South Africa’s T20 World Cup campaign ended in a heartbreak as the Proteas suffered a shock defeat against the Netherlands on Sunday at the Adelaide Oval. A campaign which started on a promising note after the Proteas defeated Bangladesh and India, ended in the most disappointing fashion as the side lived up to its reputation of losing the plot in crunch situations at ICC events. After the game which Proteas lost by 13 runs, head coach Mark Boucher spoke about what went wrong for his side.
“When we woke up. I think if you look at the way that we started the game, our energies were low. Whether that’s because it’s a half-past-10 game, times have been quite difficult, I don’t know, I haven’t really put my finger on it. Haven’t had a chance to speak to the guys yet and find out where they sort of feel it went wrong,” Boucher said in the post-match press conference.
“I think our plans were there, but we didn’t quite use them well enough. I thought if you look at the game as a whole, I think Netherlands out-bowled us. They bowled with good plans, bowled to the longer side of the field, and they were just able to create more pressure on us than we were able to put pressure on them,” he added.
South Africa were unable to chase down 159 against the Netherlands, falling 13 runs short. Bowling wise, South Africa’s plans went sideways as Colin Ackermann took special liking to Kagiso Rabada at the death.
Promoted
This was Boucher’s last game as the head coach of the Proteas men’s team. The former wicketkeeper will now be coaching the Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League.
“Yeah, gutted, to be honest. As I said, I think this squad deserved to give themselves a better chance, and yeah, unfortunately it didn’t happen for us, which is very disappointing for me and certainly every single guy who’s in our dressing room at the moment,” said Boucher.
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