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South African spinner Keshav Maharaj believes that the team's loss to India in the group stage of the World Cup was a wake-up call, and they are hoping to rectify their mistakes in a potential rematch in the final.
India scored 326/5 before their spin duo of Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav took seven wickets between them to bowl South Africa out for 83 in 27.1 overs on November 5.
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"I think it was a good trial run. Hopefully, they do progress further in this tournament after the semi-final. We need to just identify areas where we can get better," Maharaj told reporters at the mixed zone on November 5.
India have already secured pole finish in the league stage and South Africa are likely to finish in the top three, so the two teams can only face each other in the final.
"We've played exceptionally well past this point here. It's just about going back to those performances that we did, and identifying the areas in which we can score against the turning ball," said Maharaj.
The win put an end to South Africa's streak of four consecutive wins.
"It's probably a good thing and a blessing in disguise for this team is just to make sure that we iron out our glitches. It's just a good eye-opener for us to see, We played four good games on the bounce, so naturally there's one game that would go wrong, not to make excuses for the performance today, but I think it's a good idea and indication of what we need to do better going forward in this tournament, obviously building up towards that semifinal”, he continued.
"It's about making sure that we're practising in the next couple of games going forward into the semi-final and rectifying it sooner rather than later.
"It's about going back to the drawing board and trusting the processes that we've done really well in this tournament so far.
“Playing in front of a 70,000-strong packed Eden crowd was not intimidating, but India definitely had the home advantage.
"I don't think it was intimidating. You have to just embrace it as a sportsman. It's something that we're not used to, but there's even more reason to soak it up and enjoy the opportunity.
"We know it's a hometown advantage, but there's no excuses in terms of soaking up the atmosphere outside," he added.
Reflecting on their performance in the match against India, Maharaj suggested that they might have delivered too many poor deliveries and struggled to execute their strategies.
South Africa conceded a total of 26 extra runs, with 22 of them attributed to wides.
"We bowled too many bad balls and gave them too many scoring opportunities. And that basically took the game away for a little period of time," said Maharaj.
"Then from a batting front, we just couldn't show the lack of intent out there from the start. There were a few soft dismissals, if we're honest in our opinion.
"Jadeja bowled an exceptional spell to rip the game apart. But, you know, that's no excuse. We get paid to play cricket, so we've got to find a way through it," the proteas player concluded.
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