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South Africa captain Hansie Cronje was left bemoaning his side's bad luck but apportioned no blame to any of his players.

``You experience a lot of highs and lows in your career,'' Cronje said. ``It doesn't get more exciting than this and it's unfortunate to be on the wrong side of it. At the moment it feels like a cruel game.

``We felt we had a real chance - and when Lance Klusener is batting you feel in control all the way through - and we're all very disappointed but we'll pick ourselves up.

``If you look at the way things have been running for Lance, you almost thought it had to go for him but unfortunately it didn't.

``I think with four balls to go, one run needed and Klusener on strike, 90 per cent of us thought we had a very real chance of winning the game.

``You can't blame Lance or Allan for what happened. These things happen and so many things happened in the game that you can't blame one person.

``It was very quiet in the dressing room afterwards and obviously we're down but I'm proud of the way we've played through the tournament.''

Cronje also felt he was wrongly given out but rival captain Steve Waugh hit back: ``He was out - just read tomorrow's papers.''

Cronje was dismissed by umpire David Shepherd at a crucial stage of the match, giving Shane Warne his third of four wickets.

Television replays seemed to show the ball had come off his boot, not his bat, before being caught by Mark Waugh at slip.''I wasn't out, you can see it clearly,'' Cronje said after the game.

He went for a two-ball duck as South Africa lost four top-order wickets for 13 runs, slipping to 61 for four.

Waugh said he felt ``almost sorry'' for the South Africans after they tied the game on 213 runs each, thus missing the final.

``It was a shame somebody had to lose that game,'' Waugh said. ``We were numb after we realised we'd won the game. It was an unbelievable comeback. We never gave in but we were down and out three or four times.''

But that commiseration, apparently, did not extend to his opposite number.