Ahead of the Sunday triple-header, nobody would have anticipated the turn of events which occurred after the contest between South Africa and Netherlands at the Adelaide Oval. The Proteas were on the verge of making it to the semi-finals of the ongoing T20 World Cup 2022 as they just needed to beat the Dutch side.
However, things turned dramatically when the Netherlands, after posting 158/4 on the board, managed to restrict the Proteas on 145/8 and won the match by 13 runs.
After the shocking result, the outgoing coach of the South Africa team, Mark Boucher, termed the loss as the worst of his tenure. Boucher admitted that the Netherlands completely outplayed his side in all departments.
“When we woke up. 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,” said Boucher in the post-match press conference.
“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. Yeah, gutted, to be honest. As I said, I think this squad 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 single guy who’s in our dressing room at the moment,” he added.
Notably, this was Boucher’s last game as the head coach of the South African men’s team. The former Proteas wicketkeeper will now be coaching the Mumbai Indians in the upcoming 2023 season of the Indian Premier League (IPL).
