After suffering a 3-0 T20I series whitewash at Newlands on Tuesday night, Proteas coach Mark Boucher admits that England are just better than they are at the moment.
With the visitors already having wrapped up the series 2-0 heading into the final match, South Africa did well to post 191/3 – with Rassie van der Dussen (74* off 32 balls) and Faf du Plessis (52* off 37) starring.
But then Dawid Malan (99* off 47) spoiled their party as England cruised to a nine-wicket victory with more than two overs to spare.
A defeated Boucher says: “We understand that the public wants us to win and we want to win as well. It’s difficult to apologise when you do your best and you come up against opposition that are superior to you.
"I do think that England are a step ahead of not only us but a few different teams in world cricket at the moment.”
Boucher’s team has another chance to beat the odds when they face the world champions in the first of three ODIs at Newlands on Friday.
Of turning things around in the ODIs, he says: “We’ve got a different squad, there are some fresh faces and we will feed off that.
“We understand that it’s not a short journey – it’s a long one. We’ll keep learning. We are getting tested against a very good team and that’s how we want to get tested as well.
“If it’s going to expose a few weaknesses that we’ve got, that’s a good thing – it gives us stuff to work on and improve on.”