Comment: Rob Houwing on the ICC World Twenty20

Cape Town – Unwanted mantles can be hard to brush off in sport … ask the South African cricketers, still the subject of periodic, undeserved scorn for a perceived “choker” phenomenon that was infinitely more apt a few years ago.

Most neutral, rational critics who watched Graeme Smith’s side defend the undefendable, if you like, in their one-run triumph over New Zealand at Lord’s on Tuesday, might have been left wondering what the Proteas’ class of 2009 had ever done to deserve such a contemptuous branding.

The really pleasing answer, as it applies to an ever-increasing number of their troops, is: nothing.

Even more eye-opening is the fact that much of their new-found ring of steel is surprisingly youthful stock, as evidenced by the crucial role still-rookie bowling customers like teenager Wayne Parnell and Roelof van der Merwe played in preventing the Kiwis from reaching South Africa’s modest posting of 128 for seven.

This match may have had no impact on either side’s already assured passage to the Super Eight, but there was no disguising the Proteas’ hunger to win it -- well against the match’s midway odds, of course.

You sensed that from the moment Smith got his men into a motivational huddle before their turn in the field, and right down to the closing overs when the captain, the relevant bowler and other senior cerebral figures in the side kept mini-conferencing between deliveries to draw out the New Zealanders’ mounting angst at the crease.

“Mounting” it assuredly was: this was a classical case of a determined team consistently tightening a noose as the asking rate for the Black Caps kept lifting from a sail-home six or seven to tall-order nine or 10, despite a healthy cupboard of wickets always in hand.

No, the chokers on display were South African, alright, but they were of the clinical executioner variety, squeezing spluttering throats ever more gleefully -- not the jelly-legged lot of the pre- and early-Smith era who would collapse like a derelict Victorian house from promising positions at major tournaments.

In the lotto-like world of T20, it is hazardous to guarantee anything, so let’s not pop any corks from sparkling wine bottles yet: South Africa may yet return to our mid-winter without this particular trophy, albeit that it ought not to be for any shortage of old-fashioned “balls” this time.

But they’re right in the mix as things stand, almost certainly buoyed by somehow burgling the match which they might have been forgiven for thinking would be their wake-up -- yet mercifully irrelevant -- defeat.

Instead they snoozed to some degree and won … the rest of the planet will have noted how strong they should be with eyes wide open at this jamboree henceforth.

Fresh-faced seamer Parnell passed an acid test of temperament with his “death” display on the night, but perhaps the real choke-holders once again (shall we call them stranglers instead?) were the leading Proteas spinners Roelof van der Merwe and Johan Botha.

They are busy taking nerveless efficiency to new levels, and statistics bear this out.

Van der Merwe, 24, the in-your-face Waterkloof product, has taken to the ultra-hectic T20 international arena with as much verve and relish as he has the ODI one.

He has played three matches, including a debut against Australia, won them all, and after registering best personal figures of 4-0-14-2 on Tuesday, boasts a cracking economy rate of 5.08 to go with his 4.25 from four ODIs.

A long, long way from legend, of course, but a mighty good start.

The more experienced but certainly not yet mid-career Botha, 27, has now played 11 T20 internationals, sports a bowling average of 23 and economy of 5.67: consider that anything less than run-a-ball in this format is pretty stellar.

He debuted awkwardly in T20 against Australia in January 2006, South Africa’s infinitely unhappier second-last tour Down Under, going for 4-0-43-1 (economy 10.75) at the Gabba.

Since then, however, he has never “travelled” beyond a rate of 7.75. And in seven of the 10 T20 internationals in which he has bowled, the off-spinner has conceded at less than a run-a-ball.

Van der Merwe and Botha currently stand up compellingly against some of the best slow bowlers there are in T20 cricket. Dan Vettori? Economy rate 5.35 after 14 internationals. Harbhajan Singh? Economy 6.52 after 13.

The Sri Lankan mystery spinner Ajantha Mendis has made a freakishly good start to his T20 career, it must be said, boasting 14 wickets from just four internationals at an average of 5.35, and economy rate of 4.68.

Perhaps cynics would care to show us who the Proteas’ frail-hearts are now?