faf du plessis
Faf du Plessis could not lead South Africa to the knock-out stage in the ICC T20 World Cup 2016 Getty

South African skipper Faf du Plessis has claimed that "one or two mistakes" against England and West Indies cost his team a place in the semi-finals of the ongoing ICC T20 World Cup 2016. The Proteas won only two games out of four played, which resulted in them being knocked out of the competition.

Despite coming into the tournament as favourites, they failed to perform at important moments, especially against England where they failed to defend 229. It was their first game of the competition and was a good stage to get rid of their nerves. However, their bowlers were carted around the park by the English batsmen.

"We played good cricket leading up to the tournament and we were consistent in the subcontinent, but a World T20 is a do-or-die tournament. If you make mistakes, it's not like a series where you can come back into the series. We made one or two mistakes against England and they punished us for it. Against West Indies, we made one or two mistakes as well. The teams in a T20 World Cup are so close to each other, if you're not on top of your game, teams will punish you. Tonight was a good example. Sri Lanka made one or two mistakes in their batting and we capitalized," said du Plessis, as quoted by ESPNcricinfo.com.

"We've had signs of playing really good cricket through this tournament. The England game was as a good batting performance as you will see but obviously not a great bowling performance. Same thing with West Indies — we didn't bat as well as we wanted to, although, on that wicket, 10 more runs would have been par. In both games we did one half of the game really well."

South Africa have struggled to replicate their form in ICC global tournaments and are yet to win a World Cup or a T20 title. The only international title they won was the inaugural ICC Champions Trophy in 1998, where they were lead by disgraced former captain Hansie Cronje.

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