SA's Achilles heel exposed

Saturday's debacle against Pakistan in Auckland was the latest example of a worrying truth: SA have lost the art of chasing down targets.

Their 2011 World Cup ended in shambolic fashion in the quarter-final in Dhaka when they failed to reel in New Zealand's mediocre 221.

That soft serve performance echoed around Eden Park on Saturday, when SA were dismissed 29 runs short of the 232 they needed to beat Pakistan.

SA's sorry performance snared the attention of Graeme Smith, who wrote in his column on the International Cricket Council website: "One of the most glaring issues to come out of [the] loss was the continued struggle that the Proteas have with regard to chasing.

"The only lesson that came from this batting rehearsal was that [SA] have a lot more work to do in very little time.

"Even with one pool game to go [against the United Arab Emirates in Wellington on Thursday] their attention would have shifted to the likely quarterfinal opponents of Sri Lanka or Australia, who would definitely have noted that their chasing travails continued."

And that by a team who in the space of five days at this tournament became the first side to post consecutive totals of at least 400 in one-day internationals.

SA batted first in those matches, against West Indies and Ireland, as they did in their opening game of the World Cup against Zimbabwe. AB de Villiers's men won all of those matches.

Saturday's defeat was SA's second of the tournament.

This means SA have been victorious in all of the matches in which they have batted first at the World Cup, and lost both times they have been asked to hunt down a target.