Another men’s Cricket World Cup has come and gone, and South Africa is left to endure the bitter taste of defeat after the Proteas’ loss to Australia in the semifinals in Kolkata. It’s a familiar feeling for South African cricket lovers who have experienced such disappointment before.
Captain Temba Bavuma, who had a tournament to forget, said before the first ball was bowled that South Africa’s reputation as “chokers” would continue to haunt the Proteas outfit until we actually won something.
Perhaps it was asking too much of the stars to align themselves in such a way that just weeks after our Springboks captured their fourth Webb Ellis Cup in Paris we would again be able to celebrate another morale-boosting win for the country.
Turns out we’ll have another four years to undo the curse that has settled upon our national cricket team. There will be much debate as to whether this latest setback falls into the category “choker”, especially since hopes for victory were relatively muted in the run-up to the tournament. Perhaps we’ve learnt that hope can get us only so far.
Yet again, in defeat there is controversy, with the wisdom of a not totally fit Bavuma taking to the field in the opening-batsman slot being questioned. This controversy and its effects — Bavuma left the crease after just four balls with zero runs to his name — take their place alongside other sometimes-bizarre happenings that have conspired to deny us cricketing glory over the years.
Who can forget 22 runs needed off one ball against England in the first of four semifinals in which we have failed to prevail? Or the runs-counting debacle that saw us bundled out in 2003? And what of Aland Donald’s non-run in 1999, which saw us tie with Australia, only to be beaten by a rule that gave them a superior record leading up to that match?
The irony is that, since our readmission to international sport in the early 1990s, South Africa has been the world’s top-rated team for long periods. However, on the big day our cricketers have often fallen short.
This is not to say we have anything less than pride in our Proteas team. Success will come one day, surely, and the victory when it comes will be all the sweeter for our having waited for it for so long.
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