South Africa captain Faf du Plessis was once again left ruing a poor batting performance as defeat against New Zealand all but ended his side's World Cup dream.
The Proteas were made to bat first in Wednesday’s clash at Edgbaston, setting a target of 241, which ultimately proved insufficient, even on a testing pitch, as Kane Williamson’s unbeaten century helped the Black Caps to a four-wicket triumph with just three balls to spare.
While the likes of England, India and Australia have relied on monster scores from their star batsmen, no South African has yet passed 70 in the tournament, while only opener Quinton de Kock has scored more than one half-century.
After the game, Du Plessis claimed Williamson’s knock had been “the difference between the two sides”, and admitted the blame for South Africa’s disastrous campaign lay with the batting line-up.
“We need guys who stand up and put in performances that will win you games – that is where we’ve been short,” he said.
“That’s why I used [Williamson] as a reference. You need someone to go further and we haven’t had that. That’s purely the finger pointing back at us as a batting unit.
“It’s just pure numbers on the board, batters getting the runs that they should. If you look at oppositions, there’s been big runs scored by batting line-ups.
“If you compare our batting line-up to other batting line-ups around the world, purely from a numbers point of view, that doesn’t stack up with the rest of the world.
“We’re just not producing scores or innings that can win you games. I think the bowling, they’ve been fighting this whole competition, probably bar the Bangladesh game. We need more runs.”
South Africa’s fourth defeat in six games, to go with a win over bottom side Afghanistan and a washout against the West Indies, leaves them needing a remarkable set of results to reach the final four.
While Du Plessis stopped short of calling for a large-scale revolution, similar to the one England underwent following their humiliating World Cup exit four years ago, he said a significant overhaul of the squad was likely after the tournament.
“I think that will happen naturally with quite a few guys at the end of their careers,” he added. “So you're probably getting three or four guys getting away from that.
“You know, depending on Cricket South Africa, I feel in terms of what they believe is a good way forward, they might want a complete change.
“You'll probably lose six or seven players after this tournament. Whether you want to change more than that, no, I don't think you need to do more than that.”
