WC 2015: 'Choking! It's choking!' South African coach creates stir
Posted March 16th, 2015, 03:43 PM IST
Russell Domingo could not have presented a more relaxed demeanour than he did in front of the media on Monday, two days before their quarterfinal clash with Sri Lanka.
Check out: WC 2015 points table
The 40-year-old was clearly expecting questions about South Africa's history of crumbling under pressure in the knockout stages of tournaments and one reporter had barely started to speak before he interjected.
"Choking! It's choking! It's taken you four minutes, that's a bit slow," he roared.
"It's been part of South African cricket for quite some time, every time we get to these events it's going to be questioned," he added when the laughter had died down.
Read: South Africa sports minister warns Proteas not to become 'bunch of losers'
"We've faced the fact that in the past we have let opportunities slip by us. Hopefully we'd have learned from the mistakes that previous sides have made at events like this.
"And by all means we want to avoid that happening to us but at the end of the day, we just want to play good cricket if the opportunity arises."
South Africa have never won a knockout match in six World Cups, their three trips to the semi-finals coming when the last four was decided by round robin groups.
They have had their fair share of bad luck too, most notably when the method of calculating targets after overs were lost to rain robbed them of the chance of a victory over England in the Sydney semi-final in 1992.
Watch: The 'mauka mauka' joke is now on South Africa
"In 1992, I was 16-years-old," Domingo chortled when asked whether it was a motivation.
"There's nothing we can do about what happened in 1992, all our energy is focused on what we need to do leading into this game."
Domingo said he had been trying to get the squad to focus on more recent successes when they were in pressure situations.
"When the pressure points come, to really focus hard on our strategies and our thinking, on what's made us successful over the last year, on what helped us beat Sri Lanka when we toured there eight months ago," he said.
South African hopes of a maiden world title took something of a dent after defeats to India and Pakistan in the pool stage but Domingo thinks a big performance is coming.
Read: Team India ‘choke’ South Africa, break World Cup jinx
"We've spoken long and hard about playing the big games, the big moments, well," he said. "The guys are really up for peaking for the latter stages of the competition.
"We've eased our way towards it, we probably haven't played the brand of cricket we've wanted to, I'm expecting that to happen on Wednesday."
- BATC: Indian women’s team reaches maiden final with 3-2 win over Japan
- India defeat England by 106 runs to level five-Test series 1-1
- FIR against gaming site, FB page as Tendulkar raises concerns over his deepfake video
- Telangana Sailors Shine at National Sailing Championships, Bag Medals
- Inaugural Edition of Indian Street Premier League to Begin from March 2
- Thrilled to welcome Hardik back home to Mumbai Indians, says Nita Ambani
- Techie dies of heart attack as India loses to Australia in World Cup final
- Carlos Alcaraz set to make ATP finals debut in Turin
- Pandya had hurt his left ankle while fielding of his own bowling in the game against Bangladesh in Pune on October 19
- Coco Gauff and Iga Swiatek win their WTA Finals opening matches in straight sets
- Berlin to Host Germany's First Major WWE
- Para Asian Games: Gold rush continues as Deepthi Jeevanji clinches gold in women’s 400m-T20 final
- Indian cricket legend Bishan Singh Bedi passes away
- CWC 2023: After big ton, Warner credits IPL for success in ODIs
- India-Australia T20 set to dazzle Visakhapatnam
More Sports News
- Aditi Rao Hydari misses ‘Heeramandi’ event after wedding
- Bigg Boss winner Munawar Faruqui among 14 detained in Mumbai raid
- Mrunal Thakur follows ‘grandma diet,’ believes in not skipping meals
- Selena Gomez shares makeup-free selfies on Instagram
- Diljit collaborates with Saweetie for ‘Khutti’ Song, says ‘she just landed in Punjab’
- Malaika Arora, Arjun Kapoor, Richa, Ali Fazal, Farah, and more at KJo’s Bash
- Jamie Lever is ‘honoured’ to represent her heritage with Telugu debut film
- Janhvi and Aditya Roy Kapur shine on the ramp for Kalki at Lakme Fashion Week x FDCI
- I am fond of Kate Moss, says Diana Penty, about her fashion icon
- Kriti Kharbanda, Pulkit Samrat share pictures from dreamy wedding
A PHP Error was encountered
Severity: Warning
Message: file_get_contents(): http:// wrapper is disabled in the server configuration by allow_url_fopen=0
Filename: views/newsdetails.php
Line Number: 29
Backtrace:
File: /home5/am2pm/public_html/application/views/newsdetails.php
Line: 29
Function: file_get_contents
File: /home5/am2pm/public_html/application/controllers/News.php
Line: 135
Function: view
File: /home5/am2pm/public_html/application/controllers/News.php
Line: 77
Function: newsdetails
File: /home5/am2pm/public_html/index.php
Line: 315
Function: require_once
A PHP Error was encountered
Severity: Warning
Message: file_get_contents(http://www.indiaaffiliates.in/ads.php?size=300X250): failed to open stream: no suitable wrapper could be found
Filename: views/newsdetails.php
Line Number: 29
Backtrace:
File: /home5/am2pm/public_html/application/views/newsdetails.php
Line: 29
Function: file_get_contents
File: /home5/am2pm/public_html/application/controllers/News.php
Line: 135
Function: view
File: /home5/am2pm/public_html/application/controllers/News.php
Line: 77
Function: newsdetails
File: /home5/am2pm/public_html/index.php
Line: 315
Function: require_once