South Africa have moved on from India loss: Hashim Amla
Hashim Amla insisted that South Africa have moved on from the humiliating 130-run loss to India and are prepared to face their next opponents at the ICC Cricket World Cup. The Africans face West Indies, who demolished Zimbabwe courtesy of a Chris Gayle double century, in Sydney on Friday.
“Everybody in the team has played enough to know that you do win and lose games. There can only be one winner and one loser. So, let's not get too dramatic about it,” Amla said.
“We didn't play good cricket, but we take the knock on the chin. We know we have a few more games in the round-robin phase, and guys have been playing well. So we don't want to dwell too much on it. But going into the next game we certainly know we've got to perform better.”
After India’s win over South Africa, the defending champions are favourites to finish top of Pool B, but Amla said that qualifying for the quarters is the team’s concern.
The opener said, “You want to finish as high as possible but if you qualify for the quarter-final, so be it. If you want to win a World Cup you're going to need to play the best teams to win it. There's no trying to avoid anybody.”
“Failure to build partnerships resulted in defeat against India”
Amla analyzed the loss to India and accepted the failure to build partnershipts cost them dearly.
Amla said, “We didn't manage to string enough big partnerships closely together and we lost wickets at key times.
“Things like that happen. You don't want it to happen, and fortunately over the last few years it hasn't happened to us too often, getting bowled out for 150 or 160. We just want to brush it off, take the knock on our chin, and get our heads up for the next game.”
Amla, despite not getting off to a flier in the tournament, backed himself and fellow opener Quinton de Kock to get amongst the runs quickly.
“I'd love to score runs every game but I don't think it's possible. It's been a slow start and hopefully it gets better. I'm feeling good. Everybody goes through a few games in which they don't score runs,” Amla revealed.
“Quinny (Quinton de Kock) is striking the ball really well. On any given day, he can kick into first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth gear.
“Although he hasn't got many runs I don't think anybody in the team is too concerned with him not getting enough batting time because he does hit a lot of balls in the nets and he does put a lot of care into his batting,” he concluded.