It wasn’t a good start for South Africa in the ICC World Cup 2019. They were completely outplayed by the England team in all sections of the game. Meanwhile, the fast bowler Lungi Ngidi takes out positives from the lost game against England.

After losing their World Cup opener game to England, South African pacer Lungi Ngidi said the team was satisfied with their bowling effort and thought that they could beat the English giants as they were ‘below par’

I was very disappointed – Lungi Ngidi

Initially, South Africa was on the top after bagging the wicket of Jonny Bairstow for a cheap score. However, Joe Root and Jason Roy ensured a decent partnership to get back the team on a trot. Despite pulling back things in middle overs, Ben Stokes made it possible for the team.

We believed we could have kept them to under 300. Even when they got to 311, I thought they were below-par,” Ngidi said after the defeat. “I was very disappointed with my bowling performance upfront. I might have been overthinking it. All the talk was how they post totals of 350 so maybe that was at the back of my mind,” he said.

Further, he went on to add saying that there were a few opportunities, which didn’t do well for South Africa. Lungi Ngidi felt that things would have been different if they had those chances.

“There were a few opportunities in the Powerplay, where they nicked it through the slips and I started to think, ‘These people are humans, just like me’. I kicked into my rhythm from there.”I listened to what the wicket was telling me. Slower balls were working so I stuck to that. Even though they were trying to come after me, they couldn’t seem to get it away,” Ngidi said. Ngidi finished with figures of 3/66.

However, it would be interesting to see how they would be peaking themselves in their next game. With the tournament being so long, they still got quite a few chances to make into the next level.