Cape Town - Outgoing Proteas coach Mark Boucher was loath to use the dreaded “C” word to describe South Africa’s shocking defeat to Netherlands on Sunday that led to their exit from the T20 World Cup, but conceded “we have ourselves to blame.”
South Africa’s equation was straightforward heading to Adelaide. Beat the Dutch, who they have never lost to before in any format, and progress to the semi-finals.
All the odds were heavily stacked in the Proteas’ favour. But yet somehow, and yet again at a major tournament, when the crunch moment arrived the Proteas wilted under the pressure.
It is a scene that has been repeated so many times over the years, with the latest disaster added to a long line of similar catastrophes.
Only this time it was not even close. The Dutch outperformed South Africa in all facets of the game, from fielding, batting, bowling and even the understanding of the conditions.
The eventual 13-run defeat made it all look a lot closer than it actually was with the Netherlands thoroughly deserved victors on a sunlit day in Adelaide.
“We were never really in this game to be fair. Like if you look at it, and go from the start of the game on paper, we should have won the game. But the game is not played on paper. It’s played out in the middle,” Boucher told reporters.
“They batted well. They were brave. They can come out and play brave cricket. We then put ourselves under pressure with the bat. They read the conditions really well, and adapted quicker than we did, and they made it really tough for us.”
But what about South Africa’s chequered history at World Cups? Is there a curse that hangs over the Proteas?
“I think the more you don’t do well at World Cups, it tends to play in your head a little bit,” Boucher said.
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“But I think each one is an individual event, I know there is a lot of history behind South African cricket and a World Cup event. But I don’t think that was the case of late. We have played some tight games in the World Cup and actually won them.
“The last World Cup I thought we played very good cricket. We lost one game and got knocked out. This time around, if you had told us we needed to beat Netherlands to get into a semi-final we would have taken that. These things happen. It's not the only upset that has happened in the tournament.”
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Boucher was unable to pin-point where exactly it all went wrong for the Proteas, especially due to the amount of talent and skill they had at their disposal.
“When you look at the way we started the game our energies were low. I haven't put my finger on it, haven't had a chance to speak to guys yet, where they feel it went wrong. Our plans were there, we didn't quite use them well enough. If you look at the game as a whole, they outbowled us, they bowled to the longer side of the field. They were able to create more pressure than we were on them,” he said.
“I can honestly look at my coaching staff and say we’ve ticked every box we needed to tick. Sometimes you can control things, other times you’re not. The guys were in good space, I think we played some good cricket over a long period of time, we slipped up the other night against Pakistan, and we looked flat today. I don't think we over-trained. The energies didn’t seem like it was there today, and we didn’t bowl or bat like we should have”
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