laid the foundation for a Proteas victory 🏅#ENGvSA #T20WorldCup pic.twitter.com/nCKi1ZhnSP

— ICC (@ICC) June 21, 2024

Opposite number, Aiden Markram, admitted it has been a tough tournament so far: “Yet again we got to the last three overs and I was thinking the odd were stacked against us, but for the bowlers to hang in there show’s a lot of skill but also it comes from a deeper, fighting spirit, which helped us a lot at the back of the innings,” Markram said.

“I wanted at least another 10 runs, 20 if I’m being greedy, especially on the back of that great start, so we knew we were going to have to ‘squeeze’ and build pressure in the middle of the innings, but that’s exactly what we did,” Markram said.

“We’re obviously not there yet, but I feel we’re building closer to that perfect game which we’ll need however far we progress in the tournament,” Markram said.