Rilee Rossouw: ‘I just want to win trophies for South Africa’

Fresh off his career-best T20 score for South Africa, Rilee Rossouw said he wants to win trophies for the Proteas and he will have an opportunity as early as Sunday to do that in the deciding game of the three-match series against England in Southampton.

Winning their first white-ball series in England since 1998 is the short-term goal of the South Africans, but this trio of matches had a more significant personal importance for Rossouw, who last played for the Proteas in 2016. It was very much a World Cup trial for the left-handed batsman and he has surely booked his ticket to Australia in two months time with his blazing 96 not out off 55 balls in the series-levelling 58-run victory in Cardiff on Thursday night.

Read more: Rossouw and Shamsi lead SA to T20 victory over England

“Representing your country is the proudest thing you can do and I just want to help the Proteas win trophies,” Rossouw said afterwards.

“The Proteas have had some great results over the last year-and-a-half, the team is building momentum to the World Cup and there have been good team and individual performances. The sky’s the limit.

“Unfortunately things did not go my way in the first game, I was probably a bit over-confident with the amount of runs I have scored in England this season. So I really wanted to do well today.

“I wanted three figures really badly, but credit to Chris Jordan for an exceptional last over with him bowling those yorkers so well. But for me to put up a performance like that was really special, it’s been a very emotional day,” Rossouw said.

Batted like a granny

After Sunday’s decider on a good batting wicket at the Rose Bowl in Southampton, South Africa have two games against Ireland and a series versus India left before the T20 World Cup. Coach Mark Boucher will be satisfied that he has searched every nook and cranny for explosive, aggressive players, and it will be interesting to see if regulars like Aiden Markram, Rassie van der Dussen, Anrich Nortje and Dwaine Pretorius are still rested for the last match against England.

With opening batsman Reeza Hendricks scoring fluent back-to-back half-centuries and Rossouw coming good at No.3, the Proteas top-order has done well.

The hosts will be hoping their experienced opener Jason Roy will finally fire. The 32-year-old has scored just 67 runs off 85 balls in his last six innings and he really batted like a granny in his previous match in Southampton, scoring just four off 16 balls against India three weeks ago.

Sunday’s game is a day fixture starting at 3.30pm SA time.

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