South Africa's worst night at the men's T20 World Cup coincided with one of Shukri Conrad's most unvarnished press conferences.

"I don't know if tonight was a choke; I thought it was a bloody walloping," Conrad said at Eden Gardens on Wednesday. "In order for you to choke, you must have had a sniff of winning the game. We didn't have a sniff. In South Africa, we'd say we got moered. Tonight, we got a proper snotklap. We chose a really crappy time to have a poor night."

Some explanation is in order. Moer, moered or gemoer are mild Afrikaans epithets that can be deployed in all sorts of situations. Nothing in English comes close to its juicy earthiness. In the sense Conrad used it, it means a beat down.

Snotklap, another Afrikaans term, translates as snot slap. As in you were slapped so hard the snot flew from your nose.

Conrad's use of those words was impeccably apt. South Africa, widely seen as the team to beat at the tournament after winning all seven of their group and Super Eights matches, were thrashed by New Zealand in their semifinal at Eden Gardens.

The South Africans lost the toss and were put in to bat. They lurched to 12/2 and 77/5 before recovering to a reasonable 169/8. Thing is, the New Zealanders were in no mood to be reasonable - Tim Seifert and Finn Allen shared an opening stand of 117 off 55. Then Allen and Rachin Ravindra put on 56 off 22 to finish the job. Allen drove what became the last ball of the match for four to reach 100 not out off 33. New Zealand won the one-sided encounter by nine wickets with 43 balls remaining to earn a place in Sunday's final at the Narendra Modi Stadium against the winners of Thursday's second semi between India and England at the Wankhede.

Batting conditions in the first innings on Wednesday were challenging, with the ball not coming onto the bat readily. But that cannot excuse the South Africans' stroke selection and execution, too much of which was poor.

"They strangled us up front," Conrad said. "We lost wickets and didn't get any sort of momentum going. I'm not going to sit here and try and make excuses for a bad night. We weren't good and they were excellent."

For Ashwell Prince, much of what went wrong for the South Africans could be explained by the toss: "I was sitting on the bench and saying to some of the other coaches [during South Africa's innings] that it feels really difficult to hit a four on the ground - the ball's not coming on enough and you can't stroke through it. To hit a boundary, we had to go in the air. Every time we went in the air, we got one off the toe or the splice.

"In the second innings, the ball was sliding off the pitch and onto the face of the bat. And once [New Zealand] got the ball rolling on the outfield, it beat the sweepers. In the first innings, it was almost impossible to do that."

That said, Prince was careful not to be seen to make excuses: "We take nothing away from New Zealand. When someone scores a hundred in 33 balls, no matter how good the batting conditions are, you have to give credit. But for the remainder of the tournament the toss is not that important."

South Africa beat New Zealand by seven wickets with 17 balls to spare in their group match in Ahmedabad on February 14. Eight days later at the same ground, they recovered from 12/2 and 20/3 to post 187/7 against India, and bowl them out for 111.

The South Africans were also 12/2 on Wednesday. But, unlike against India, when they found a way to score runs with bustling productivity and immaculate running between the wickets, this time they tried to hit their way out of trouble. And failed.

Conrad said he was braced for an angry response from South Africa's supporters: "Enough people are going to be jumping on the bandwagon. We did so many special things. I'm so proud of these guys.

"I don't think many people gave us much of a chance of even getting into a semi-final when we left our shores. But that's no consolation. It's cue the abuse now. There'll be enough of it."

Doubtless there will be. Some of it will be informed, much of it not. All of it will come hard.