“It wasn’t a choke, it was a bloody walloping” - South African head coach after nine-wicket defeat to New Zealand

South African head coach Shukri Conrad termed his team’s nine-wicket defeat to New Zealand in the first semi-final a ‘bloody walloping’. Notably, the Aiden Markram-led side entered the semi-finals on the back of an unbeaten run, but suffered a poor defeat to the Mitchell Santner-led side.

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Delving into the details of the game, South Africa was tasked to bat first and in no time, they were reeling at 77/5 in 10 overs, losing their in-form batters. Dewald Brevis (34), Tristan Stubbs (29) and Marco Jansen (55*) played important knocks to take them to a competitive total of 169/8 in 20 overs.

"I don't know if tonight was a choke, I thought it was a bloody walloping," Conrad told reporters.

"If you want to be choked, you might as well have had a snook in the game. Tonight we got a proper snotklap, a South African word meaning a real hiding,” he added.

"I'm so proud of all these guys. I don't think many people gave us much of a chance of even getting to a semi-final when we left the shores. But that's no consolation for anything like that,” he stated.

"We chose a really crappy time to have a bad night," said Conrad.

"There's obviously a lot to be said about playing all those games (in Ahmedabad) and not having played anything in some of the other states. But again, that's no excuse,” he noted.

"They strangled us up front, lost wickets, didn't get any sort of momentum going," said Conrad. "Not a lot of it went right tonight but that was probably enforced because they were so good and they never gave us a sniff,” he concluded.

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The chase was more of a one-way traffic with New Zealand openers Tim Seifter (58) and Finn Allen (100*) coming out all guns blazing right from the first ball as they finished off the game in 12.5 overs with nine wickets in hand to advance to the grand finale.

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