Editor – An early “choke” is better than a later one? Well, this is the question I ask after the South African cricket team’s abysmal performance against India in the ICC Cricket World Cup.
Should we analyse the match?
The bowlers (which I thought were our strongest weapon) allowed India to amass a total in excess of 300 runs.
The pressure was on! Then what did our batsmen do? They came out all guns blazing, instead of building a good platform in the early overs on which to build.Everyone knows that if you lose early wickets, you’re doing the team a disservice and putting even more pressure on the poor blokes lower down the batting order.
Speaking of which, we seem to need either Hashim Amla or AB de Villiers to rise to the occasion on any given day, otherwise the cat is among the pigeons and the wickets ‘fly’ like the proverbial pigeon feathers.
Did you see the dismissal of JP Duminy? These funny little sweep and reverse-sweep shots are all good and well when they come off, but when they don’t… We all saw the ball loop up harmlessly for the fielder standing behind the wicket-keeper to pocket.
Okay, enough of the specifics!
With this match behind us, do you think we’ll wake up and realise that the patterns of the past are playing themselves out again? For crying out loud, we are rated as one of the top teams in the world! But, alas, when a knockout tournament looms on the horizon, everyone instinctively knows that a result like Sunday’s is on the cards.
Should we perhaps consider enlisting the services of a traditional healer / herbalist to take off this confounded hex that “dogs” us wherever we go? We need to right the wrong of that World Cup semi-final we should have won against Australia (remember that tragic mix-up between Lance Klusener and Allan Donald when we were so close to winning?). Okay, lads, you’ve had your choke – now go on and bring the cup back home to South Africa!
Well, what a follow-up against the West Indies and what a knock by our ‘wunderkind’ AB de Villiers! Fastest 150 in one day cricket! Belief has been restored; let’s hope it isn’t dashed in the next match. Let’s wait and see…
