Southampton: A frustrated Chris Morris said he would have been the head coach had he known the reason for South Africa’s string of defeats in the ongoing World Cup.
South Africa have already lost three successive games against hosts England, Bangladesh and now India, needing to win at least five of the six remaining games in order to be in contention for a semi-final spot.
Asked to pinpoint a reason for the defeats, Morris sarcastically replied: “Well, if I had the answer I would be the head coach of the national side.”
On a more serious note, he said: “The guys are very disappointed and a bit angry, which they are allowed to be. We will sort that out in our heads tonight and when the sun comes up tomorrow we will go back to the drawing board and take on our next opponent.”
“It is pretty simple the next game. Win the next six and crack on,” he said.
Electing to bat under overcast conditions, South Africa managed 227 for nine, a target which was overhauled by India in 47.3 overs for a convincing six-wicket win.
Faf du Plessis’ decision to bat in seamer-friendly conditions surprised all and sundry but Morris didn’t want to debate the larger implications of such a decision.
“End of the day, I don’t look at the pitch to be very honest. Whatever Faf makes in terms of the call and what we do first, that is the decision that is for the powers that be,” he said.
“I look at the pitch and it doesn’t matter what it looks like, I still have to bowl in the same areas. The pitch played tough for almost all 100 overs, but it doesn’t make a difference to what we did first. It was a good cricket wicket,” was all-rounder’s honest assessment.
Morris was not originally a part of the squad and after being included as a replacement, his was the best performance (42 runs and MS Dhoni’s wicket) for the Proteas on the day.
However, when asked about his performance, Morris said that he would have been happy to fail provided the team won.
“Yeah, look, like I say, at the end of the day, I could get nought and go for a hundred and we win it, that’s all that matters to me. It’s nice to bowl well and nice to get some runs at the end, but like I said overall a lot of disappointment,” he said.
Having played more T20 cricket of late, bowling full quota of overs means taking additional workload.
Morris said: “It has been a tough couple of days in England for myself because I have been trying to get my loads up as much as I can, and bowling more than I have been used to bowling in the last three months of my life.”
“So it is quite nice for it to click today and get a bit of rhythm going, so there are a lot of positives to take out of today,” he aadded.
PTI
