The bowlers missing were crucial. The loss of Kallis is huge.
Here are some comments from Gary ex Supersport:
Why do you think it is the team can perform so well under pressure in the test arena and yet struggle in the shorter format?
GK: If we had the secret recipe to turn it around, we'd packaging it and selling it. We certainly give it our best shot in our preparation. We try different things to go through and things like that. But, you know, it's one of those things. It's definitely a dark mist that hangs over South African cricket in knock-out events. At some point we're going to have to try to cross the line. It's going to require some real charisma and some real batsmen to get over the line. It might not be pretty, but at some point we're going to have to do it to get rid of this mess.
It is an unfortunate thing. As I said, it's not through lack of trying to do what we can to try to lift that. But it does require an enormous amount of resilience, and maybe certain types of individuals that can do it for us.
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Q: How much did the absence of Dale Steyn make, possibly to the attitude of the batsmen?
GK: No, we're used to not having our top players playing with us all the time. In fact, that's why we have been trying to broaden the base of our team. We've had some good players come through into the team. We like to think that we can perform with anyone out there. We have to be realistic in the tournament. We ended up with one win. We have been up and down in our one-day cricket over a while.
We haven't been consistent in our one-day cricket. That is maybe because we've explored quite a lot of combinations over the last two years. We've rested our test players quite a bit to try to broaden the base of our one-day team. So there has definitely been an inconsistency to our cricket, and certainly when you play in big tournaments like this and important tournaments, maybe you get exposed.
Q: This is the 8th semifinal that South Africa have lost, only ever won one in the 1998 Champions Trophy?
GK: Again, I don't know the answers to be honest with you. I can only tell you we've given it our best shot to try to overcome it, and we haven't. Whether it's the semifinal, knock-out games, I don't think it's only been semifinals. We didn't play well in the ICC World Twenty20 last year. So we certainly do what we can to arrive in the tournament well prepared. I had shared pretty good expectations going into the semifinal because I thought we were batting really well.
As a batting unit, what do you do? Do you load your batting and try to put nine batsmen on the team, or do you back your batsmen you've backed all through the series and the guys that have been performing for you in other tournaments? The only way I can answer that is I don't think there is any secret recipe. I just hope we can cross the line in one of these semifinal events and turn it around.
Q: Do you see anything going wrong with the players since you've been coaching them? And do you think the team misses Jacques Kallis? Would you want him to come back?
GK: In high pressure games and pressurized environments, you want your most experienced players because they're used to those situations but at the same time, your experienced players can have a lot of scarring from past events. So it is a bit of a tough one. It would be nice to have Jacques Kallis here.
But South African cricket has to move past Jacques Kallis. He's been around for 20 years and been an incredible servant to the game, but we need to find other players and I think we have. I think our strength going into this Champions Trophy was our batting line-up. We focused our attention on our middle-order, we thought with AB de Villiers, Faf du Plessis, David Miller and JP Duminy that we had a powerful middle-order unit.
We tried to bring in Robin Peterson at three and lengthen our batting unit, and still have four seamers. We thought that was our best combination. We did everything we could. Those four batsmen are our batsmen in form.
David Miller had a good tournament. He's been a new guy to come in, and he's shown he's capable of playing at this level. Hashim, AB, and Faf have been standard fixtures on our team for a while.
Q: Are you happy with the depth you've seen, in particular, the bowling over the last few years?
GK: We've tried hard in my two years with the team, we've had 16 new players play on the team, so we've certainly explored the talent in South African cricket. I think there is still more out there. At some point you need to find some stability. We've done that in the test matches because we've been able to. As with any international team, one-day format, 20-over format, you tend to experiment and explore with that. So we need to probably find some stability through our bowling unit.
We tried six or seven units and we need to settle on a few now.
Q: You’re not going to be around now. What would your advice be to the team on moving forward without baggage?
GK: That question keeps being asked! You move on. These guys play really good cricket throughout the year. They're a good cricket team, and at the next World Cup event, how do you overcome it? Well, the guys that are in charge will do everything they can to try to do that. It’s a horrible thing that’s happened.
It doesn't only happen to South African cricket. I believe it happens in a lot of other sports and other industries. It happens to people. But at some point you need to cross the line because people are going to continue looking at you and say you can't do it in that space. That's exactly where it is. It's really tough on individuals.
I don't think as individuals they get emotionally hijacked. It's rather, if they play for other teams, they play brilliant cricket. But then they come to South African cricket, there is this mist that hangs over the team and it's going to require really tough individuals to try to overcome that.
The interventions and the thinking to overcome it mentally, I don't think there is better thinking out there. At some point there just needs to be guys that actually buy into it and say, well, I could use this information, and these are the tools that I can use to not become hijacked in that situation and go make a contribution and pressurized moment which the guys do.We see it in all our other cricket except this particular event.
Q: Resilience? Was it lacking today? And secondly, do you think you've left the team in a better state than when you started?
GK: I don't know if I've left them in a better state because I certainly would have liked to have taken the team to at least the final, which I haven't been able to do.
But did I leave the team in a better state? I don't know. We certainly haven't improved, and that's where the question mark needs to come over me, so maybe it's a good decision that I'm leaving. As a coach, you always want to take the team forward in some way. I think there are some good signs.
We're playing some good one day cricket. We've definitely seen some nice youngsters come through and younger players; but in the big events, we haven't gone forward, no, and that is disappointing. We have to take that on the chin and move forward and work out ways that we can make it work. Certainly we all move on to different journeys and different experiences wherever we go, and we try to give it our best shot. That's all we can do.
Did we show captain resilience? That is a difficult question, because the game of cricket is about momentum. When you get some momentum, things work in your favour and you progress. We certainly said at the halfway mark defending 176, that we wanted to make something special happen. At 42-2 I thought we had a sniff. But then you have someone like Jonathan Trott who knows what to do in those situations…
Q: There is a lot of emotion in South Africa at the moment. The word choke is trending on Twitter. Your take on that emotion?
GK: It has happened again, if we are honest with ourselves. I think we did choke again. At the end of the day, it's a word that we've become comfortable with. It's an uncomfortable word, that we've become comfortable with, and you have to accept that that's what it is. So they bowled exceptionally well, England. But at the end of the day, that doesn't mean your batting should disintegrate. You know what I mean?
So it's a horrible word. It does get used. We've spoken about it; we've been up front about it as a team. We certainly let you and ourselves down today, no doubt
