SA in Kansas again

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Johannesburg

South Africans of a certain age will not want to put too much store in the fact that their team have reached the semi-finals of the World T20 in Bangladesh.

It is not that the Proteas are no longer in Kansas. It is that they are in Kansas for the 12th time.

SA have been to six World Cups, seven Champions Trophies - including the two editions of its forerunner, the Knock Out - and all four previous World T20s. At those 17 tournaments they have qualified for the sudden death rounds a total of 11 times. And on 10 of those occasions they have promptly crashed and burned.

The only time SA cleared all the hurdles has faded in many memories. Remember the 1998 Knock Out, when SA went all the way and won what remains their only trophy in an International Cricket Council tournament? No? Thought not.

No. 12 arrives in Dhaka on Friday, when SA will play their semi against India - the only unbeaten team in the competition. Here we go again ...

This time, however, things are different. Unusually, SA went to the tournament without the fanfare of being favourites.

Whether the lack of expectation has eased the pressure on them to perform is difficult to prove, but all four of their group games have been decided by between two and six runs - and SA have finished on the right side of equation in three of them.

“I don’t believe we have the best T20 team - our cricket culture isn’t conducive to performing well in this format,” Boeta Dippenaar said yesterday. “But far worse teams have won World Cups.”

“In the past, key moments haven’t gone in our favour. This time, they have. It shows how small the difference between winning and losing is.

“In the game against New Zealand (which SA won by two runs), nine out of 10 times New Zealand would have won. If the Netherlands (who lost to SA by six runs) had 5% more experience they should have won that game.”

But, for Mike Procter, quality was more important than the rub of the green favouring SA: “T20 is a different animal but the good teams still win most of their games - every ball is an event and you need to capitalise on every situation.

“We’ve got too many good players not to compete, and we still haven’t played our best cricket.”

Going into yesterday’s matches, Hashim Amla, JP Duminy and AB de Villiers were all among the top 11 runscorers in the tournament among teams who did not have to qualify - and therefore had fewer opportunities to hog the stat spotlight.

Imran Tahir and Dale Steyn, meanwhile, were first and third on the list of wicket-takers among the non-qualifiers.

And all that success despite the disruption of SA’s captain, Faf du Plessis, missing his team’s first match - against Sri Lanka - with a hamstring strain and their fourth because of a one-match ban for a slow over-rate.

Fortunately for SA, De Villiers, who before the tournament had captained the team in 40 one-day internationals and 11 T20s, was a readymade replacement.

Both are too young have been in the side when SA beat West Indies by four wickets in the final of the 1998 Knock Out. But they should now this: it was played in Dhaka, Bangladesh.