Thursday’s nail-biting loss for the Proteas in Kolkata was a hard one for South African fans, but congratulations are in order, both to Australia for winning the semifinal and to India for winning the final this Sunday.
For Proteas fans, the disappointments are obvious.
First, our cricketers have missed an historic opportunity to be offered up as human sacrifices to one of the best one-day teams of the past many years.
I know that every professional player wants to win, but it’s quite something to be able to tell your grandkids that you were there when Virat Kohli opened a portal to hell then used nothing but the destructive power of his manga eyebrows to strip the flesh from your bones, while Quinton De Kock brings down the curtain on his ODI career by yelling at you to stop fannying around and bowl properly, man!
Second, and perhaps more depressingly, it means we will have to keep listening to idiots drone on about the Proteas being “chokers”, which has become, along with crypto and chemtrails, a topic of conversation that can clear a room of interesting people in seconds.
Then again, would Proteas fans even know how to cope with being in a final, or would it trigger some kind of identity crisis as they find their South African-ness suddenly replaced by a weird, alien Australian-ness or Indian-ness?
Of course, this was far from a choke. Chokers wouldn’t have recovered from 24 for 4 to 212. Chokers wouldn’t have haemorrhaged 60 runs off 10 overs and then put a vice-grip on Australia, conceding just 66 runs off 20 overs of superb spin while removing their middle order. Chokers wouldn’t have fought so hard to get so close.
No, this loss, though disappointing, was simply what happens when you decide to bat first because chasing is hard at this World Cup, great Australian fast bowlers do their thing in helpful conditions, and you fall about 50 short of a decent total.
Inevitably, the postmortems will come thick, fast and angry. It was unprofessional — and ultimately costly — to play Temba Bavuma when he wasn’t fully fit, and whoever made that decision hurt the team. It was also bizarre that Marco Jansen — by far the most expensive and uncertain bowler on the day — was given the final over of such a close game ahead of senior pro Kagiso Rabada.
Then again, would Proteas fans even know how to cope with being in a final, or would it trigger some kind of identity crisis as they find their South African-ness suddenly replaced by a weird, alien Australian-ness or Indian-ness? And can we really be that unhappy about this result when just a few months ago the Proteas were so bad that it seemed likely they’d have to play in a qualifying tournament against the minnows just to book a spot at the World Cup?
I don’t know. So while the pundits fire up the punditry machine, all I’ll say is: here’s to a brave effort by the Proteas; a good, scrambling win by Australia; and the prospect of something all South Africans can get behind — Australians being thrown screaming into the Ahmedabad volcano, where Mohammed Shami waits, stroking his magnificent beard, his eyes gleaming ...
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