'Netherlands outbowled us' - Mark Boucher distraught with South Africa's humiliating loss against Netherlands in 20-20 World Cup

Mark Boucher (Source: Twitter)

The Netherlands shocked the cricketing fraternity after they knocked out South Africa of the 20-20 World Cup on Sunday. The Dutch registered a 13-run victory over the Proteas which left them with five points on the points table failing to finish in the top 2. South African head coach and former player Mark Boucher stated the defeat to be the worst in his coaching career.

Boucher recently decided to leave his role as head coach of the South Africa men’s team after the ongoing 20-20 World Cup to become head coach of the Mumbai Franchise in the Indian T20 League for the 2023 season.

Asked during the post-match press conference if this was the worst loss for him, Boucher said, “Probably as a coach, yes. I think it is quite frustrating because as a player you can at least still have a say in the game. As a coach, you’re sort of left to leave it up to other individuals to go out there and try and perform. Yeah, certainly as a coach, yeah, it’s up there (among the worst defeats).

He said the energies of the players coming into the match were quite low, indicating they hadn’t been able to quite adjust to the time zone.

“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,” Boucher said.

“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,” he added.

Boucher added that leaving on such a dismal note was not a great feeling.

“It’s not that we over-trained. I think our training sessions have been very short because we understand we’ve played a lot of cricket, but the energies didn’t seem — I don’t know if that’s the case. I haven’t spoken to the players. It just didn’t seem like it was quite there today, and we didn’t bowl like I think we should have bowled,” the 45-year-old said.

“But we didn’t bat like I thought we should have batted, as well. I think the total that was put on for us was maybe a little bit more than we expected, but certainly one that our batting unit could definitely have chased down. I think all in all, we deserved to be better in this tournament as a squad, but it didn’t happen,” the South Africa head coach further said.

After the completion of the Super 12 stage on Sunday, New Zealand and England qualified for the semi-finals from Group 1. On the other hand, India and Pakistan qualified from Group 2.