Dejected after another promising tournament ended with the team falling agonisingly short of glory, South Africa captain Temba Bavuma didn’t shy away from revealing how his side will learn from their mistakes in the second semifinal against New Zealand at the ICC Champions Trophy 2025.

South Africa’s dreams of ending the drought of winning an ICC silverware took a beating in Lahore on Wednesday after falling 50 short of the mighty total of 362 put up by the Kiwis, on the back of sparkling centuries from Rachin Ravindra and Kane Williamson. It was the Proteas’ only defeat of the tournament.

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It’s a trend the Proteas are bravely trying to confront head-on, demonstrated by their captain Bavuma’s willingness to reveal exactly what they need to work on for when they’re next in a position to strike.

“It’s just those moments. Just being a little bit more decisive in those moments (was what went wrong), not giving the opposition a chance to get back into the game. Be ruthless and really go for the game,” Bavuma explained post-game.

“So, I think for me, personally, we’ll obviously have a chat as a team and see what the other guys think. But just taking care of those key moments in the game.”

Bavuma also took personal accountability, after he was unable to convert a solid innings into a big one – a problem Ravindra and Williamson didn’t have and went on to score their hundreds at better than a run-a-ball.

“From a batting point of view, we just weren’t able to (build) those partnerships,” he continued.

“There were one or two partnerships there, but I think (we) probably needed either myself or Rassie van der Dussen to go on and emulate what (New Zealand’s) top four batters did. A little bit of a soft dismissal from my (perspective).

“Ideally, (we) would’ve wanted both of us to keep going, at least to the 30th over, we know how destructive our middle order can be. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to set that foundation for them. That just left a little too much for our middle order to do in the end.

“(New Zealand’s total of 362/6) was always going to require someone to play well, and we had David (Miller) that did that, but we probably needed someone else as well.”

South Africa coach Rob Walter agreed with Bavuma’s assessment, pointing to how the middle overs of each team’s batting innings proved to be the difference in the contest.

“We just lost a few key wickets in the middle,” Walter told the media post-game.

“If we managed to maintain a strong partnership there, I think it would have been a pretty tight finish. Yes, we could bemoan our execution a little bit, certainly you’ll never question the effort of the guys and we sort of threw whatever we could at them, but unfortunately we couldn’t break that partnership, which really set them up to push towards the end.”

Walter also agreed with the Kiwis’ decision to bat first on the Lahore deck, which proved to be a strong batting wicket. South Africa also had every intention to set the total, as New Zealand opted to.

Asked directly, Walter said, ‘Yeah, we would have batted first.’ The toss proved pivotal, allowing the Black Caps to mount serious scoreboard pressure on the Proteas.

“(New Zealand) really put us under pressure, from the get-go,” Bavuma added.

“So they really put us under pressure. Normally we pride ourselves on our ability to take wickets, particularly in that middle period, but we weren’t able to. The way they were able to pierce the off side, and even in the middle (of the innings), the way they were able to just keep scoring boundaries.

“Obviously, if you go into the death phase with wickets in hand, it always becomes difficult to contain them, especially on these types of wickets. Kudos to them, credit to their batters, Kane Williamson (and) Rachin, even the guys that came in, (Daryl) Mitchell as well as (Glenn) Phillips, they put us under pressure with the bat.”

South Africa will have the chance to put most of these learnings into practice in this year’s ICC World Test Championship final mid-year, against Australia. Beyond that, their sights are firmly set on the ICC World Cup in 2027 that they will co-host with Zimbabwe and Namibia.

“We’re still evolving as a team, there’s no doubt in my mind. Two and a half years to 2027 and that’s the eyes on the prize,” Walter said.