AB de Villiers confident of leading the Proteas to a World Cup title

South Africa have always been mentioned and known for choking at the major ICC tournaments, be it the World Cup, Champions Trophy or the World T20. The story at the Champions Trophy 2017 is no different, as the Proteas were knocked out from the tournament in the first phase following the loss at the hands of the Asian sides Indian and Pakistan. The side led by AB de Villiers could only muster a solitary win, in their opening game against Sri Lanka.

Post the dismal loss at the hands of Virat Kohli and co, the Proteas skipper AB de Villiers is confident that he could lead the side to a victory in the 2019 Cricket World Cup, with a few changes in the side. AB has immense faith in his squad to overturn the 2017 Champions Trophy campaign to make a comeback in the World Cup.

“Because I’m a good captain. And I can take this team forward. I can take us to win a World Cup, I believe,” de Villiers said, after the defeat against India at The Oval. “I believed the same thing over here in this tournament and the last one here but that’s what I believe. I love doing it.”

AB de Villiers has led the side from 2011 in the ODI format, while he gave up the post in the T20 format in 2013 while giving away the skipper post in the longest format a few months ago to Faf du Plessis. In the 13 ICC events that the right-hander has taken part in, he has won none of the tournaments, be it any format.

“We’ve covered all the bases. There’s no doubt about that,” he said. “We’ve had camp after camp. And we’ve worked really, really hard on the nets, and we back each other, we trust each other, and for some reason, things like that just keep happening.”

Poor batting performance makes Proteas pay

A poor batting performance from the Proteas cost them the game where South Africa slipped from 76 for no loss to 191 all out against a quality Indian outfit led by Kohli.

“I felt the team was pretty composed today. I don’t think we lost it there with composure. A few errors of judgement, a few mistakes out there cost us badly today,” he said. “It’s not going to do with composure in my eyes. I felt pretty calm with the team all the time. We played some good shots and then just a couple of bad, errors of judgement out there cost us.” Added the South African skipper.

South African entered the tournament at the peak of the ODI rankings following a lengthy spell of success in the 50-over format in the last 12 months.

“I’m not thinking about the next one now,” he said. “We just sort of want to go get through this hurt now, because it’s hurting quite bad. I’ve not thought about what we are going to think about our next tournament.” Concluded a disappointed Proteas skipper.