- South Africa needed to defeat the Dutch in their final Super 12 game here, but they utterly failed
- The 13-run loss to the Netherlands in the ICC T20 World Cup Super-12 match on Sunday, according to Mark Boucher
- He claimed the players’ low energy levels before the game showed they had trouble adjusting to the new time zone
The 13-run loss to the Netherlands in the ICC T20 World Cup Super-12 match on Sunday, according to Mark Boucher, was the worst in his time as South Africa coach. He also said it wasn’t a nice feeling to be leaving the position on such a bad note.
After the T20 World Cup, the former South Africa wicketkeeper-batsman has opted to step down from his position as men’s team head coach.
In order to advance to the semifinals, South Africa needed to defeat the Dutch in their final Super 12 game here, but they utterly failed.
When questioned whether this was his worst defeat to date, Boucher responded, “absolutely, most likely as a coach. It is rather aggravating, in my opinion, because you can still influence the game as a player. As a coach, you essentially have to let others go out there and give it their best shot. Yeah, that ranks among the top things to do as a coach (among the worst defeats).
He claimed the players’ low energy levels before the game showed they had trouble adjusting to the new time zone.
“I think if you look at the way that we started the game, our energies were low. Whether that’s because it’s a half-past-10 game, times have been quite difficult, I don’t know, I haven’t really put my finger on it. Haven’t had a chance to speak to the guys yet and find out where they sort of feel it went wrong.
“I think our plans were there, but we didn’t quite use them well enough. I thought if you look at the game as a whole, I think Netherlands out-bowled us. They bowled with good plans, bowled to the longer side of the field, and they were just able to create more pressure on us than we were able to put pressure on them.” Boucher added that leaving on such a dismal note was not a great feeling.
“It’s not great, but as I said, I can honestly look at my coaching staff, and we ticked every single box that we needed to tick. As I say, sometimes you’re in control of things, sometimes you’re not. I thought the guys were in a very good space. I think we played some good cricket over a long period of time, especially T20 cricket. We stepped up the other night against Pakistan, and we just — yeah, we looked a little bit flat today.
“It’s not that we over-trained. I think our training sessions have been very short because we understand we’ve played a lot of cricket, but the energies didn’t seem — I don’t know if that’s the case. I haven’t spoken to the players. It just didn’t seem like it was quite there today, and we didn’t bowl like I think we should have bowled.
“But we didn’t bat like I thought we should have batted, as well. I think the total that was put on for us was maybe a little bit more than we expected, but certainly one that our batting unit could definitely have chased down. I think all in all, we deserved to be better in this tournament as a squad, but it didn’t happen.”
[embedpost slug=”/t20-world-cup-2022-south-africa-vs-netherlands-full-highlights/”]
