SA A’s captain Stephen Cook was left disappointed after leaving Australia with a 2-0 defeat in their four-day series against their A side.

His side were destroyed in the two four-day matches, losing both by a significant margin. In the first match, the visitors lost by 197 runs in Brisbane and then followed this up with an embarrassing 10-wicket defeat in Townsville on Tuesday.

What disappointed Cook the most was the fact that his squad contained several players with international Test experience, and formed part of the team who beat Zimbabwe 1-0 a few weeks earlier.

Both Stephen Cook and Dean Elger are the current Proteas openening batsman, with the team including other capped Proteas, namely Temba Bavuma, Stiaan van Zyl, Dane Vilas, Wayne Parnell, Dane Piedt, Vernon Philander and Hardus Viljoen.

Besides the fact that these players only arrived a few days before the opening game, they had to deal with playing with a pink ball for the first time ahead of the Proteas’ day-night Test later this year.

Still, Cook refused to make excuses.

‘The guys didn’t bounce back the way they would have expected after the first game and it’s another poor result, if we have to be honest with ourselves,’ the captain said. ‘I don’t think anyone is feeling good about how we played.’

The skipper will return home for the one-day leg of the tour with Wayne Parnell taking over the captaincy duties.

‘There’ll be quite a big change to the squad for that series,’ Cook added. ‘The guys are looking forward to a new challenge and will hopefully put on a better show.’

The SA A’s will play a National Performance Squad in Townsville on Saturday before they face India A and Australia A in the Quad Series which ends on 31 August.

SA A One-Day squad: Wayne Parnell (capt), Qaasim Adams, Reeza Hendricks, Khaya Zondo, Heino Kuhn, David Miller, Theunis de Bruyn, Dane Vilas, Andile Phehlukwayo, Dwaine Pretorius, Aaron Phangiso, Sisanda Magala, Malusi Siboto, Eddie Leie, Marchant de Lange.

Photo by Lee Warren/Gallo Images