South Africa vs Australia 2020: Mark Boucher blames Proteas' poor bowling display for shambolic loss in first T20I

South Africa head coach Mark Boucher lamented his sides poor overall display in their crushing 107-run defeat at the hands of Australia in the first T20I at the Wanderers and singled out the horrific bowling display that cost them the game.

Quinton de Kock won the toss and put Australia in to bat first, and the visitors got off to a flying start, scoring 70 runs in the powerplay.

The Aussies persevered with the onslaught and ended up posting a daunting total of 196 at the end of 20 overs, courtesy a combination of brilliant batting and some extremely lacklustre bowling by the Proteas pacers.

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Boucher bemoaned the bowlers’ poor discipline, stating how poor their line and length was through the course of the night and was also baffled by the lack of yorkers.

However, the former South Africa wicket-keeper was quick to reiterate the fact that this current rebuild of the Proteas cricket scene will require patience and stressed that things will not change overnight.

“They scored 70 runs in the first six overs and put us on the back foot straight away and that was from some really poor bowling. I can understand if you bowl one or two cut balls and the wicket is sitting up a bit, but I think we went for 10 boundaries off cut balls, which got the momentum going their way,” said Boucher.

“It’s not something we can change overnight. We tried to work on things like yorkers but came up short. Our lines and lengths were really bad. Ten cut balls in the first six overs is basically gifting batters 40 runs without them making a play. It’s not like they were running down the wicket-taking us on, we were giving them boundary options.

“It was the bowling as a whole. We bowled one yorker, in the first six overs. Our options just weren’t there tonight.”