South Africa's loss to Netherlands 'will hurt and it should'

South African captain Temba Bavumachbi expresses feelings of defeat at award ceremony : ICC

South Africa used to be seen frequently 'choking' in knockout stages or life-and-death matches. But now there is no need for a big stage. Last night's loss against the Netherlands in the World Cup speaks for itself.

The Netherlands created the second incident in this World Cup by defeating South Africa by 38 runs yesterday in Dharamshala. The Proteas were eliminated from the Super Twelve stage after losing to the Dutch in the last T20 World Cup. They had to win that match to reach the semi-finals. But last night's match was their third in the first phase of this World Cup. South Africa were clear favorites against a relatively weak Netherlands, having won their previous two matches against Sri Lanka and Australia. But the opposite happened.

Netherlands' win against South Africa is their first against a Test-playing nation in ODI World Cup: AFP

The unexpected loss naturally came as a big shock for South Africa. Temba Bavuma admitted that at the prize distribution ceremony after the match, "You have to talk to your teammates." Emotions should be kept to ourselves. There is no point in trying to forget what happened. It (this loss) will hurt us and it should. But our expedition is not over. They (Netherlands) played brilliantly. We are under pressure from all sides. Good luck to them.The length of the match was reduced to 43 overs as the field was wet with rain. Things were in favor of the Proteas from the start as they won the toss and took the field in seaming conditions. The Netherlands lost 6 wickets for 112 runs in 27 overs at one stage under Ngidi-Rabada-Jansen. Losing the seventh wicket for 140 runs in the 34th over put the Dutch under more pressure.

Then captain Scott Edwards pulled that team. Two lower order batsmen Rolf von der Merwe and Aryan Dutt made a pair of 64 and 41 unbroken runs. Rabada-Ngidi-Coetzee stormed over the Dutch in 9 overs scored 104 runs! They got a fighting collection of 245 runs in the allotted 43 overs. Captain Edwards remained unbeaten on 78 runs.

Netherlands captain Scott Edwards was man of the match photo: ICC

Bavuma felt that Netherlands could go so far because of bad bowling at the end, 'When they lost 6 wickets for 112 runs, I didn't think we would have to chase more than 200 runs. Of course we bowled badly after that. That is why they have made more than 240.

In this match, Netherlands got 32 runs from the 'extra sector'. 17 of these were from wides for 21 runs, Edwards hit four off Ngidi's only no ball. Proteas have to bowl 18 balls or 3 overs in the innings. Meaning, although it was actually a 43-over game, Rabada-Ngidi bowled 46 overs. Bavuma thinks that this extra run also made the difference, 'we were amazing against Australia. But I could not maintain that standard in this match. We should have controlled the extra runs. The fielding was also not very good.

South Africa scored 428 runs in their first match against Sri Lanka, which is the team's highest in World Cup history. He scored 311 runs in the next match against Australia. Compared to that, the target of 246 runs given by the Netherlands can hardly be said.

Badumachabi failed with the bat on the day of defeat: ICC

But Bavuma is looking at the strategy of the Dutch behind the batsmen not being able to do their job in this match, 'even then (141 for 7 wickets to 245 runs for 8 wickets) we were confident of winning. But there was no big pair in batting. In Powerplay, they bowled with spinners from both ends. We could not cope with it. The way they exploited our weaknesses, they have to be thanked.