SOUTHAMPTON: The last place one wants to be right now is the South African dressing room.
South Africa suffered an embarrassing 21-run loss to Bangladesh at The Oval to lose back-to-back games. And legendary all-rounder Jacques Kallis think the Proteas now have little margin for error in order to go deep in the tournament.
To make things bit more complicated, Faf du Plessis and Co have India as their next assignment in a day’s time at the Ageas Bowl in Southampton.
“I think you’ve got to give credit to Bangladesh for the way they performed, it’s amazing how far they’ve come as a team in a very short space of time and the way they batted was particularly impressive,” he wrote in his ICC column.
Kallis expressed his disappointment in the Proteas performance thus far and said that Ottis Gibson and his men need to win every game.
“It’s disappointing and frustrating and there is lots of pressure on the next game, otherwise the tournament could be over before it’s really started for South Africa,” said Kallis.
The general calculation is a team needs to win at least five out of nine matches to stand a chance to qualify for the semi-finals, and South Africa are yet to play the likes of India, Australia, New Zealand, West Indies and Pakistan.
“The good news is we have another game in just three days, so South Africa can’t dwell on this, they will just have move on. It doesn’t get any easier though against India but it’s their first game and our third, so maybe that could give us the edge we need,” he said.
As if finding a way to beat India on Wednesday wasn’t difficult enough, the Proteas must do so in the middle of an injury crisis that is threatening to extinguish their World Cup campaign.
“India have not played for a week and maybe they’ll be some first game nerves, whereas we are settled,” Kallis hoped.
JONTY TAUNTS SA ON TWITTER
Former South Africa all-rounder Jonty Rhodes took to Twitter and said that relying on a couple of players wouldn’t work and it was a case of some poor batting which resulted in South Africa’s second defeat in the showpiece event. After Sunday’s game, a fan told Rhodes: “Your country (South Africa) is seeing the lack of AB (de Villers) and (Dale) Steyn in the matches.”
The 49-year-old then replied: “The whole team can’t rely on 2 players; there is no more ABD. Batsmen got in and got out. Bad shot selection; so many top order players out “bowled” on good batting surface tells a story.”
