South Africa's Reeza Hendricks walks back to the pavilion after his dismissal during the second one-day international (ODI) cricket match between South Africa and India at St George's Park in Gqeberha Proteas opener Reeza Hendricks said the loss to Ireland in the second T20 International at the end of last month, was particularly painful. Picture: Deryck Foster/AFP
Although the Proteas ran out convincing winners in the One-Day Internationals against Ireland which concluded on Monday, Reeza Hendricks said it was a bitter pill to swallow as they drew their T20 International series with the Irish.
South Africa of course made it to the final of the T20 World Cup against India earlier this year, and are certainly a more capable team than their current sixth in the rankings indicates.
Ireland, in contrast, are 11th and on paper should be no match for the Proteas team - even an inexperienced one.
That was until they beat the Aiden Markram-led South Africa in the 2nd T20 at the end of September. It meant the spoils were shared in the two-match series.
Hendricks who made twin scores of 51 in the T20s, said that loss still hurt a couple weeks later.
"The T20Is against Ireland … we allowed them to level the series, which again was disappointing according to our standards," Hendricks told SportsBoom.com
"With all due respect to Ireland, they are not one of the bigger teams, so to level a series against them was disappointing. We would've loved to do better.”
Though the Proteas also went down to Afghanistan in their ODI series which preceded the clashes with Ireland, Hendricks paid more credit to the wily opposition.
"They've got world-class spinners. Rashid Khan did unbelievably well in the one game picking up five wickets and then the mystery spinner (Ghazanfar) that's new on the scene kind of shocked the world," said Hendricks.
"Look, it was tricky, it's guys we don't face often enough, and it was in their conditions where the ball was assisting them and was turning.
“So, I think they put us under pressure, and we couldn't step up in those conditions. Against Afghanistan, we struggled a bit. We lost the series there so in that sense it was disappointing.”
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