Temba Bavuma has said South Africa should "feel the emotion of today" and question themselves as to where they are mentally after they suffered a shock 38-run defeat at the hands of Netherlands, their first loss of the 2023 World Cup.
"You got to let the emotion kind of seep in," Bavuma said at the post-match presentation. "Don't think there is any point in trying to forget what's happened. It is going to hurt, it should hurt."
"But then you come back tomorrow, you wake up and we get back onto the journey. Our campaign is not over by any stretch of the imagination, but you got to feel the emotion of today and come back tomorrow with the head held up."
Coming into the game running hot on a five-game ODI winning streak, South Africa seemed uncharacteristically lax. They gave away 32 extras - 21 wides, one no-ball and 10 leg byes - as Netherlands recovered from 112 for 6 in the 27th over to post 245 for 8 in the rain-shortened 43-overs-a-side clash.
This is the second time in the last 12 months that Netherlands have got the better of South Africa at an ICC event. They had earlier eliminated the South Africans from the 2022 T20 World Cup with a 13-run win. Bavuma said that it was not just with the ball that South Africa were off the boil, but also in the field.
"The extras that's something you can control. Getting 30 (32) extras, that is an extra five overs is always going to hurt you. That is a conversation for us to have - whether it is skill or a complacency thing - but at the end it did count for quite a thing," he said.
"We were clinical against Australia, but the challenge was always to come back and replicate that performance. The fielding wasn't up to standard. Again if you look at the way we fielded against Australia compared to today, definitely not the same standard.
"Those are conversations we need to have. The guys need to answer the questions themselves where mentally they were. That's definitely not the standard we'd like to show from a fielding point of view."
Bavuma was effusive in praise of the Netherlands unit, who first came back in the game with half-centuries from Scott Edwards and useful cameos from Roelof van der Merwe and Aryan Dutt before picking wickets at regular intervals in the chase.
"I think we got them to 112 for 6. From that point, you are probably not looking at anything more than 200. We definitely dropped the ball there letting them get to 240-plus," Bavuma said. "With the batting, we were still confident in chasing down that score but we didn't get any partnerships. Them with their double-spin in the powerplay, was something we did not adapt to. Kudos to them, the way they were able to exploit certain weaknesses within our game."