Coach Corrie van Zyl admitted Sunday that South Africa lacked the composure to go all the way after a shock 2011 Cricket World Cup quarter-finals loss to New Zealand. Set 222 to win in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, the hotly fancied Proteas were bundled out for 172 and 'Choker' headlines littered weekend Johannesburg newspapers.
'Horrible! Super chokers do it again', 'What a choke' and 'Chokers' made painful reading for the likes of all-rounder Jacques Kallis, who queried whether journalists knew the meaning of the word before the World Cup.
Defeat to New Zealand was the latest in a long list of failures by captain Graeme Smith and his team which boasts some of the best cricketers on the international scene but has never won a world title. "We did not have the composure to go all the way," said Van Zyl, who steps
down as caretaker coach as his contract expired with the World Cup defeat by the Kiwis.
But he refused to be despondent about the future during a media conference at OR Tambo airport east of Johannesburg, saying he believed the national team would go all the way at the World Cup soon.