South Africa's management were scratching their heads about the extreme contrast in performance dished up by the Proteas in the first three matches of the World Cup, with head coach Rob Walter offering the nature of World Cups as one possible explanation.
“I said before the World Cup started, I don't think there's any weak teams in this tournament and if you're not switched on and you don't win the key moments in the game, you find yourself on the wrong side of the result. We learnt that today,” he said.
The Netherlands played intelligently, took advantage of numerous opportunities offered to them and executed their plans superbly with the ball to defeat the Proteas by 38 runs in Dharamsala, India.
Ill-discipline with the ball, which saw them concede 32 extras, the second-highest contributor to the Netherlands' final total of 245/8, and then a shaky start with the bat in which they suffered a top order collapse, losing four wickets for eights runs in 21 balls, has knocked the shine off the Proteas’ start in the tournament.
Stunned Proteas ‘might have got a few things wrong’
Walter concedes SA should have done better against the Dutch
Image: Pankaj Nangia/Gallo Images
South Africa's management were scratching their heads about the extreme contrast in performance dished up by the Proteas in the first three matches of the World Cup, with head coach Rob Walter offering the nature of World Cups as one possible explanation.
“I said before the World Cup started, I don't think there's any weak teams in this tournament and if you're not switched on and you don't win the key moments in the game, you find yourself on the wrong side of the result. We learnt that today,” he said.
The Netherlands played intelligently, took advantage of numerous opportunities offered to them and executed their plans superbly with the ball to defeat the Proteas by 38 runs in Dharamsala, India.
Ill-discipline with the ball, which saw them concede 32 extras, the second-highest contributor to the Netherlands' final total of 245/8, and then a shaky start with the bat in which they suffered a top order collapse, losing four wickets for eights runs in 21 balls, has knocked the shine off the Proteas’ start in the tournament.
Having beaten Australia and Sri Lanka in the first week, Tuesday's loss to a team that had to go through qualifying was disconcerting.
“Strategically we might have just got a few things wrong,” Walter said. “Maybe we got our ratios a bit wrong in the slower balls vs hard length and on pace deliveries.
“It's a lot easier in hindsight to say that. From an extras point of view, that's definitely more extras than we would want to bowl.”
It allowed the Dutch to recover from 140/7 in the 34th over and add another 104 runs in the last nine overs in the rain-reduced encounter. Skipper Scott Edwards top-scored with an unbeaten 78, while Roelof van der Merwe with 29 and Aryan Dutt (23 not out off nine balls) took advantage of South Africa’s awful “death” bowling.
“At 140/7 you're in control of the game. So to not be able to close it out at the death is disappointing and the momentum shifted in the game then,” Walter said.
“But we back ourselves still to be able to chase 240. But then we got off to a poor start and they put us on the back foot.”
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