Proteas eye 3-0 series sweep

South Africa have already won their first two matches against the world champions, thanks to some outstanding bowling in the first game and captain Temba Bavuma's man-of-the-match performance in the second in Bloemfontein.

A win would see the Proteas move into the top eight of the World Cup Super League, with a home series against the Netherlands still to come.

Batsman David Miller says that is exactly what they intend to do.

“We want to get into the top eight, so for us, every ODI is always an important event, but it becomes more necessary right now to be as clinical as we can, and not take the foot off the paddle. And just be really up for it, as I mentioned mentally, up for any challenge. 

I think the guys have played superb cricket so far in all different areas. There are always certain areas we can improve on, but hopefully tomorrow (Wednesday) we come out and put everything together one last time”, Miller told the media. 

Before this series, SA needed to win at least three of their remaining five matches (against England and the Netherlands) to have a chance of automatically qualifying for the World Cup in India in October or be condemned to a qualifier in Zimbabwe in June. 

Bavuma, who has been under particular scrutiny since SA’s failure to reach the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup in Australia last year, reminded everyone of his prowess on Sunday with a well-played 109 off 102 deliveries. With the team chasing a mammoth target of 343, Bavuma stood tall in his third ODI hundred.

And Miller, who contributed 58 runs (not out) to Sunday's score, praised his captain for the "outstanding" innings, which guided the hosts to a five-wickets victory. 

“He’s been working extremely hard behind the scenes at his game, to find different ways to score, especially in the white ball stuff. And two days ago was just outstanding.

I mean, the maturity that he batted with, as I mentioned, the tempo was just so good to see and going towards a match-winning knock like that, to get the win on top of a knock like that is even better. I’m just very chuffed for him”.