Hashim Amla remained upbeat about the Proteas’ chances to win the last six games, despite their winless start to the World Cup, writes KHALID MOHIDIN.
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With three losses out of three, the Proteas face an uphill battle in order to place themselves in contention for a semi-final spot.
The consensus is that beating the rest will give them a chance to finish in the top four.
Six teams are left for the Proteas to play: West Indies, Afghanistan, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Australia.
They must take out what they can learn from the defeats to England, Bangladesh and India to create momentum, starting with a win against the West Indies on Monday.
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Amla presented a theory that explains why he still believes the Proteas can win the World Cup, despite their poor start.
‘In the last two World Cups, 2011 and 2015, we started off pretty good and we didn’t win. Maybe this is going the other way around,’ he said.
‘That’s the belief I have. Maybe this could be the one where we start badly, get a win here and there, get some momentum and change things around. It’s not how you drive, it’s how you arrive.’
In theory that sounds wonderful, but what do the Proteas need to do to turn things around?
With four days left until the next game, there is plenty of time to reflect and recover.
‘We’ve got to keep things in perspective and take our time to lament over the result and not doing as well as we want to do, and then come into the next practice where everybody is in the right space,’ he added.
‘We’ve played two of the favourites, two very strong teams, and unfortunately we played pretty average cricket,’ he said. ‘We need to turn it around and play our best cricket.’
