The one day series was dominated in the middle stages by South Africa for a deserved 3-2 series victory. Other than the first game in Durban where we missed the balance and class of Jacues Kallis, we have won all the important moments when the pressure was on. That has been the most pleasing aspect from a longer term view.

In chasing down a gettable total in Durban. We succumbed dismally with the loss of too many early wickets. The fact we bounced back with a great bowling spell at Centurion, really hit the Aussies hard when they were looking to dominate.

Capetown and Port Elizabeth were great for the fact we batted first for a change (I was beginning to think we really didn’t know how to set a total) and got great competitive totals. AB De Villiers has been in sublime form. The Aussies have never been great chasers and their middle order simply couldn’t respond.

The last game at the Wanderers was a bit disappointing. It didn’t help not having Johan Botha, but we did well to limit the Aussies to 300 after their start. Runs on the board is always valuable, but it was a gettable total. We started off well and what didn’t please me was the fact we seemed to have learnt nothing this summer. Gibbs caused a lot of the problems in my view by going to slowly, especially at a time Kallis was motoring along. He lost all the momentum, and from that stage we never got the run rate down to an easy level. I’d have liked to see us go harder, faster at the total as by the last 10 overs came around, it was too big a task. Also we could’ve used the power play earlier, as by the time we tried to take it, the game was effectively over.

To finish the series 3-2 in South Africa, and 4-1 in Aus, shows we were the dominant team, but still a long way from the finished article.