'Extremely Hurt' Mark Boucher Takes 'Massive Responsibility' After South Africa's Loss to Pakistan

Following their drubbing at the hands of Pakistan at home in both ODIS and T20I series, South Africa head Marck Boucher has taken a ‘massive amount of responsibility’ for his team’s dismal performances in the recent past. The Proteas have lost eight of the eleven series under Marck Boucher’s tenure, however, the former wicketkeeper-batsman is undeterred and believes that things will start looking up for his team eventually.

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“I take a massive amount of responsibility and I should. I don’t shy away from it. I am hurt, I am extremely hurt at the moment, as is the rest of the management and coaching staff. We put a lot of hard work and effort into this. But there’s no panic from me yet because I do understand that we have been given some trying circumstances over the last period of time and we will continue to put in hard work,” said the coach, to ESPNcricinfo.

A number of the core members of the South African team, including Quinton de Kock, David Miller, Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi and Anrich Nortje left midway to join their respective IPL sides to take part in the 14th edition of the Indian Premier League that began on Friday, April 9.

“I am not going to make excuses. We’ve still got to try and win with whichever players we put on the park but it has been tough. There have been a lot of positives. With the opportunities that have been given, a couple of guys have come through with flying colours,” he said. “It’s given us a better view of what our depth is like, so I’ve got a fair idea of a larger squad we can look at,” said Boucher.

Pakistan won the ODI series 2-1 and the T20 series 3-1.

The Indian Premier League is slated to go on until the end of May, after which the South African coach is hopeful he will have all the members back under one roof again.

“We have to get our squad back together, get all of our players fit and available to play. We always earmarked the West Indian trip as being when our full squad needs to be together. Going forward now we need to start looking at the World Cups and start building on a formula we want to play. It’s a matter of getting all the guys together and getting them used to each other and hopefully used to winning a couple of games together,” he said.

The South African team won’t be in action in the next two months.

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