AB de Villiers defends South Africa's coach, blames himself for West Indies loss
South African captain AB de Villiers believes the players should be under more pressure rather than coach Russell Domingo, reports cricket.com.au. Despite being on top early in the contest, they were comprehensively beaten by West Indies who will now face Australia in the tri-series final on Sunday.
"It'll be pretty bad," was the Proteas skipper's words when asked about Domingo's position after the defeat against West Indies. "Russell has played a pretty big role in all of our careers over the past four years. I've felt he's done a fantastic job and it would be sad to see him under pressure."
He took the blame away from the coaches and put it onto the players. "It's definitely not the coaching stuff. The coaching staff, in my mind, are the best in the world with what they do and what they bring to the table," he said.
"Unfortunately as players we let them down in this series. We had ample opportunity in a few games to really knuckle down. It comes down to the players. The preparation was perfect, all the coaching staff did their jobs.
"So it is sad to see Russell under pressure. It shouldn't be that way, it should be a few players that are under pressure."
AB speaks about his poor form
For the first time since August 2008, AB failed to score a fifty in a series of at least three matches.
"A couple of us are out of form, myself included," he said, speaking about his own form in the series that saw him finish with scores of 31, 22, 39, 27, DNB and 2.
"I had a poor series and would have loved to have played a bigger role and got a few more runs, but unfortunately it didn't happen. I got in four out of five times and didn't convert. There's no reason for me to get out after that because I'm seeing the ball well and four out of five times, I didn't (convert)."
Speaking about his dismissal against West Indies, he said: "Tonight I was dismissed (for 2) by a bowler (Windies quick Shannon Gabriel) who was bowling well, running in and got it to swing a little bit.
"That happens but the other four times, no excuses really. I just gave my wicket away at the wrong time and it's not good enough."
After reaching the semi-final of the ICC World Cup 2015, the Proteas performances have been mixed, but AB de Villiers said it was "disappointing" to go out like they did.
"We started something special in the last year after the World Cup," he said. "There was definitely a belief that started in the camp that we could win from any position and make it work from any position. So it's pretty sad that we couldn't do that today and in this series.
"I don't think we were close to our best throughout the whole series. We still managed to win some games, which was a positive. But unfortunately when it mattered most tonight, we couldn't pull through. So it's very disappointing.”