After South Africa lost to Netherlands in their last encounter on November 6, Sunday, by 13 runs, the fans and the cricketing world are coming up with opinions on the game and a few opined that the South Africans are the masters of the art of crumbling.
Their skipper Temba Bavuma, who scored a run-a-ball 20 in the match, said that he would help the youngsters forget the upset at the earliest and said that the team would carry the tag ‘chokers’ until they find a way out of such situations. Further, the South African skipper hoped to learn from the game and said that the youngsters will have to take out only the positives home.
“It [the chokers’ tag] will always be there, until we find ourselves in a situation where we get to a final. But there’s elements of learning we could take from it, especially the younger guys. For someone like (Tristan) Stubbs or Marco Jansen, it’s for them not to make the same mistakes. Unfortunately, that tag, we are still going to carry that monkey on our backs,” Bavuma was quoted as saying after the match by ESPN.
We’ve got ourselves to blame: Mark Boucher
Mark Boucher, the Proteas head coach said that they had only themselves to blame and was gutted by the humiliating defeat. The former cricketer further claimed that they had all it takes to win the match but could not cross over the line.
“We’ve got ourselves to blame. Everything was in our hands as a team. We had the confidence, we had the belief. We had the form behind us. When it mattered, we just couldn’t do the business. If you look at the way we started the game, our energies were low. Whether that’s because it’s a 10.30am game, and times have been quite difficult,” Boucher was quoted as saying post-defeat against Netherlands.
“We went through what this wicket plays like early morning. The history was that the wicket was a little bit cold and we decided to go in with the extra seamer and bowl first. We were looking to make a bit of inroads into their top order early doors and we just didn’t bowl well enough,” he added.
