Williams annoyed with 'loose' top order

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Zimbabwe batsman Sean Williams has urged his top order colleagues to hold on to their wickets and build solid platforms, after they threw away the second ODI against South Africa and thus lost the series.

Zimbabwe batsman Sean Williams has urged his top order colleagues to hold on to their wickets and build solid platforms, after they threw away the second ODI against South Africa and thus lost the series.

Williams has been their best batsman, scoring two half centuries in a row, but he felt the second-string SA attack should have been bested in Bulawayo, as they needed 258 to win, but were all out with 61 runs to get.

The number five felt that they should have done better at the top, given the Proteas were without their premier trio of pace bowlers, and that they had done well against a full-strength Pakistan a year ago, so should have handled the chase.

Williams said after the second defeat: "It's the second game I've come in the 12th over. The guys are a little bit loose upfront.

""It is a little bit upsetting because we played against Pakistan, who to me have got a really serious bowling attack, and we batted really well against them. Those guys are serious bowlers.

"Now, against the South Africans, no disrespect to them but the Pakistan attack are really good and on a wicket like this, I feel chasing 250 against the South Africans is a game that we can say we clearly lost ourselves."

He was at a loss to explain why they were falling short, saying: "It can't be training or anything because the guys are training really hard at the moment. I don't know whether its application or value of wickets. I'm not sure what's going on.

"Maybe the guys just need to bat more for time rather than trying to score too many runs upfront. Taking pace out of the wicket is more for our advantage to take it away from the South African batsman, because that's what they want.

"They want the pace coming on. And we don't want to be bombarded with bouncers and short, quick stuff."

Proteas captain AB de Villiers confirmed that bowling short to the top order was a definite tactic: "We picked up a few weak areas among their top order.

"In the Test matches they didn't play the short ball that badly but I picked it up in the ODIs that it's definitely an area where we can expose them a little bit."

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