SCG scene of SA’s triumph and torture

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Sydney

IT was the edge seen, heard and felt around the world. Except where it mattered - in the eyes, ears and gutfeel of umpire Brian Aldridge.

Allan Donald bowled the ball, the first ever sent down by a player in a SA shirt at a World Cup. Geoff Marsh nicked it, plain as day. And Aldridge got it wrong, as was immediately obvious to the millions watching on February 26, 1992.

So began SA’s modern relationship with the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG), but this tale of triumph and torture has been told since December, 1910 in 25 chapters of tests and one-day internationals.

SA have won just six of those games. If they achieve the seventh in their World Cup quarter-final against Sri Lanka starting at 5.30am on Wednesday (SA time) the 17 defeats will be avenged.

Happily for SA, they won that 1992 match against the Aussies by nine wickets. But, just short of a month later, there was no happiness on the faces of the players as they looked out from their balcony at the SCG and surveyed the impossibility that their rain-hit semi-final against England had become.

Twenty-three years on not a lot has changed for SA in World Cup terms. They are still trying to win the cursed thing. In fact, they are still trying to win a knockout match at the tournament. They are, in the nation’s heads, still trying to score 22 runs off one ball.

In January, 1994, the SCG was where Fanie de Villiers took 6/43 as Australia, chasing just 117, were shunted out for 111 to seal SA’s first test victory at the ground. Donald cleanbowling a stunned Allan Border before a run had been added on the fifth day will burn brightly in South Africans’ memories forever.

In December, 1997, Pat Symcox smiled, swaggered and spun his way to 4/28 as SA defended 200 in a one-day international against Australia.

In February, 2002, SA were too good for New Zealand in the second final of a triangular series that Shaun Pollock’s men won.

In January, 2009, Graeme Smith walked out of the SCG dressingroom with a broken hand and into folklore. By then, he had already led SA to their first test series triumph in Australia. His team would lose the match, but they had won untold numbers of hearts and minds.

And, less than three weeks ago, AB de Villiers rocked this casbah with an innings of shimmering audacity that will raise the hair on the backs of the necks of all who saw it for the rest of their days.

De Villiers didn’t score the 162 not out he made against West Indies. He painted, sculpted, danced and essayed it into beautiful being.

It says something about the way one-day cricket is going that SA’s total in that match, 408/5, marked the second time that the record score at the ground has been improved during the World Cup.

But what says the most was that none of the above means much to Hashim Amla.

“I didn’t know that this was the venue for that one,” Amla said when the dots of irony between the 1992 semi-final and Wednesday’s game were connected. “But we’re fully aware that we haven’t won one and that serves as a wonderful motivation.”

Damn straight. On Wednesday, as 11 South Africans step once more into the breach and many millions more step out of bed and tune into the game, none of what has gone before will matter.

Sydney Cricket Ground ODIs - 149 (January, 1979 - March, 2015)

Highest total: 408/5 (SA v West Indies - February 27, 2015)

Lowest total: 63 (India v Australia - January 8, 1981)

Highest score: AB de Villiers 162 not out (SA v West Indies - February 27, 2015)

Best bowling: Greg Chappell 5/15 (Australia v India - January 8, 1981)