T20 World Cup 2022: "A lot went wrong" - Temba Bavuma on South Africa's group-stage exit after losing to the Netherlands

South Africa captain Temba Bavuma did not hide his disappointment following their stunning defeat to the Netherlands in Adelaide on Sunday. The right-handed batter admitted that South Africa did not turn when they most needed to.

The Proteas lost to the Netherlands in their last pool game to crash out of the tournament. Chasing 159, every batter got a start; however, none of them scored big and stayed till the end to see them through. Eventually, they fell 13 runs short and stood eliminated from the event.

Bavuma, who ended the tournament with 70 runs in five innings, stated that South Africa did plenty of things wrong and never got any momentum going. The 32-year-old said it was disappointing how their failure cost them big time.

As quoted by News24, Bavuma elaborated:

"A lot went wrong. Obviously, with a performance like that, you can pick out a lot of things. Looking at the toss, we opted to bowl first and you expect us to put them under pressure with the ball, and we obviously didn't do that. That being said, we still had a role with the bat and we just couldn't get any type of momentum or flow into our innings."

He added:

"We couldn't adapt, they made use of the dimensions in the field. It's disappointing for all of us. The most disappointing thing is probably that we were unable to go over the line when we needed to. We knew we had to win the game, the mistakes were made on the field and those were all tactical decisions."

South Africa's campaign got off to a promising start as they dominated Zimbabwe before the game got washed out. They beat Bangladesh and India convincingly, but lost consecutive matches to Pakistan and the Netherlands.

"We've got nothing to blame, everything was in our hands as a team" - Temba Bavuma

South Africa lost to the Netherlands. (Credits: Getty)

Bavuma also conceded that the Proteas will carry the 'chokers' tag with them until they reach the final of any ICC event, stating:

"It'll always be there until we find ourselves in a situation where we'll get to a final. We've got nothing to blame, everything was in our hands as a team. We had the confidence, the belief and form behind us, but when it mattered, we just couldn't do the business. There are elements of learning that we can take from it, especially for the younger guys like Stubbs and Jansen. Not to make the same mistakes the older guys have made in the team."

It's worth noting that the Proteas are yet to reach a T20 and a 50-over World Cup final as their best has been to the semi-finals.