London, Sep 3: South Africa’s captain AB de Villiers has criticised his middle-order after they failed to score enough runs for the second match in a row against England.
England beat the Proteas by six wickets in which opener Ian Bell’s innings was the cornerstone of his team’s 224 for four, as they won with 20 balls to spare after good work by their bowlers restricted South Africa to 220 for eight.
“Unfortunately the middle-order failed again so we''ll have to look at that,” said De Villiers.
“The guys will have to have a look at themselves, including me. It''s a matter of knuckling down. We go to Trent Bridge 2-1 down but we could make it 2-2 which would be quite a good result,” he said.
England skipper Alastair Cook was happy after England topped a memorable few days for their captain with a six-wicket win in the fourth one-day international at Lord’s on Sunday.
England, who had been knocked off top spot in all three international formats by South Africa this season are now set to regain their place at the summit of the 50-over world rankings even if the Proteas square a series, Sport24 reports.
“It was a really good performance again. When you win a toss in those conditions you need to make the most of it and I thought we did. Finn and Jimmy asked plenty of questions up front. A couple of chances went down but we hung in there,” said Cook.
“Then with the bat we had that really good partnership between Bell and Trotty which probably got us most of the way home. We came here to win the series, we had a slow start but now it is 2-1 and all to play for at Trent Bridge,” he said.
© ANI
