Three global events on home turf, and not even a semi-final place to show for it. And yet, with the little support for the magnificent Graeme Smith, it could all have been so very different
Dileep Premachandran in Centurion28-Sep-2009Perhaps, South Africa shouldn’t host another tournament in the nearfuture. This 22-run defeat against England completed an unwelcomehat-trick. The 2003 World Cup, the World Twenty20 in 2007 and now theChampions Trophy. Three global events on home turf, and not even asemi-final place to show for it. And yet, with the little support for themagnificent Graeme Smith, it could all have been so very different.Smith’s 141 was similar in so many ways to Sachin Tendulkar’s Desert Storm innings at Sharjah in 1998. Back then, India had two targets to chase, 276to win the game (46 overs) and 237 to make sure that they qualified forthe final. For South Africa on Sunday night, the lower bar was set at 313.That would have helped them overhaul Sri Lanka’s net run-rate and giventhem at least a mathematical chance of progress.Eleven years ago, Tendulkar made 143 from 131 balls. Smith made 141 from134. The next-highest contribution for India was Nayan Mongia’s 35. ForSouth Africa, no one went beyond AB de Villiers’ 36. As far as one-manshows went, this was in the same league.Just before the start of the 39th over of the South African innings, theDJ started playing , Eddy Grant’s anti-Apartheid anthemfrom the 1980s. Only, on Sunday night, it was Smith who was giving morethan 16,000 people something to cling to, the possibility, howeverslender, that South Africa could break their big-event hoodoo.When he was asked later how empty he felt, Smith said: “It’s kind ofdifficult to sum that up right now. I was batting and also on the fieldall day. Obviously, words like disappointment come to mind. It’ll need aday or two to consider what happened. It’s disappointing when you’veplayed a knock like that not to get over the line.”As well as he batted, and as poorly as those around him played thepressure situations, the real blame for this latest debacle lay with thebowlers, whose lack of discipline and variations on a placid pitch allowedEngland to pile on the runs. “I think the wicket played really well today,and you needed to be really consistent,” said Smith. “There wasn’t a lotof spin on offer, so our seamers needed to come to the party. We concededover 300 in two of the three games, which is hugely disappointing. Ifwickets play that well, we need to look at certain aspects of our attackand going forward to the England series, there are some decisions for usto make.”You also have to give credit to the way [Paul] Collingwood and [Owais] Shah played. They took the game to us. They were positive, and never really allowed newbowlers to settle. As bad as we feel about our performance, you’ve alsogot to give credit to the way those two guys played, and the platform theylaid for someone like Eoin Morgan who came in and played a great knock.”South Africa are respected by opponents for the meticulousness of theirpreparation, but once again it was their lack of an X-factor, orpredictability if you want to call it that, which came back to haunt them.When asked about the possibility of using a pinch-hitter to get ahead ofthe asking-rate, both Smith and Mickey Arthur, the coach, sang from thesame hymn-sheet.
Those who failed around him could well be targets for the C word, but anyone that uses it in relation to Smith is ignorant of both cricket and the English language. If they ever remade , he’d be on the shortlist to play the lead.
“We spoke about it, but with our batting line-up, we have the players whocan do it,” Smith said. “We hit our marks right up until the 40th over. Wejust lost key wickets at that time. We wanted to take the Powerplay andreally have a full go at it. We wanted to leave ourselves 85 or 90 in thelast 10, with a Powerplay. We were close to that…just some bad shots atkey times, a run out here and there. We set up where we wanted to be, butjust didn’t finish it off.”You’ve got to weigh up if Roelof [van der Merwe] is going to do a betterjob than a Jacques Kallis or an AB de Villiers. Those are world-classbatsmen. You’ve got to back the players you’ve picked to do a job.”There was also no hiding South African dismay over the scheduling of allthree of their group games at Centurion, a result of the IPL-related spat between the Gauteng Cricket Board and Cricket South Africa. By deciding toput the provincial authorities in their place, the national body onlyended up spitting on its own doorstep. “Generally, one of our strengthshas been our attack,” Arthur said. “When I saw a couple of those Wanderersstrips at the start of the tournament, I’d certainly have preferred toplay Sri Lanka there than at Centurion where the wicket was tailor-made forthe subcontinent.”We’ve seen what’s happened to Sri Lanka at the Wanderers, with balls thathave bounced above stump height. If I could have picked, I’d mostdefinitely have played Sri Lanka at the Wanderers. But that was not tobe.”Not to be. Those three words are fast becoming South Africa’s motto atmajor championships, and Smith accepted that the well of mitigatingcircumstances had run dry. “There really are no excuses to be madeanymore,” he said. “It’s the responsibility of the group of players thatsit in that room now to go and perform better in these tournaments. We’vebeen hugely consistent with the results that we’ve turned out, so this isa very disappointing moment for us.”No one would have been more distraught than the man who walked out to batin Sydney with a broken hand, the individual whose strength of willscripted a famous Test, and series victory at Edgbaston last summer.Those who failed around him could well be targets for the C word, butanyone that uses it in relation to Smith is ignorant of both cricket andthe English language. If they ever remade , he’d be on theshortlist to play the lead.All of that is scant consolation though, after another party where thehosts end up being sent to bed early. Before the World Twenty20 this June,South Africa switched their apparel sponsors. Out went Hummel and in cameReebok. If this culture of failure on the biggest stage is allowed to groweven deeper roots though, they may just have to change the colour of thekit, from green to All Black. And that really would be the unkindest cutof all.