Champions Trophy 2025: ‘We just lost few key wickets in the middle,’ says South Africa coach Rob Walter after semifinal loss

It was another heartbreak for South Africa in an ICC event as it lost to New Zealand in the semifinal of the Champions Trophy at the Gaddafi Stadium.

Despite David Miller scoring an unbeaten century, South Africa failed to live up to the expectations and suffered a 50-run defeat. While New Zealand rode on centuries by Rachin Ravindra and Kane Williamson to put up a mammoth total, it managed to score more than 100 runs in the last ten overs, which eventually made the difference.

“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,” said coach Rob Walter.

“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 and then obviously the partnership that got broken when we were batting,” he said, referring to the second-wicket partnership between Temba Bavuma and Rassie van der Dussen, which reignited some hope before they both fell in quick succession.

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“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,” the coach said.

While he revealed that South Africa would have batted first had it won the toss, Walter made it clear that Bavuma and van der Dussen’s slow innings did not cost the side the match. “If you look at the comparative scores along the way for the first, we were only four runs behind at the 20-over mark and the same at 30, so I don’t think their partnership cost us,” Walter said.

“We see the tempo of the game at these grounds tends to be like that. It’s a good stable partnership at the start. The run rate sort of increases gradually and then there’s a burst at the end. We just lost a few key wickets in the middle. If we managed to maintain a strong partnership there, I think it would have been a pretty tight finish,” he said, adding: “Comparatively, if you look at the first 20 overs, there was nothing that separated the two teams…”