World Cup 2019: Five surprises from the first week of the tournament

#3 South Africa losing three in a row

South Africa has a tough road ahead

South Africa weren’t the favourites to win the World Cup this time but still, they had a great chance to make the top four. Even though they had a tough schedule upfront with three games in seven days you didn’t expect them to lose all the three games. There were moments in all the three games where they showed glimpses of what they can do.

They restricted the strong England batting line-up to 311 in their first game. England seemed to be 20-25 runs short in that game and it was a chase-able score but their batsmen failed to do so. They looked completely off-colour against Bangladesh as their bowlers conceded 330. Against India as well, their batting didn’t click as they were restricted to a below par total.

The luck isn’t going their way as Dale Steyn has been ruled out of the World Cup whereas Lungi Ngidi isn’t available for a few games. Suddenly the news of how AB de Villiers wanted to return is coming out. All these things are not going to help the team. It’s a tough road ahead for the South Africans but let’s hope they find a way out of that.