South Africa will be playing for pride when they come up against New Zealand in the 3rd and final game of the ODI series at Potchefstroom on January 25th.
The Proteas have come up short in both ODIs against New Zealand, who clearly won on merit.
Some of the mistakes that we saw from the home side the other day were school boy errors. It is really hard to imagine a South Africa side being rocked by five run outs in an innings. The South Africans need to turn to the basics to help improve their overall game and the results.
The likes of Graeme Smith, Colin Ingram and Faf du Plessis need to fire with the bat and the rest of the batsmen need to not do anything silly.
This is a young Proteas outfit that the selectors hoped would triumph over what would be seen as a weak Kiwi side on paper. It seems that this lot have not fared as well as they would have liked. However, there is still a match to go where they can pull something back.
The Kiwis will be mighty pleased with their showing in the last couple of matches after their humiliation in the test series.
New Zealand will be hoping for a complete whitewash on Saturday when they take the field. The positives from the last match will be the batting of Kane Williamson and Grant Elliot, their overall fielding, and the bowling from Kyle Mills which was excellent.
Nathan McCullum was electric on the field the other day and he will be looking to perform with bat and ball as well. Brendon McCullum is also due for a big one while opener Martin Guptill will be looking to get back in form after looking out of sorts in the past couple of matches.