England ‘wanted it more’ than Proteas – coach Mandla Mashimbyi
· Citizen
After falling to the hosts on Thursday night, head coach Mandla Mashimbyi admitted the Proteas were not as hungry as England in their Women’s T20 World Cup semifinal at The Oval in London.
The SA team were handed a 40-run defeat by the home side, who booked their place in the final of the tournament against Australia to be played at Lord’s on Sunday.
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“You’ve got to have skill to be able to get into a semifinal, so that’s not something that actually matters to me,” Mashimbyi said.
“It’s just the mental side of it that means everything to me, and I think maybe England wanted it a little bit more today.”
‘The best two teams are in the final’
The Proteas lost to top-ranked Australia in their opening match, but they bounced back to win their next four games on the trot in the group stages, and Mashimbyi was satisfied with their overall performance at the T20 showpiece.
He felt they were outplayed by England, however, as the Proteas failed in their attempt to reach their third straight T20 World Cup final.
“If you get to the semis you must have done something right, and I think we did do something right, maybe not in the best way in terms of how we wanted to do it, but at the end of the day we want to get World Cup wins and we did that,” Mashimbyi said.
“But today we’ve got to give credit to England. I think they were really good – they were incredible – and to be fair, two of the best teams in the tournament are in the final.”
Looking ahead to next World Cup
Mashimbyi said they would need to learn from the semifinal loss, grow from it and look ahead.
They would have to wait two years for another opportunity to lift a major global trophy, at the 2028 T20 World Cup in Pakistan, giving them time to focus and prepare in an attempt to end their title drought.
“We’ve learned a lot in this World Cup, so we’ve got to make sure that we go back to the drawing board and put things in place that are going to make us even more dangerous and even better.
“As a team, we know where our gaps are and that’s the only thing we can do really. We can’t change the results.
“It’s about the work we put in going forward and making sure that when we get an opportunity to play a World Cup again or an ICC trophy tournament we are sitting at the same table as other teams.”