Graeme Smith: It is really hard to describe what happened – ICC World Cup 2011 news
Dejected South Africa skipper Graeme Smith was speechless while explaining why his men ‘choked’ yet again in the knockout round of the esteemed World Cup event.
“It is really hard to describe what happened,” said Smith. “Your guess is as good as mine. It's been happening since 1992. We just weren't good enough, but we have to take it forward and not get bogged down.”
The Proteas choked once again in the high profile tournament on Friday when they lost to ‘street smart’ New Zealand by 49 runs while chasing an achievable 221 in the ICC World Cup 2011 quarter-final.
The Proteas captain said that he was devastated after the humiliating defeat. However, he hoped they would recover soon from the shock and would mount a tough challenge next time around.
“This is an exciting period for South African cricket. We have the players and the talent. Hopefully in future we will go all the way,” said Smith.
Smith, who will no longer captain the http://www.senore.com/Cricket/South-Africa-c757 cricket team, said that the rainbow nation deserves a World Cup victory. He was quite hopeful that they would be successful in the next edition of the quadrennial tournament to be jointly
hosted by http://www.senore.com/Cricket/New-Zealand-c754 in 2015.
The South Africa opener expected that a new coach and a new captain would help the South African team recover from the latest blow.
Talking about Fridays’ poor performance against the Black Caps, Smith conceded that they failed to capitalise on good chances.
“We had the opportunity to close out the game after we kept them down to 221 and can only blame ourselves. We let ourselves down, we let our fans down,” admitted the Proteas captain while talking to media reporters.
Smith however, praised his men for the kind of performance they gave in the mega event as they finished the league stage at the top of Group B with 10 points from six games. He singled out his bowling brigade for praise and said that the
bowlers gave their absolute best throughout the tournament.
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