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ADELAIDE: The retiring Mark Boucher described Sunday South Africas shocking defeat by the Netherlands in the T20 World Cup as the worst of his tenure as coach, the result led to another heartbreaking exit for the perennial chokers.
After going through rain in their Super 12 opener against Zimbabwe, the Proteas climbed to the top of Group 2 with wins over Bangladesh and India. They had to beat minnows the Netherlands to reach the last four.
But their bowling let them down as the Dutch posted a defiant 158 for four and restricted their seasoned opponents to 145 for eight for a famous 13-run victory.
“When we woke up, if you look at the way we started the game, our energy was low. Whether it’s because it’s a half-10 game, times were quite difficult, I don’t know, I didn’t really put my finger on it,” Boucher said when asked what went wrong.
It was another early World Cup exit for South Africa who have never managed to reach the final in ODI or T20 format.
“Feel tired, to be honest. Like I said, I think this team 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 guy what in our dressing room at the moment,” said the former South African wicket-keeper batsman.
It all started with their international comeback at the 1992 ODI World Cup, when they were finished by a farcical rain rule. With 22 off 13 balls in the semi-final against England, the comparison became 21 off one delivery after rain.
In the 1999 World Cup semi-final they needed just one run from four balls against Australia, but the match ended in favor of the Aussies after Allan Donald’s bizarre run-out.
In 2003 they were in the driver’s seat with Boucher at the helm, but they miscalculated the Duckworth/Lewis (DLS) equation and rain led to another exit after a draw with Sri Lanka in the group stage.
They also lost in the semi-finals of the 2007 and 2015 one-day tournament, while South Africa reached the semi-finals twice (2009 and 2014) in the T20 showpiece.
Asked if the Netherlands defeat was the worst of all results, Boucher said: “Certainly as a coach, yes.”
“It’s quite frustrating because as a player you can at least still have a say in the game. As a coach you’re kind of left to leave it to other individuals to go out there and try to perform. Yes, definitely as a coach, yes, it’s there.”
On their multiple World Cup debacles, he said: “I think each one is an individual event. I know there’s a lot of history behind South African cricket and World Cups and that, but the last World Cup, I thought, we played a lot. good cricket. we lost one game and got knocked out.
“If you had told us this time we had the Netherlands to play to get into a semi-final and we had to beat them, we would have taken it at the start of the tournament.
“But yeah, these things happen. It’s not the only upset that happened in the tournament.”
“I think our plans were there, but we didn’t use them quite well enough. If you look at the game as a whole, I think the Netherlands outplayed us.
“They bowled with good plans, bowled to the longer side of the pitch, and they could only put more pressure on us than we could put pressure on them,” he added.
After going through rain in their Super 12 opener against Zimbabwe, the Proteas climbed to the top of Group 2 with wins over Bangladesh and India. They had to beat minnows the Netherlands to reach the last four.
But their bowling let them down as the Dutch posted a defiant 158 for four and restricted their seasoned opponents to 145 for eight for a famous 13-run victory.
“When we woke up, if you look at the way we started the game, our energy was low. Whether it’s because it’s a half-10 game, times were quite difficult, I don’t know, I didn’t really put my finger on it,” Boucher said when asked what went wrong.
It was another early World Cup exit for South Africa who have never managed to reach the final in ODI or T20 format.
“Feel tired, to be honest. Like I said, I think this team 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 guy what in our dressing room at the moment,” said the former South African wicket-keeper batsman.
It all started with their international comeback at the 1992 ODI World Cup, when they were finished by a farcical rain rule. With 22 off 13 balls in the semi-final against England, the comparison became 21 off one delivery after rain.
In the 1999 World Cup semi-final they needed just one run from four balls against Australia, but the match ended in favor of the Aussies after Allan Donald’s bizarre run-out.
In 2003 they were in the driver’s seat with Boucher at the helm, but they miscalculated the Duckworth/Lewis (DLS) equation and rain led to another exit after a draw with Sri Lanka in the group stage.
They also lost in the semi-finals of the 2007 and 2015 one-day tournament, while South Africa reached the semi-finals twice (2009 and 2014) in the T20 showpiece.
Asked if the Netherlands defeat was the worst of all results, Boucher said: “Certainly as a coach, yes.”
“It’s quite frustrating because as a player you can at least still have a say in the game. As a coach you’re kind of left to leave it to other individuals to go out there and try to perform. Yes, definitely as a coach, yes, it’s there.”
On their multiple World Cup debacles, he said: “I think each one is an individual event. I know there’s a lot of history behind South African cricket and World Cups and that, but the last World Cup, I thought, we played a lot. good cricket. we lost one game and got knocked out.
“If you had told us this time we had the Netherlands to play to get into a semi-final and we had to beat them, we would have taken it at the start of the tournament.
“But yeah, these things happen. It’s not the only upset that happened in the tournament.”
“I think our plans were there, but we didn’t use them quite well enough. If you look at the game as a whole, I think the Netherlands outplayed us.
“They bowled with good plans, bowled to the longer side of the pitch, and they could only put more pressure on us than we could put pressure on them,” he added.
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