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Comment: Rob Houwing, Sport24 chief writer
Cape Town – First the good news: South Africa definitely didn’t “choke” in being comprehensively bundled out of the ICC World Twenty20 at the Super Eights stage on Monday.
By my interpretation, that is what happens when you screw up a promising position in a match or tournament from a situation of menacing strength … and we all have bitter experience of that phenomenon at ICC world events, don’t we?
Now for the bad tidings: the even less palatable truth about the Proteas’ latest all-nations failure – courtesy of an 11-run defeat to Pakistan at Gros Islet where the margin actually flattered them a tad – is that here they never really had a grip on anybody or anything.
For when you look back on the event as a whole, you could say with some conviction that South Africa were not at the races because they barely even poked their heads out of the stables.
There was one strong performance, when they saw off New Zealand quite clinically in their Super Eights opener to raise hopes, after an already erratic group phase, that for once they might claw their way to a peak at the right time.
But those were badly dashed with successive losses, in the space of some 48 hours, to the much-improved England and now the moody Pakistanis, the defending champions.
This writer had called for an “urgent” approach to Monday’s fixture, given South Africa’s dual peril of needing to beat Pakistan, while preferably enhancing their flagging net run rate at the same time, and then almost certainly relying also on England to beat New Zealand on the double-header bill to ensure their progress to the semi-finals.
In the end, of course, the main game in St Lucia became academic to South Africans as the national team started packing their bags and readying their passports.
It was almost as if, based on the way they surrendered to Pakistan, the alarm had sounded in the fire station yet many of the firemen couldn’t be bothered to slide down the pole.
Urgency? What urgency?
Instead the Proteas, gormless and uninspired, failed to learn the lessons of their failed chases against India and then England, when they could not establish momentum at the top of the order and the asking rate climbed and climbed with nobody appearing to give a hoot as the nudging and caressing for singles continued complacently.
It has been a problem throughout the tournament for South Africa and one can only imagine that the likes of JP Duminy, Mark Boucher and Albie Morkel became ever more miffed about being asked to don their Superman gear every time they took to the crease in pursuit of “asks” of 12 runs to the over or thereabouts.
The pacing of the South African innings has been a standout problem through the Caribbean venture and it hardly corrected itself in the game which - mercifully, really - sealed their fate.
How can you possibly expect to get past the post (149 ought to have been gettable, even disregarding the wiles of Pakistan’s arsenal of spinners) when you cannot manage a single boundary between the seventh and 15th overs of a T20 encounter?
As much as top-scorer AB de Villiers suddenly got a dramatic crack-on in one over to get to his half-century, perhaps it could be submitted that only one batsman in the entire Proteas’ knock, the No 8 Johan Botha, really showed the correct levels of gumption and chutzpah from start to finish of his innings – he smacked 19 off eight deliveries, including four defiant fours, to just steer his team closer than they deserved to get.
All that South Africa’s batting impotence did, regrettably, was quickly bury memories of a valiant enough earlier showing in the field.
Inspired primarily by veteran seamer Charl Langeveldt, the Proteas showed bowling zip and purpose to threaten twice – when Pakistan were 18 for three and later 69 for four – to bowl their opponents out inside the 20 overs.
But the Akmal brothers, the seasoned Kamran and teenage Umar – there is some eight years’ age difference between them – put paid to that prospect with some clean, spirited hitting that also had the effect of really geeing up Pakistan for their successful quest to defend their total.
Only Roelof van der Merwe, the Proteas left-arm spinner whose once-budding credentials continue to slip, alas, copped a true hammering: he went for 33 runs in two painful overs.
But it was really in the batting department that South Africa tamely ran up a white flag and whimpered out of the latest festival.
Expect the customary howl of bitter dissent back on our soil.
Mind you, some of it will be difficult not to take on the chin, and at least a leaden-faced captain Graeme Smith wasn’t bleating instant objections in the immediate aftermath of the loss.
“You run out of excuses … we were not good enough. We bowled pretty well but were tentative with the bat again and … got strangled.
“We’ve struggled to get all three disciplines right at once in our game.”
*Look out for our chief writer’s comprehensive “Where to from here?” for the national side in limited-overs cricket on Sport24 tomorrow.
Cape Town – First the good news: South Africa definitely didn’t “choke” in being comprehensively bundled out of the ICC World Twenty20 at the Super Eights stage on Monday.
By my interpretation, that is what happens when you screw up a promising position in a match or tournament from a situation of menacing strength … and we all have bitter experience of that phenomenon at ICC world events, don’t we?
Now for the bad tidings: the even less palatable truth about the Proteas’ latest all-nations failure – courtesy of an 11-run defeat to Pakistan at Gros Islet where the margin actually flattered them a tad – is that here they never really had a grip on anybody or anything.
For when you look back on the event as a whole, you could say with some conviction that South Africa were not at the races because they barely even poked their heads out of the stables.
There was one strong performance, when they saw off New Zealand quite clinically in their Super Eights opener to raise hopes, after an already erratic group phase, that for once they might claw their way to a peak at the right time.
But those were badly dashed with successive losses, in the space of some 48 hours, to the much-improved England and now the moody Pakistanis, the defending champions.
This writer had called for an “urgent” approach to Monday’s fixture, given South Africa’s dual peril of needing to beat Pakistan, while preferably enhancing their flagging net run rate at the same time, and then almost certainly relying also on England to beat New Zealand on the double-header bill to ensure their progress to the semi-finals.
In the end, of course, the main game in St Lucia became academic to South Africans as the national team started packing their bags and readying their passports.
It was almost as if, based on the way they surrendered to Pakistan, the alarm had sounded in the fire station yet many of the firemen couldn’t be bothered to slide down the pole.
Urgency? What urgency?
Instead the Proteas, gormless and uninspired, failed to learn the lessons of their failed chases against India and then England, when they could not establish momentum at the top of the order and the asking rate climbed and climbed with nobody appearing to give a hoot as the nudging and caressing for singles continued complacently.
It has been a problem throughout the tournament for South Africa and one can only imagine that the likes of JP Duminy, Mark Boucher and Albie Morkel became ever more miffed about being asked to don their Superman gear every time they took to the crease in pursuit of “asks” of 12 runs to the over or thereabouts.
The pacing of the South African innings has been a standout problem through the Caribbean venture and it hardly corrected itself in the game which - mercifully, really - sealed their fate.
How can you possibly expect to get past the post (149 ought to have been gettable, even disregarding the wiles of Pakistan’s arsenal of spinners) when you cannot manage a single boundary between the seventh and 15th overs of a T20 encounter?
As much as top-scorer AB de Villiers suddenly got a dramatic crack-on in one over to get to his half-century, perhaps it could be submitted that only one batsman in the entire Proteas’ knock, the No 8 Johan Botha, really showed the correct levels of gumption and chutzpah from start to finish of his innings – he smacked 19 off eight deliveries, including four defiant fours, to just steer his team closer than they deserved to get.
All that South Africa’s batting impotence did, regrettably, was quickly bury memories of a valiant enough earlier showing in the field.
Inspired primarily by veteran seamer Charl Langeveldt, the Proteas showed bowling zip and purpose to threaten twice – when Pakistan were 18 for three and later 69 for four – to bowl their opponents out inside the 20 overs.
But the Akmal brothers, the seasoned Kamran and teenage Umar – there is some eight years’ age difference between them – put paid to that prospect with some clean, spirited hitting that also had the effect of really geeing up Pakistan for their successful quest to defend their total.
Only Roelof van der Merwe, the Proteas left-arm spinner whose once-budding credentials continue to slip, alas, copped a true hammering: he went for 33 runs in two painful overs.
But it was really in the batting department that South Africa tamely ran up a white flag and whimpered out of the latest festival.
Expect the customary howl of bitter dissent back on our soil.
Mind you, some of it will be difficult not to take on the chin, and at least a leaden-faced captain Graeme Smith wasn’t bleating instant objections in the immediate aftermath of the loss.
“You run out of excuses … we were not good enough. We bowled pretty well but were tentative with the bat again and … got strangled.
“We’ve struggled to get all three disciplines right at once in our game.”
*Look out for our chief writer’s comprehensive “Where to from here?” for the national side in limited-overs cricket on Sport24 tomorrow.
