London: South Africa will have to move on quickly from the drubbing it received in the World Cup opener against England and regroup themselves before its next game Sunday against Bangladesh, captain Faf du Plessis said Thursday.
South Africa were thrashed by 104 runs by favourites England in the opening match of the ICC World Cup, at the Oval.
Du Plessis admitted they were outplayed in all facets of the game by England.
“You are going to play games and come up against opposition that are better than you. England beat us in all three facets of the game,” Du Plessis said after the defeat. “As much as we are disappointed, we want to learn from it quickly and put it to bed. We want to move on from it quickly.”
South Africa witnessed a bad start to their chase when veteran opener Hashim Amla was forced to retire hurt after being hit on the head. “The flow of the innings unfortunately started with Hashim coming off. When you are chasing a big score like 312, you need a good start to settle the dressing room,” Du Plessis pointed out.
“A good start is really important. With him coming off, a few overs later Aiden (Markram) got out and then I got out. When you go three down, it becomes tough and the score looks big, it looks too far. But I don’t blame the pitch, it was good enough,” added the skipper.
Du Plessis backed his decision to start the innings with Imran Tahir in place of Kagiso Rabada and the ploy worked wonders as the leg-spinner got rid off Jonny Bairstow with the second delivery of the tournament.
“It was a plan. It was something we first thought about a year ago. When we played against England, I thought we want to go with him because it is different,” Du Plessis said. “I went with my gut feeling. Imran had not bowled with the new ball before so he had been practising that for the last two weeks. He knew he was going to do that (open the bowling).
PTI
