WC: Aussies suffer a huge loss

Australia suffered its biggest ICC ODI World Cup defeat with a 134-run loss against South Africa at the Ekana Stadium in Lucknow on Wednesday.

Australia’s previous biggest defeat came in a 1983 World Cup match against India at Chelmsford when it was hammered by 118 runs. The only other instance of a 100-plus run defeat for Australia also came in the 1983 edition when it lost by 101 runs against West Indies in Leeds.

SA skipper Temba Bavuma, said,  I do think 311 was a couple over par, probably 290-300 was par. I guess I’m glad we lost the toss because we wanted to chase as well. I was scratchy with the bat, found it hard but Quinton (de Kock) needs to be given credit for the way he played. I think I’d be really greedy if I said there are things we can improve. It was almost the perfect game. The bowlers bowled really well, they have been under some slap but looking at all the phases, I think the guys really dominated. I’ll take that as our second game. Need to acknowledge the batting effort, the bowling effort was all about being clinical. Lungi (Ngidi) taking the new ball and KG (Rabada) showing intensity is what we’re looking for. In our team, character is the biggest thing we’ve spoken about. You can’t overlook the good work we’ve done, let’s take the confidence and learnings. Let’s celebrate it and come back for the next one.

Australia captain captain Pat Cummins said, ‘I thought Quinton (de Kock) batted really well, couldn’t get a breakthrough. From where they were, we were quite happy with 310, thought it was chaseable. Looked like hard work out there tonight, their bowlers bowled really well, think it nipped around a bit more under lights. (On if it would’ve been easier to bat first) Really hard to say, if we want to be challenging in this tournament we need to find ways of performing regardless of batting first or second. Don’t think much needs to be said tonight, everyone’s hurting, we’ll try and take a couple of days off and then make amends to come back stronger in the next one. There’s a few things we need to tidy up.’