South Africa, and not South Africans, manage to choke themselves out of ICC events

Majority of the world to the west of Australia was in Sunday’s extended sleep mode. But the day starts early in Australia. The T20 World Cup made it earlier with a rare day match scheduled in Adelaide. South Africa were playing the Netherlands.

Back in South Africa, the night was dark, but they didn’t know it was also full of terrors. Many would have stayed up late in the night and continued so, to see the sunrise. And it did rise, as it must, but their cricket team could only see the sun set on them. Those who slept early had a nightmare as soon as they were awake.

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As the sun rose in other parts of the world (Sunday made it quite late), cricket followers woke up to utter shock, for none of them would have expected a South African team to lose to the Netherlands. But if they didn’t expect such an outcome, their cricketing acumen can be questioned. Because South Africa are used to . . .

And so it goes, South Africa lost to the Netherlands and managed to choke out of another ICC event. And only the Proteas could do that. But how did they manage to do that?

Temba Bavuma won the toss, but it was a bad decision to bowl first, he confirmed after the defeat.

Nevertheless, they had a thunderous bowling attack. But the Netherlands were allowed to inch away to 158 after 20 overs. They wanted to restrict the Dutch with early inroads, but they managed 58 for the first wicket. Proteas fire could only lighten four Dutch wickets.

The target was yet, achievable.

Their batting unit was in good form, except for the captain, but he too played some good shots. None of the batters seemed to struggle, everyone had a few clean hits over the boundary line in the early stage of their innings. Even when the shots were not clean enough, Netherlands dropped a few chances. But somehow, the Proteas batters managed to get out after every few overs, and for a while, in the same over.

South Africa needed 48 runs from the last five overs with six wickets in hand. Even after not cruising away and having several hiccups, they were still considered favourites to win. But they managed to lose two wickets in the 16^th over, including the in-form David Miller.

The equation became 41 from the last three overs with four wickets spared. Keshav Maharaj started limping in the 18^th over and even running twos went out of the question.

Twitter Reactions: Death, taxes, and South Africa imploding in a Cricket World Cup

Everything that could go wrong, went wrong, and they eventually left the stadium, 13 runs short. Another ICC event was successful. Or was it a failure? It was as if destiny had already scripted the story, and the players were merely executing the conspiracy.

It is also important to understand that only South Africa chokes, and not the South Africans. To give context, four of the Netherlands’ playing XI were South Africans.

Colin Ackermann was a South Africa under-19 player. He ended up being the highest scorer with 41*. Another South Africa-born batter Stephan Myburgh, who played his last international match on Sunday, was second-best with 37.

Brandon Glover, a Dutch-South African fast bowler who also played U-19 cricket for South Africa, ended with the best bowling figures of 3/9 from two overs. And the most famous of them all, Roelof van der Merwe, ended up taking a stellar catch to dismiss David Miller.

If you think this is it, it isn’t. Two of the Dutch coaching staff are South Africans – and that includes Gary Kirsten.

Why did they, at some point in time, leave their own country to play for the Dutch, is a question for another day. But today’s answer is that they managed to eliminate South Africa from another World Cup.

South Africa had thrashed Bangladesh and had overcome the Indian side as well in a nerve-wreaking pressure situation. They were about to humiliate Zimbabwe, but the rain gods had some mercy on Chevrons since cricketing gods do not. But their now-confirmed blip started with the loss against Pakistan, which at that point in time, was only considered to be a one-off.

Temba Bavuma: Hard one to swallow

The 2022 T20 World Cup has been an equaliser of sorts, the one with the most upsets. But this upset was unbelievable. Everything that could go wrong for South Africa, did go wrong during those 40 overs. And it will definitely take some time to process that South Africa can choke from the most unlikely positions.

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