Just One Partnership Away: South Africa Coach Pinpoints Reason For Losing Yet Another ICC Event Knockout Game

South Africa lost yet another ICC knockout game when they were beaten by 50 runs at the hands of New Zealand in the second semi-final of the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 on March 5 (Wednesday) in Lahore. 

The Proteas were pushed out of the game nearly 4–5 overs before the 50th, chasing a huge target of 363 to win. But David Miller scored a fighting century and their head coach, Rob Walter, felt that it was a matter of one more decent partnership and the Green and Yellow brigade would have found themselves on the other side of the result. 

“We were just starting to get going and that partnership got broken and really slowed us down in the middle and obviously we saw Dave [Miller] play unbelievably well in the end to get a hundred, and then you lose by 50 and you know you’re just one partnership away from doing something special,” Walter said in the post-match press conference. 

Pointing out other reasons for their defeat, Walter said that they let Rachin Ravindra and Kane Williamson score freely and even as the pair got out, his side couldn’t put pressure back on the Kiwis.

“I don't think it was any one particular thing that resulted in the loss, probably a couple. We could have handled the last 10 overs a little bit better. They got away from us a little bit. There was a period sort of in the middle of the innings where Kane and Rachin started to up their rates a bit. And we missed a few opportunities there, we could have slowed things down ,” said Walter. 

South Africa’s next ICC assignment will be the World Test Championship (WTC) Final against Australia at Lord's in June.