Proteas lacked big-match temperament in latest meltdown

Another galling World Cup failure has triggered the inevitable postmortems into why the Proteas always stumble when cricket’s biggest prize is within touching distance. It is almost as though a jittery SA side have one finger on the self-destruct button when the heat is on at the business end of tournaments. The latest in a long line of World Cup failures came when they slumped to a nine-wicket loss at Eden Gardens in Kolkata with New Zealand achieving victory in the 13th over.

While SA appeared unsure of themselves, the Black Caps threw themselves fearlessly into the challenge, with opening batsman Finn Allen hammering a whirlwind century off only 33 balls. One of cricket’s biggest mysteries is that SA have never been able to win a World Cup despite being blessed with some of the greatest individual talents in the game’s history. Frustratingly, however, SA have been unable to harness that talent into a cohesive unit able to conquer the world.

This inability to rise to the occasion is at odds with SA’s typical sporting psyche, where players across different codes have always been imbued with self-confidence. A good example is the Springboks, who have won four rugby World Cups and epitomise the dogged determination of SA sportsmen. In the lead-up to last week’s semifinal, apart from a tight squeeze against Afghanistan, SA were breezing through the preliminaries like world beaters.

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For a moment, the long litany of failures appeared to be coming to an end, and one commentator even tempted fate to say it looked like SA’s name was written on the trophy. In trying to make sense of it all, Proteas coach Shukri Conrad said his team had been walloped by a better team. He moved quickly to say SA had not choked because they never even had a sniff of victory in an embarrassingly one-sided semifinal.

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