Had South Africa beaten one of England or India, or even lost to both and dealt with Bangladesh as they should have, they would have been in a significantly better place.
Times Select
TELFORD VICE in Southampton
SOUTH Africa and their supporters won’t want reminding that it was from Southampton that the Titanic set sail on its maiden voyage on April 10, 1912.
Four days later, in the dead cold waters of the North Atlantic, more than 600 kilometres off the coast of Newfoundland, an iceberg loomed and the allegedly unsinkable ship did exactly that: it sank.
Whatever Faf du Plessis and his team watched to get their minds off their World Cup match against West Indies in Southampton on Monday *, here’s hoping it wasn’t James Cameron’s 1998 lachrymose epic about the ill-fated journey.
No-one has claimed they are unsinkable. Quite the contrary — Du Plessis and others have been open about their weaknesses. But few would have thought South Africa would have done so badly, crashing to defeat in their first three games. One more loss and they will likely sink without trace in the journey towards the semi-finals.
They should have put up a better challenge against England at the Oval, especially after restricting them to 311/8. You read that right: curbing the home side’s outrageous batters to anything less than 350 is considered success.
South Africa’s line-up isn’t as strong as England’s, but the 207 they scraped together in that match was a paltry representation of their worth.
They should also have scored significantly more than the 227/9 they made against India, even though Virat Kohli’s team are the best allround team at the tournament.
They lived up to that billing, and how. Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah were crack snipers with the new ball, removing Hashim Amla and Quinton de Kock inside six overs and conceding only 34 runs from their first 10 overs. Then leg spinner Yuzvendra Chahal tiptoed toxically through the middle order to take 4/51. And then Rohit Sharma hammered an undefeated 122 to take India home with six wickets standing. That’s about as close to a perfect performance as any team could deliver.
It’s hardly a legitimate mitigating factor, but by then the disappointment of South Africa’s batting against England had been exponentially intensified by their shock loss to Bangladesh.
England and India are the favourites, so getting past them was always going to be a challenge. But Bangladesh? Shane Warne summed them up as opponents on the BBC on Saturday: “Geez, if we don’t play properly against them they’re going to beat us.”
Bangladesh are not among the fancied teams, and for good reason. But they are competent enough to take down stronger sides. They are the among the icebergs at this World Cup, and South Africa ploughed straight into them by conceding 330/6 — their record total in one-day internationals. At the crease, the uncertainty created in the England game still felt, they fell 21 runs short.
The blame for most of what has gone wrong belongs to the batters. It didn’t help that Hashim Amla was violently removed from the equation early in the match against England, courtesy of a bouncer from Jofra Archer and an edge into the grille of his helmet that also took him out of the XI to play Bangladesh.
Amla, the pillar of South Africa’s batting, seemed out of the woods when the obstacles of his father’s illness and his own patchy form were successfully negotiated and he was named in the squad.
After all that, for him to be wrenched away in such a fashion — and in only the fourth over of the campaign — hit the team hard. They would have known beforehand that there’s no controlling the uncontrollables, but it was a blow to be reminded so early in the piece.
After three games only Du Plessis, Quinton de Kock and Rassie van der Dussen have scored half-centuries, and they are also the players who have looked up for the fight the most. Van der Dussen has faced 136 deliveries, De Kock 123 and Du Plessis 114. The rest have shown an alarming lack of application, none less so than JP Duminy, who has been there for only 59 balls in his three innings.
Andile Phehlukwayo, who is the same calm bowler and explosive batter at the World Cup he has always been, has South Africa’s leading economy rate: 5.13. Kagiso Rabada, Chris Morris and Imran Tahir are also operating at less than a run a ball. Had Dale Steyn and Anrich Nortjé not been invalided out of the tournament, South Africa’s attack would probably have carried their under-performing batting line-up.
Had they beaten one of England or India, or even lost to both and dealt with Bangladesh as they should have, they would have been in a significantly better place.
They didn’t, and here they are — the first of all the 10 teams at the tournament to have to stare down the barrel of elimination.
And it could be a slow death. Losing to West Indies on Monday won’t hasten it. Instead it will likely prompt the beginning of the end. Not that beating West Indies would fix things. It will be only one of the six victories South Africa need to reel off from here to stay abreast of the other semi-final contenders.
It took the Titanic two hours and 40 minutes to sink. South Africa, even they keep spiralling downward, could take six weeks.
At least, like Ottis Gibson said on Saturday about the untimely saga of the who, what, when, where and why of how AB de Villiers did or didn’t make himself available for the World Cup, “No-one has died.”
Some mercies are smaller than others.
* Monday’s game between South Africa and West Indies was washed out. The points were shared.
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