Tuesday 17 March 2015 09:22, UK
Russell Domingo says South Africa have learnt their lessons from past World Cup tournaments and will go into Wednesday’s quarter-final against Sri Lanka confident of winning their first ever knock-out match in the history of the competition.
The Proteas have earned a reputation of being ‘chokers’ having lost all five previous knock-out matches they have contested.
And in Sydney this week they take on a team that were crowned champions in 1996 and have twice been beaten in the final.
And coach Domingo said: “It's been part of South African cricket for quite some time, every time we get to these events it's going to be questioned.
"We've spoken about it, we've faced the fact that in the past we have let opportunities slip by us.
“Hopefully, we have learnt from the mistakes that previous sides have made at events like this.
"And by all means we want to avoid that happening to us. But, at the end of the day, we just want to play good cricket if the opportunity arises.
"If somebody is in that stage of the game under pressure, we try to focus on things we've done really well and not get too caught up in the past.
"We know we've come here with a clean slate. We come here knowing that if we play to the best of our abilities, we've got a good chance of winning on Wednesday."
Domingo was just a teenager when South Africa lost their first knock-out match against England in the semi-finals of the 1992 World Cup.
He added: "I was in Matric (secondary school), I was 16-years-old. There's nothing we can do about what happened in 1992.
“All our energy is focused on what we need to do leading into this game. The legacy of 1992 has very little bearing on now, we want to play our game on Wednesday."
Proteas knock-out woe
1992: England (semi-final)
1996: West Indies (quarter-final)
1999: Australia (semi-final)
2007: Australia (semi-final)
2011: New Zealand (quarter-final)
Watch the entire knock-out stage of the 2015 World Cup live on Sky Sports World Cup, starting with South Africa v Sri Lanka at 3am on Wednesday.
