South Africa beat Sri Lanka on Friday by 9 wickets at Riverside Ground, Chester-le-Street in ICC World Cup 2019. South Africa already out from the tournament and they’re out to gain some respect in the very last phase. On the other hand, Sri Lanka’s semi-finals hope got a huge blow after this massive defeat versus the Proteus.

Press Conference of South Africa Vs Sri Lanka

South Africa has nothing to lose from this tournament. Sri Lanka suffered two humiliating defeat against New Zealand and Australia and saw two of their matches washed out due to heavy rain. Everybody was counting for their elimination but surprisingly they resurrected the hopes after defeating hosts England in last week.

Things have gone wrong after another massive defeat against South Africa. It seems Sri Lankan’s semi-finals hope are also pretty much over.

After the press conference, Proteus skipper Faf Du Plessis also emphasized their winning –

It feels like it been a long time hey! We had a great game and we did pure justice with the talents we are having in our dressing room. Our performance was very good and I am really proud of my boys.

He also emphasized the importance of bringing back the pacer Dwaine Pretorius.

Dwaine was exceptional. He gave us balance in our bowling department. The pitch was more supportive of line and length and that’s the reason I brought Dwaine and Andile and it really worked so well.

The captain was also emphasizing about the batting performances.

Our win doesn’t mean anything right now but its good for the next chapter. We haven’t had players for a big partnership in this campaign, but that was the case today. Suddenly, we saw a big partnership and then everything was so much easier for us.

Faf Du Plessis scored a big hundred versus Sr Lanka and landed a huge victory of 9-wickets.

On the other hand, Lankan captain Dimuth Karunaratne lamented the loss and his side’s miserable performance.

All departments performed very badly. We did injustice to ourselves. After Kusal and Avishka‘s batting, we gave so much dots and struggled to manage even a single. They planned really well and executed the plan accordingly. We failed to press them after Lasith Malinga made an initial impact. Now, we should correct them before the remaining games. We have to do win the two remaining games and must speed up our performances.

Sri Lanka will face West Indies and India on Jule 1 and July 6 respectively. The equation for semi for the Lankans already getting too much complicated after the loss versus Proteus and they will have to face more challenges in upcoming games.