Ken Borland

When former Protea Roelof van der Merwe let out a fervent roar of celebration after his outstanding catch, off the bowling of Johannesburg-born Brandon Glover, to take the key wicket of David Miller, it was unlikely he felt much regret for the millions of hearts that were breaking back in South Africa as the Proteas made a shock exit from the T20 World Cup, losing to qualifiers the Netherlands by 13 runs.

Chasing 159 for victory, South Africa had slipped to 111/4 after 15 overs and their hopes rested on Miller, their finisher supreme. The experienced left-hander had gone to 17 when he top-edged a pull at Glover and Van der Merwe scrambled backwards from short fine leg, and dived to take a superb catch.

Glover, who took 3/9 in his two overs, then had Wayne Parnell caught behind three balls later for a duck and, when Heinrich Klaasen (21) was caught at cow-corner off medium-pacer Bas de Leede in the 18^th over, South Africa were all but buried. They limped to 145/8 in the end.

The Netherlands deserve full credit for their amazing victory, bowling and fielding with tremendous tenacity.

South Africa began their chase tentatively as Quinton de Kock (13) and Temba Bavuma (20) both just scored at a run-a-ball and the Proteas could only score 39/2 in the powerplay.

Rilee Rossouw (25 off 19) looked threatening before he pulled Glover straight to deep square-leg and Aiden Markram (17) sent a leading edge, well taken by a diving Stephan Myburgh, to cover off the excellent Fred Klaassen (4-0-20-2).

The dismissal encapsulated what the Netherlands did so well – taking pace off the ball and using variations, which caused the Proteas to really struggle to score freely.

It was something the Proteas attack failed to do and there can be no sympathy for their lack of awareness and adaptability to the conditions, which allowed the Netherlands to post a competitive 158/4 after they had been sent in to bat.

The outstanding Anrich Nortje (4-0-10-1) and Keshav Maharaj (4-0-27-2) apart, the Proteas attack simply lacked intensity and it was the Netherlands who seized the initiative from the start.

Pretoria-born Stephan Myburgh belted 37 off 30 balls, with fellow opener Max O’Dowd providing valuable support with 29 in an opening stand of 58 in eight-and-a-half overs.

Tom Cooper blasted 35 off 19 deliveries and another South African expat, Colin Ackermann, provided the finishing touches to the winning total with his brilliant 41 not out off 26 balls. The former Eastern Cape star also bowled three overs of probing off-spin for just 16 runs, keeping the left-handers quiet.

This time the Proteas could not blame anything outside of their own control – there was no rain, no freakish misfortune – for failing to make the semi-finals.

They defied history by choosing to bat first on a pitch that was only going to slow down and their whole mindset seemed incredibly soft when so much was on the line.

As a scarred and wounded Temba Bavuma said after the Proteas’ shock loss to the Netherlands saw them exit the T20 World Cup on Sunday, there will always be a few things to pick at “after a performance like that”.

The problems started for a surprisingly flat Proteas side, considering the semi-finals beckoned, with their bowling. The 10.30am start and early moisture in the pitch prompted them to bowl first, even though the last nine matches at the Adelaide Oval had been won by the side batting first.

The South African attack is always so highly-rated, but on this occasion they let down their captain’s decision at the toss by bringing little energy or smarts to their bowling. They failed to adapt to Stephan Myburgh’s onslaught up front or to the true nature of the pitch, which was slowing up and required pace to be taken off and plenty of variations to be used. How the Netherlands later bowled was exactly the template.

A switched-on Lungi Ngidi would normally have prospered, but he went for 35 runs in three overs; Kagiso Rabada travelled for 37 runs in his three overs.

Rabada is South Africa’s premier fast bowler and a team always needs their spearhead to shine in world cups. But sadly Rabada was the Proteas’ most expensive bowler in the tournament, conceding 9.43 runs-per-over and only taking two wickets for 151 runs. Those are not the returns expected from such a great paceman.

On a pitch on which strokeplay was always going to become more difficult as the ball became softer, a fast start to the chase is always going to be vital, but Quinton de Kock and Bavuma could only score at a run-a-ball as they limped to 39/2 in the powerplay.

Bavuma will surely now be jettisoned from the T20 side unless the selectors continue to be blind to what is now openly being called “the elephant in the room”, but the Proteas also need more consistency from De Kock, especially when it comes to the crunch games where he needs to be stepping up as a senior batsman.

Slow pitches with a bit of turn will continue to be the achilles heel of the Proteas batting unless their minds, game-plans and skillsets are sharper to the importance of being able to rotate the strike in-between the boundaries.

CSA will reportedly be splitting the Proteas coaching job into red-ball and white-ball roles, so these are the problems that will be inherited by whoever succeeds Mark Boucher on a permanent basis.

South Africa’s next limited-overs action will only be at the end of January, in an ODI series against England, which will be crucial to their hopes of qualifying automatically for next year’s 50-over World Cup.

The chance of rain scuppering the Proteas’ chances is apparently just 2% and South Africa will be obvious favourites when they take on the Netherlands in Adelaide in the early hours of Sunday morning with a semifinal place on the line.

It’s the simplest of equations for the Proteas – beat the qualifiers and they are in the semi-finals. A defeat or a washed-out match would mean the winners of the game between Pakistan and Bangladesh would go through. Zimbabwe will also still have a chance of progressing if they beat India, but for that to happen and the Dutch to triumph over the Proteas would be two of the biggest upsets in T20 World Cup history on the same day.

Although captain Temba Bavuma said he was not concerned by the performance of the team in their loss to Pakistan in their previous match, the sloppiness of their display is clearly something they cannot afford to repeat. Especially not when they are on the verge of reaching the knockout rounds.

What was frustrating about their showing was that they did everything right for the first 10 overs, knocking over the Pakistan top-order. But their failure to bowl the right lengths in the closing overs was once again the burr in their saddle, Iftikhar Ahmed and Shadab Khan lashing quickfire half-centuries as 106 runs were thrashed in the last eight overs.

It was a cold, wet night in Sydney but that did not excuse a messy fielding display, with catches being dropped and straightforward outfielding being duffed.

In terms of the batting, Quinton de Kock and Rilee Rossouw both failed, but Bavuma and Aiden Markram did well enough to have the Proteas on track after the powerplay. But both of them losing their wickets in the same over, shortly before the rain delay, meant the revised DLS target was too stiff for Heinrich Klaasen and Tristan Stubbs.

The Proteas will be hoping the talismanic David Miller has recovered from his back spasm, and they know that winning their next three games will make this event their most memorable world cup campaign ever.

“You can’t afford to give teams momentum and I’m not going to look for excuses for our fielding display,” Bavuma said after the Pakistan loss. “We have been very good up to that game and we have fielded in the wet before.

“But mistakes were made and that was not the type of display you want at this level, especially in this part of the tournament. Maybe the intensity was down a bit, but it was definitely not the standard we pride ourselves on.

“Hopefully we play our best cricket in the next three games, the next one is a must-win and then we have the playoffs,” Bavuma said.

South Africa captain Temba Bavuma conceded on Thursday that the Proteas bowlers had stuck to their usual hard lengths for longer than they should have as a resurgent Pakistan team beat them by 33 runs in their T20 World Cup match at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

South Africa bowled superbly in the first half of the Pakistan innings, reducing them to 55/4 after nine overs, but brilliant half-centuries by Iftikhar Ahmad (51 off 35) and Shadab Khan (52 off 22) saw the desperate Pakistan team lash 130 runs in the last 11 overs, including 80 in the last six.

There were too many deliveries in the slot for the batsmen, which was in stark contrast to how Pakistan bowled, especially after the rain delay when South Africa needed 73 off 30 balls. Pakistan consistently either found the blockhole or bowled slower balls into the pitch.

“From 50/4, the last thing you expect is for them to get 185. But the problem lay with us,” Bavuma admitted. “Our hard lengths have been very successful previously, using our pace and height.

“We were superb for the first 10 overs, but the conditions changed, the ball started sliding on and the short boundaries were in play, and we should have shown more awareness to adapt. Their batsmen started to exploit it and put us under pressure. The wheels fell off.

“We allowed three or four overs to go by, we allowed them to get momentum into their innings, and the damage had been done by the time we tried to change things.

“Hard lengths was probably not the right plan considering the conditions out there, and they were able to get a formidable score. We know Pakistan are really dangerous whenever they get a sniff,” Bavuma said.

Perhaps the biggest positive to come out of the defeat was how Bavuma, who was been through a really hard time with his batting, was able to score a sparkling 36 off just 19 balls. He was especially severe on anything short, and he and Aiden Markram had the Proteas well-placed on 65/2 after seven overs when leg-spinner Shadab dismissed both of them in his first over, just before the rain delay.

“It’s been a while since I hit the ball in the middle and I felt a lot better today,” Bavuma said. “I was seeing the ball well and making better decisions. I just tried to enjoy it and watch the ball more.”

South Africa now have to beat the Netherlands in their final group game on Sunday to reach the semi-finals.

“Maybe this was the performance we needed to bring us back to earth. There are certainly areas we can learn from, and if you’re going to learn, now is probably the time to do it.

“We have a bit of a lifeline because of the way we’ve played well up till now. We didn’t play our best cricket today and came unstuck. It was probably a bit of a wake-up call,” Bavuma said.