Big guns, big hopes for the Cricket World Cup

SA's most successful players in the Antipodes are also among the key figures in the squad

So much about the World Cup is filtered through a fog of hype and emotion. The facts are out there somewhere, but they are difficult to see for all that fervent feeling and fantasy.

Flashes of unreality fill our memories - of impossible shots, unplayable deliveries, ridiculous catches and run-outs, and unlikely victories and defeats, or even ties.

This is particularly true for South Africans, who arrived at the party late in 1992 and have never ventured further out of the kitchen than their first knockout match.

SA's World Cup history started in Australia and New Zealand, where the class of 2015 will return next month to take another run at attaining the so far unattainable. What were the challenges awaiting SA?

"If you can't enjoy playing cricket in Australia and New Zealand, you've got a problem," said Peter Kirsten, who went to that 1992 tournament in the twilight of a fine career and returned having burnished his record by finishing as the event's third-highest run scorer.

"That would be the biggest challenge; one's own mortal state. Otherwise, it's a brilliant environment for cricket. The pitches are good and the public are amazingly responsive.

"Some of the wickets in Australia might have an extra bit of bounce, but at this stage of the year - with the heat factor - some of them are worn. So the excessive bounce might be taken out of them and they might help the spinners eventually."

Kirsten's opinion is, of course, informed by his experience. The rest of us need facts. Some of them will not fill South Africans with confidence.

SA's likely top six have, between them, scored 51 centuries in all of the one-day internationals they have played. But only four of them have come in Australia and New Zealand, two in each. The bowlers in the World Cup squad boast 27 hauls of four wickets or more in ODIs. How many in Australia? Two. New Zealand? One.

Of their 528 ODIs, SA have won 326 for a success rate of 61.74%. In Australia, that drops to 53.45%. In New Zealand, further still to 44%.

Other teams do not win as many of their games as SA do, but they have tended not to play as far below themselves Down Under. England, for instance, have an overall winning percentage of 48.19. That becomes 42.86% and 40.54% in Australia and New Zealand respectively.

"Overcoming the fact that you're playing in a World Cup could be another challenge," Kirsten said. "If you build yourself up into too much of a crazy state because it's the World Cup, you put yourself under too much pressure. You need to take it as a normal cricket match."

Not that his memory of February 26 1992 was of a normal game of cricket: "You could hear a pin drop in the bus on the way to the SCG. We could feel the expectancy; wow, our first World Cup game and it's against Australia!"

SA won that match by nine wickets. Almost 23 years on it remains their only success over the Aussies in five attempts across three tournaments.

But there is good news in the fact that SA's most successful players in the Antipodes are also among the key figures in their squad.

Hashim Amla averages 39.44 in his 10 ODI innings in Australia and 57.50 in six in New Zealand. AB de Villiers' stats in those terms are 66.00 and 305.00 in eight and six trips to the crease respectively. For JP Duminy, the figures are 58.33 and 47.75 after five and six innings.

Morne Morkel is SA's leading ODI bowler in the region, having taken 15 wickets at 25.60 in Australia and 10 at 17.00 in New Zealand. In Australia Dale Steyn has 16 scalps at 29.25 and, across the Tasman, five at 35.00. Vernon Philander's six wickets in Aussie have come at 21.83. In Kiwi country, he has four at 16.25.

Those who scoff at statistics doubtless will struggle to take much of this seriously, but these are the relevant facts. They are also reasons for South Africans to be hopeful because they mean that, against the big boys, their own big boys stand tall and take the lead.

"Playing against Australia and New Zealand could be challenging because they are the home countries, but for SA the only challenge should come once they get to the knockout stages," Kirsten said.

"You would expect them to reach the quarterfinals without too much trouble, the way they're playing."

Australia and New Zealand have been responsible for eliminating SA in three of the six World Cups the latter have contested. Neither are in SA's group, but both could loom when push comes to shove - when "one's own mortal state" will be tested.

sports@timesmedia.co.za