Another Doomed World Cup Swamps South Africa

Six months ago there was a certain dread hovering over Australian cricket supporters over the fate of our team at the upcoming World Cup. The team had lost its way in an attempt to copy either England’s or India’s way of playing the game, and succeeding at neither. Exciting batsmen were chosen and they didn’t come off. Various bowling combinations were tried and didn’t come off. The new captain was struggling for form and under pressure to hold on to both his job and his position in the team. In a worst case scenario it wasn’t that difficult to see Australia struggling to win a game at the World Cup. 

Instead, this is exactly what has happened to South Africa.

The destruction of yet another World Cup event has this time not come down to the fate of the rain or a miscalculation of the run rate required or a fatal run out with the game all but won. This time around the team has just not been able to get into the tournament at all, and no doubt the eventual fallout will be far reaching for their cricket.

What has gone wrong? Losing Dale Steyn for the tournament before he could even play a game was problematic but not unable to be covered. The bowling attack still looked strong enough with Rabada, Ngini, Phelukweyo and Tahir, while the batting with Amla, De Kock, du Plessis and Markram had all shown good signs in recent tournaments at home and in the IPL.

The loss to England in the first match of the tournament should not have been a clincher, but it was the way they lost that immediately sounded alarm bells. Having restricted England to 311 their batting was ripped apart by the English pace, with the clocking of Amla in the helmet by Jofra Archer a turning point. He hasn’t looked likely to score runs since that incident and it seems to have sucked all his confidence out. The injury to Ngidi that restricted him to four overs against Bangladesh hurt them in allowing them to reach 330, and the batting against failed to be up to the task. They needed to step up against India but were again comfortably defeated. At 2/29 against the West Indies when the game was abandoned it could not be said they were in a comfortable position. Even in their one victory against last placed Afghanistan, the batting was not dominant, taking 28 overs to secure the 126 runs they required for victory.

In a tournament when 280-300 would be considered the minimum score required to win matches, South Africa has totalled this just once in the four games they have had that opportunity to bat to, in a losing chase against Bangladesh. Whereas other countries have been led by their top four batsmen in setting up their totals, South Africa’s have coughed and spluttered. Whereas other countries have had their fast bowlers punching holes in the opposition batting, South Africa’s have barely caused a ripple.

For South Africa it has been a disaster, and watching it unfold has been like an alternate reality, because there is no doubt many of us thought we would have been watching Australia perform just like this. Instead, although they have not been completely dominant, Australia has found a way get through the bad periods and do enough to win matches. South Africa has not scrapped like this at all, and so they find themselves with zero chance of playing in this tournament’s semi-finals. Perhaps they didn’t think that the continued drain of players from their ranks to careers in English County cricket through the Kolpak law was a problem. On the face of their tournament here, one would suggest that they need to seriously reassess that if they want to rebuild after this World Cup is over.