SA let standards slip and paid the price against Netherlands

There will be honest conversations in the South Africa camp after a stunning 38-run defeat by the Netherlands yesterday put the brakes on their impressive Cricket World Cup campaign in India, captain Temba Bavuma said.

South Africa was clinical in victories over Sri Lanka and Australia in their first two games, but sloppy and careless in what proved a well-deserved victory for the Dutch in Dharamasala.

“The extras, that’s something you can control,” Bavuma said. “Getting 30 (32) extras, that is an extra five overs and is always going to hurt you. That is a conversation for us to have – whether it is a skill or a complacency thing, but in the end, it did count for quite a lot.”

“We definitely dropped the ball there letting them get to 240-plus,” Bavuma said.

“With the batting, we were still confident in chasing down that score but we didn’t get any partnerships. Their double-spin in the powerplay was something we did not adapt to. We were clinical against Australia, but the challenge was always to come back and replicate that performance. The fielding wasn’t up to standard.”

“The guys need to answer the questions themselves about where they were mentally. That’s definitely not the standard we’d like to show from a fielding point of view.”

South Africa next meets England in Wankhede on Saturday with their opponents also having lost their last outing, to Afghanistan, in what will be a big early match-up in the race for a semi-final place.

“Our campaign is not over by any stretch of the imagination, but you got to feel the emotion of today and come back tomorrow with the head held up,” Bavuma said.