'It was a bit of panic stations there' – Dane van Niekerk

For the second game in a row, the Windies put up only a modest total on the board – 107/7, after having scored 106/8 against Bangladesh – and South Africa, who were well-placed at the halfway stage of their chase, imploded in no time to lose the match.

"Just panic. I don't know ... sometimes we just find a way to make it quite difficult for ourselves. I don't know what happened. I don't know what the thinking was," said van Niekerk, who was run out for 1 to be the third batter out.

"On a wicket like this, we saw the bulk of the runs getting scored at the back-end. So I thought that was the thinking of the batters in the middle, just keep steady, keep rotating the strike and we'll try to win the game in the 19th-over type of thing, but looks like it was a bit of panic stations there."

Despite the defeat, which has obviously left South Africa disappointed, they remain a 'positive side' and are confident about winning their next two games – against England and Bangladesh – in order to qualify for the semi-final, having already beaten Sri Lanka in their first match.

"I won't say shattered," van Niekerk replied when asked if the spirits in the team were low.

"I think we played really well against Sri Lanka. There was a lot of positives. And we are a positive side, we are. But we have to go look at the way we went out, and obviously be open and honest about it and move forward."

There were three run outs in the innings, and barring Lizelle Lee (24) and Marizanne Kapp (26), no other batter could get a double-digit score.

"We've got a very good batting line-up, from one to eight, we can take the game away from you at any moment," van Niekerk pointed out. "You know, Lizelle and Laura (Wolvaardt) both were at the top. I felt they batted a bit slow.

"I think we got ourselves into trouble quite early. And I think we played catch-up. There were a lot of very soft dismissals. And you can't rebuild in innings if you keep on losing wickets consecutively."

While the batting was poor, the bowlers did really well to restrict a power-packed Windies line-up to a moderate score.

"They've been brilliant," the captain said of her bowlers. "My opening pair [Shabnim Ismail and Kapp] and obviously my change bowlers have been really good, and we are definitely not going to change it. It's working and at the moment I can't fault my bowlers."

Ismail picked up 3/12 [her second three-for in a row], van Niekerk herself got 2/8 and Sune Luus returned 1/13, as South Africa never allowed the Windies to get going. It was due to the efforts of Kycia Knight (32) and Natasha McLean (28) that the Windies were able to cross 100.

"We just thought that if we brought really good lines up front, especially Kappy and Shabi, we can restrict them and try and get through the top order," van Niekerk said. "We did just that, but I think we took our foot off the gas there in the middle. And Kycia batted really well and McLean as well. They made the bad lines pay."

Going forward, it's the batting that has to come good, especially against former champions England, and van Niekerk minced no words.

"If you're going to win a World Cup you need to chase 107 down convincingly and we didn't do that," she said.

"We really need to go do some introspection as batters and then try and figure out where we're going wrong at the moment, because it's been a bit of ... I don't know if it's a habit or what it's been, but since the warm-ups our batting struggled to get to 100."