It’s Not Successful Because You’re Knocked Out Of The World Cup, It’s A Bitter Pill To Swallow – South Africa Head Coach Mark Boucher

The Head Coach of the South Africa National Cricket Team Mark Boucher has said that not making it to the semi-finals of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021 is a bitter pill to swallow.

From Group 1 also known as ‘Group Of Death,’ England and Australia have qualified for the semi-finals with 4 wins from 5 games. Just like England and Australia, South Africa too won 4 out of 5 games but were knocked out of the tournament due to an inferior net run rate.

In their last group stage game, South Africa broke the winning streak of England by defeating them by 10 runs. However, that was not enough to make it to the semi-finals as the Temba Bavuma-led side needed to restrict England below 130 to qualify for the semis.

During the post-match conference, Boucher said that South Africa played very good cricket in the ongoing World Cup by defeating top white-ball teams. He stated:

“It’s not successful because you’re knocked out of the World Cup. It’s a bitter pill to swallow.

“I think we played some very good cricket throughout the campaign, cricket under a lot of pressure as well after having lost our first game. We put in a lot of hard work in training, our chats were good. I think we beat the in-form side in white-ball cricket for a while now,” he added.

Mark Boucher feels that it’s tough for the players in the dressing to see that they haven’t qualified for the semi-finals despite a very good performance. He said:

“It’s a tough one for the guys in the changing room. We knew what we had to do today, the equation was very difficult for us to have to get through,”

“I just said to the guys just try to control what we can control. Unfortunately, we can’t control what other results are out there. We did the job today but it’s quite bitter.”

Well, The First Game, The First Game Was Tight, We Just Didn’t Bat Well Enough – Mark Boucher

The South Africa Head Coach also talked about their first game of the T20 World Cup 2021 tournament where they came very close to defending 118 but lost the game against Australia.

“Well, the first game. The first game was tight. We just didn’t bat well enough. It was tough. We lost the toss. We batted first and we weren’t 100 per cent sure what a good total was because we were the first game to go out there and be played.

“We may be looked at getting 160 but probably needed about 130,,”140 to be competitive. We could have maybe done better there. Boucher added.

South Africa had a chance to boost their net run rate while chasing the small 85 runs target against Bangladesh but they took 13.3 overs to complete the chase. However, if they would have chased the target quickly things might have been different and they would have made it to the semi-finals.

“Chasing a small total against Bangladesh, people can maybe look at that and said we should have gone a bit harder there, but that wasn’t the intention, and we lost three wickets on a wicket that is going all over the shop. Unfortunately ifs and buts, they didn’t count now,” said Mark Boucher.

Boucher said that overall he is delighted to watch the performance of the team in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021.

“This team know that is we are on a journey, upward curve, that we are learning along the way. You know, we by no means are a finished product,” the 44-year-old said.

“These games will stand us in very good stead because as I said, every game we played was under pressure. That’s one thing we probably haven’t done very well in the past is playing big games, pressurised games, and we really did well in this particular competition.”

Mark Boucher further added that South Africa is still a very young side and they are heading in the right direction and they just need a little bit of luck to add a few trophies in their cabinet.

“Yes, it’s a young side. We are still developing and hopefully, we can go from strength to strength from here, take this confidence through, as well.

“It’s not something we just arrived at a World Cup and all of the sudden start playing good cricket. We have won a lot of games in recent times.

So, we are heading in the right direction. We just need a bit of good luck and a bit of fortune to go our way and hopefully, we can sort of putting something in the trophy cabinet soon,” he stated.

Also Read: T20 World Cup 2021: My Heart’s Wish Is That India Reach The Final Against Pakistan And That We Beat Them – Shoaib Akhtar