GRENADA: CRICKET - Press conferences by players to South Africa's victory over the West Indies in the Cricket World Cup

South Africa's AB de Villiers played through cramp, dehydration and heat exhaustion to bury hosts West Indies' World Cup dreams and resurrect his own team's semi-final hopes on Tuesday. Opener De Villiers' aggressive 146 was the cornerstone of South Africa's total of 356 for four, their record World Cup score. South Africa restricted West Indies to a reply of 289 for nine to win the second-stage Super Eights match by 67 runs. Victory virtually ensures the West Indies' elimination barring a run of freak results and leaves South Africa much closer to reaching the last four despite Saturday's shock defeat by Bangladesh in Guyana. De Villiers reached his century off 114 balls and then he launched an onslaught that earned him his last 46 runs off just 16 deliveries. His innings was interrupted several times for treatment for what South African media liaison officer Gordon Templeton later told reporters was cramp, heat exhaustion and dehydration. "When I reached a hundred I decided to go after it and play through the cramp," De Villiers told a news conference. "I was actually trying to get out but it didn't work out that way -- that's a joke. "The ball just went in the gaps and I stayed there much longer than I thought I would." Jacques Kallis (81) and De Villiers shared a second-wicket stand of 170, a performance described as pivotal by South African captain Graeme Smith. "It was always going to be difficult to bat up front because there was a lot of dampness in the pitch," Smith told a news conference. "Jacques got the momentum started and AB finished it off with a superb knock." Smith said his team had been determined to prove a point in the wake of the criticism following their performance against Bangladesh. "Some of the stuff that went around back home about the team being divided and in pieces and fighting, it was all a load of crap," Smith said. "So it was nice for the guys to bounce back in the way they did." Dejected West Indies captain Brian Lara said his team had played "bad cricket" in the World Cup, failed to handle the pressure and did not deserve to make it to the semi-finals. The World Cup hosts were all but out of the competition after their 67-run defeat to South Africa on Tuesday, their fourth straight loss in the second-stage Super Eights. "We did not act well at all. It is hard to sit here and pinpoint exactly where we went wrong, other than the fact that if you look at the stats of the games we were beaten badly by better teams," Lara told a news conference. Only a series of freak results could save his team and Lara accepted that would not happen. "We are very disappointed and we are sad that we have disappointed the people of the Caribbean and people who support us around the world. "We feel it a lot and we know that the man in the street is definitely disappointed. When we go to training we see people waving and we understand what cricket means to them and we would not go out, not wanting to perform. "It just happens that we have played bad cricket and we have to hold our hands up and say, yes, we played bad cricket and we don't deserve to be in the semi-finals and to our people, sorry about that and let's hope we can pick ourselves up," said Lara. His team had won all three of their group games before successive losses to Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka in the round-robin Super Eights. As well as accepting that his side had been "outclassed" by South Africa, Lara said that in their four defeats his team had failed to show the character needed to handle the expectation that surrounded them as hosts. "We did not stand up to the pressure, it is as simple as that. There is already that feeling that host nations don't do well but under the pressure of the World Cup our team, we did not stand up very well to it," he said. Lara, 37, had said prior to the tournament that he would be standing down from one-day games and said he was sad that he was unable to go out in better style. "It is definitely a huge disappointment. It is a situation where you are playing your last few one-dayers and you hope you are going to play in a World Cup semi-final or final, to me I am hugely disappointed. "I've had a very fruitful career, I've enjoyed playing for West Indies in the one-day arena and I will continue to enjoy for the next couple of games. "But what is more important is the state of the younger players who have to carry forward the team," he said. Asked whether the side's poor showing at the World Cup had led him to consider his future as test captain too, Lara said: "I'm going to be in the World Cup for the next two games and I'm not going to talk about that part of it. "The end of the World Cup is maybe the best time to talk about it". West Indies, whose predecessors won the first two World Cups in 1975 and 1979, travel to Barbados for the final two matches against Bangladesh (April 19) and then England (April 21). The final on April 28 will be played at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados. The seven-week tournament was the first time the World Cup had been staged in the Caribbean.

ITN Source | April 12, 2007

Tags:. .stats. .sorry. .innings. .fruitful. .elimination