Proteas allrounder Marco Jansen says they can do better with bat in hand in the third T20I against India at Centurion Park tonight at 5pm.
South Africa levelled the four-match series 1-1 at St George’s Oval in Gqeberha on Sunday with a moeilike three-wicket win, after losing the series opener by 61 runs at Kingsmead in Durban last Friday.
In both matches SA’s batsmen failed to live up to expectations, as they were bowled out for just 141 in pursuit of India’s 202/8 in the first match – with India gevaarman Sanju Samson scoring 107 off just 50 balls.
Then, innie Baai, SA’s bowlers restricted the visitors to just 124/6 before making a helse berg of a molshoop in their chase.
As it were, they got home with three wickets to spare, thanks to a brilliant 47* off 41 balls by Tristan Stubbs, while bowler Gerald Coetzee chipped in with 19 not out.
Jansen knows the batsmen should have done better against India’s spin bowlers and believes with the wicket at Centurion Park providing for more bounce than spin, they will do better tonight.
He says: “We have spoken about [our performances] and we know we didn’t play at our best. The second game the whole focus was just to try and give ourselves the best chance to win.
“We did well with the ball, with the bat everyone felt like we could have done a bit better… we could have made better decisions…”
Tonight’s winner will take an unassailable 2-1 advantage into Friday’s final match at the Wanderers.