South Africa look for fresh start

By Martin Gough
BBC Sport in Guyana

Smith's South Africa suffered a 67-run defeat to Bangladesh

Captain Graeme Smith hopes a move away from Guyana will give South Africa the kick they need to reach the World Cup semi-finals after defeat to Bangladesh.

The Proteas face West Indies and New Zealand in Grenada this week then move to Barbados to take on England.

"Certainly the fresh environment will go a long way to helping," said Smith.

"The loss is two points we were banking on but the opportunity still lies in our hands to go forward in the World Cup," added the South Africa captain.

"There are three big games ahead of us and it's important that we regroup and move forward to the West Indies game."

South Africa, ranked number one in the world, crashed to a 67-run defeat at the hands of world number nine Bangladesh in Georgetown on Saturday.

In theory they could still go through to the semi-finals with one more win but they will only be certain of qualifying by winning all three remaining matches.

We will take some lessons from the Bangladesh defeat but it's not all lost Graeme Smith

Even if they win two, to finish with eight points in the Super 8 table, they would need to vastly improve a run-rate that took a bashing at the hands of Bangladesh.

"We would like to win all three. It depends what happens in the other games because there will be a few more permutations going on," Smith continued.

"We don't want to rely on other people to get us through."

"We need to get a fresh environment that supplies a bit more energy but the main thing is to discuss where we went wrong and how we're going to tackle the games ahead."

Smith played down repeated suggestions South Africa need to include a spin bowler to add variety to their attack.

Bangladesh's slow bowlers shared six wickets on Saturday but Smith argued: "Our attack has worked pretty well so far.

"It didn't really turn in the first 45 or 50 overs. We played pretty well to beat Sri Lanka on this surface.

"Their left-arm spinners bowled well and we allowed them to bowl well because we put ourselves under pressure."

"We will take some lessons from this but it's not all lost."