SA vs NED: BLAME GAME begins in South African camp as captain Temba Bavuma opens up on shock loss to Netherlands

South Africa cricket team will remember this shock defeat against Netherlands for a long time. They went down against a spirted Dutch side in Super 12 stage of T20 World Cup 2022. Had they won, South Africa would have qualified for the semifinals with 7 points. But with just 5 points now, they head back home as Pakistan and India become two semi-finalsts from Group 2. After the loss, a heartbroken Temba Bavuma opened up on what went wrong for Proteas men, saying that things did not go well for them when it mattered the most.   

"Very disappointing. We really played well before this game. We knew it was a must-win game and again we faltered when it mattered. Hard one to swallow for the guys. Everything was in our hands as a team.

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"We had the confidence, we had the belief. We had the form behind us. When it mattered, we just couldn`t do the business," said Bavuma in the post-match presentation ceremony.

_ RESULT | NETHERLANDS WON BY 13 RUNS

The Netherlands' bowlers came up with the goods as they held their nerve to claim the win#SAvNED #BePartOfIt pic.twitter.com/v0rqyhKNLf — Proteas Men (@ProteasMenCSA) November 6, 2022

The shock 13-run loss to the Netherlands meant that the tag of chokers came back to claim South Africa in a World Cup yet again. With the ball, only Anrich Nortje was the one who could keep the Netherlands batters in check with his economical spell of 1/10 in four overs.

But it was the batting performance which surprised all as no Proteas batter crossed the 30-run mark, with Rilee Rossouw`s 25 being the best score. With the Dutch being bang on with the ball and in their fielding to get their first win over South Africa, Bavuma admitted his team got a lot of things wrong in a pressure match, including not getting a lot of runs from the short, square boundaries.

"You can pick out a lot of things when you lose that way. Firstly myself with the toss, winning the toss and bowling first. Wasn`t ideal to let them off to a start and let them score 158. "With the bat we just got stuck similar to the Pakistan game. We lost wickets at crucial times. The wicket maybe got a bit hard, but they used the dimensions of the ground a lot better than we did. From all of us, just wasn`t good enough."