Proteas chose a crappy time to have a bad night, says Shukri Conrad after New Zealand defeat

Proteas coach Shukri Conrad refused to blame nerves for the Proteas’ disastrous start, which eventually led to their disappointing nine-wicket defeat at the hands of New Zealand in the T20 World Cup semi-finals on Wednesday.

South Africa lost the wickets of wicket-keeper-bat Quinton de Kock and Ryan Rickelton off successive balls in the second over against the Black Caps’ little-known off-spinner Cole McConchie, who had previously taken just seven wickets in his 15 T20 internationals. Both De Kock and Rickelton fell to "long hops" which they would normally hit out of the ground. However, De Kock skied his pull shot to mid-on, while Rickelton was caught playing a half-hearted cut to backward point.

The Proteas were reduced to 77/5 after that poor start and needed a half-century stand between Marco Jansen and Tristan Stubbs to get them to 169/8. Conrad said after the match, in which the Kiwis chased down the target of 170 in just 12.5 overs, that the pitch was a bit slow and “stoppy” at the start of the contest. The surface then started to quicken up when the Kiwis were at the crease, and they ended up making light work of the total, with opener Finn Allen scoring the fastest T20 World Cup century off just 33 balls.

“These sorts of things can happen in T20 cricket when you've got to make a play. I thought the wicket was a little bit stoppy to start off with,” Conrad said of the De Kock and Rickelton dismissals. “Maybe they could have given themselves a bit more of a chance, but sometimes it's 'nothing' deliveries that get wickets, you know. Such is the nature of T20 cricket; you have a bad couple of overs and then you're struggling to pull it back.

“But definitely, it’s got nothing to do with nerves and the sense of occasion—nothing like that. It just so happens to be a semi-final again, and so all the clichés will come out now again. But it's certainly nothing to do with that; New Zealand were excellent on the night.”

The biggest of those clichés is obviously the “choker” tag that inevitably accompanies such a gut-wrenching Proteas defeat. Having looked almost unstoppable during the group stage and Super Eights, the Proteas looked way off the pace at Eden Gardens.

They followed up their struggle with the bat with an inept bowling display, as Allen and his fellow opener Tim Seifert blazed 86 runs in the Powerplay to essentially take the game away from the South Africans.

The majority of South Africa’s matches at this T20 World Cup were played in Ahmedabad on fast, bouncy surfaces that were also good for batting. In Kolkata, they just couldn’t adapt quickly enough to the conditions compared to New Zealand, who had played on a variety of pitches throughout this tournament.

“We chose a really crappy time to have a bad night,” Conrad added. “There is a lot to be said about playing all our games at Ahmedabad and then not having played anything in some of the other states. But again, that's no excuse.

“They strangled us up front; we lost wickets and didn't get any sort of momentum going. A hell of a lot didn't go right tonight, but that was probably enforced because they were so good and they never gave us a sniff.

"We had one chance early on when we bowled, but it didn't go to hand and it was pretty much plain sailing for them after that. Look, I'm not going to sit here and try to make excuses for a bad night. We weren't good and they were excellent.”