Proteas insist they weren’t fouled by complacency

While the Proteas ran into Pakistan at their unpredictable best, coach Russell Domingo insisted they hadn’t underestimated their inconsistent opponents.

South Africa suffered an unexpected setback in the Champions Trophy on Wednesday night when they lost by 19 runs on the Duckworth-Lewis method to Mickey Arthur’s troops in Birmingham.

Also read: Proteas reminded that rankings mean nothing

“There was no complacency on our side,” said Domingo.

“We played a game of cricket and Pakistan played better than us. That’s got nothing to do with complacency as far as I’m concerned.”

The problem with the Proteas in ICC tournaments is that they are always under pressure from both sides of the spectrum.

If they don’t lose due to complacency, people wonder whether the attention of being considered one of the favourites gets to them.

But Domingo tried to downplay that too.

“No, there’s nothing playing on our minds. Not at all. We know that there’s a lot of talk about us having not won a competition for a long time,” he said.

“There’s nothing we can do about it. It’s outside of what we can control. We’ve just got to focus on playing good cricket and preparing well. We haven’t played good cricket in this match. We have to take that on the chin and acknowledge that our performance is not as good as what we can put together.”

Another concern is captain AB de Villiers’ state of mind and how his body is holding up.

The dynamic middle-order batter scored his first first-ball duck in 212 ODI innings when he rashly slapped Pakistan left-arm tweaker Imad Wasim to point.

Domingo also confirmed that he has picked up a hamstring niggle.

“I’m not concerned about him,” he said.

“He’s a quality player. Everybody gets a first-baller. It’s just taken him 200 games, I suppose, there’s always going to be question marks.

“Obviously he did pick up a little bit of a niggle with his hamstring today, but the medical team will look at him. But I’m by no means concerned. I’m expecting him to put in a big performance on Sunday against India. He’s that type of player. I’m sure of that.”

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