Given the Proteas’ chequered history in cricket world cups, it was inevitable that being knocked out in the semifinals this time around in India would revive the “choking” tag, particularly since our exit was again courtesy of ultimate winner Australia. But it is nonsense, however inevitable it may have been.
The SA players didn’t “choke”. On the contrary, they fought back hard after a dismal start and came pretty darn close to pulling off an historic victory.
Losing by three wickets with 16 balls left in the game is not a whipping by any stretch, and David Miller’s century was simply magnificent under the circumstances. Is there an opposite to “choking”?
That said, mistakes were certainly made, not least captain Temba Bavuma’s insistence on playing despite admitting to carrying an injury. He said after the game, in which he was dismissed for a duck, that it did not cross his mind to step down for a semifinal.
But it should have.
Bavuma has been an excellent ODI captain and was the form Proteas batsman going into the competition, but for whatever reason he failed repeatedly with the bat in the pool stage and would surely not have been selected for the final had he not been captain.
All is not lost, though, for either the Proteas or Bavuma. Graeme Smith went through a similarly disappointing tournament as captain in 2011, and while he never won a World Cup he remains one of the most successful cricketers SA has produced.
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