Shituation abnormal for SA

Sunday Times

TELFORD VICE, Auckland

SIGMUND Freud would have smiled smugly had he been in the room at Eden Park on Saturday when AB de Villiers spoke after SA had crashed to Pakistan.

“We seem to not get enough partnerships in pressure shituations,” De Villiers began. “Situations,” he quickly corrected himself, but the toothpaste was out of the tube.

Besides, that was damn straight: SA’s batsmen were indeed in a shituation on Saturday. A 202 all out shituation.

“It didn’t feel like we had energy,” De Villiers said. “I didn’t feel an electric vibe at the warm-up, and that’s normally an alarm bell for me.

“It’s my responsibility to try and get the players going and I couldn’t. I could feel that nothing was happening at 100%.

“It’s like a car stuck in second gear - you’re not going to go anywhere. That won’t win you games, not under pressure in big tournaments like this.”

When he is in this kind of mood - like he was after SA came badly short in another chase, against India - De Villiers talks like he bats: in a whirl of unpredictable, ungovernable words and feelings.

“We played it perfectly well, but the fact that I got out was what cost us in the end. I always felt like I couldn’t score all the runs, that I had to get one or two of the guys in.

“(Kyle) Abbott got in, (Dale) Steyn got in, (Morne) Morkel even looked like he was prepared to handle it.

“After that I would have had a proper go, but it was all about me not getting out, and unfortunately I got out.

“I hate losing, I really do. So I’ve got nothing good to say about the team at the moment. I should have finished it off; I’ve done it before so many times.

“I still believe we’re the best team here, but I’ve got nothing good to say about our performance today.

“It’s definitely not the end of the world but I’m not proud of the way we batted.”

De Villiers did, however, keep one hand on the reality that SA would qualify for the quarter-finals regardless of Saturday’s result.

“If we want to we can make it worse than it is,” he said. “I won’t say there are any scars unless we create those scars themselves.”

But the seething was not over: “We have lost against the two main teams in our group. We are probably not as good as we think we are.”

After the heat De Villiers generated, Pakistan coach Waqar Younis was cool personified.

“It doesn’t matter what others believe,” he said. “It matters what we believe.”

If only Carl Jung had been around to hear that.