Kolkata, March 4 South Africa captain Aiden Markram said his team was undone by New Zealand's explosive batting in their nine-wicket loss in the Men's T20 World Cup semi-final, and gave "massive credit" to Finn Allen and Tim Seifert for their match-winning innings.
Allen smashed the fastest score in tournament history, off just 33 balls, as New Zealand completed the chase of 170 against South Africa with 43 balls to spare and secured their place in the final, which will be played at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Sunday.
Allen's explosive batting, where he only faced four dot balls, was complemented by Tim Seifert, who scored a brisk 58 off 33 deliveries. The pair put on an opening stand of 117 runs, effectively ending South Africa's hopes of defending their total of 169/8.
"You look at the conditions early on, and they bowled really well up front. The ball didn't seem to be coming onto the wicket, some were just stopping on the wicket, and some were hitting quite low on the bat, which made scoring really difficult. This pressure then leads to wickets falling," he said.
"So, we give credit to their bowling unit, and obviously, with the bat, someone plays an innings like that, and you don't always expect to come out on the winning side. It was a great effort to reach 170. At the halfway point, we really felt like we had a chance.
"But then, as happens in T20 cricket, (in) the powerplay (they) got off to a good start, and unfortunately, they couldn't prevent every boundary. They got away with it, and then it became very difficult to recover. So, we give massive credit to Finn Allen's innings and Tim Seifert's innings, for ending the game as early as they did. Unfortunately, it was just a bad night for us tonight," Markram said in the post-match presentation ceremony.
South Africa had come into the crucial match as the in-form and unbeaten team in the competition, but were blown away by Allen's performance and were eliminated from the competition. When asked what the Proteas could have done differently, Markram felt it was too early to make a judgment.
"It's hard to say right now. We will reflect as a group. I think we expected the wicket to play well. It looked pretty good, so we might have adapted a bit quicker with our bats and gone back to a more traditional approach, aiming to score 190, and hopefully, we would be in a good position from there.
"So, we will reflect as a group. Obviously, we are disappointed with the result, but we are very proud of this group of guys who have played some really good cricket throughout this competition. It was just an unfortunate evening."
When quizzed on what he would say to the team after stumbling again despite doing so well in the competition, Markram explained, "I think you need to let the emotions settle first. Once they have done that, we will have a discussion as a group, and we will break down the game and try to find the areas where we could have done better.
"We need to get back on track and improve as a group and as individuals. Hopefully, this will put us in a good position for the future. So, again, we are hugely disappointed. It's not a major setback, but it feels like one. But because of that, we will have to come out stronger and be better as a team moving forward," he concluded.
