+ David Miller had no desire to tempt fate when he spoke about the challenging logistics of the tournament, especially during the Super Eight stage when all teams were required to play three games in five days with the Proteas changing islands between each one.
But that may have been exactly what he did as the squad were stranded at Trinidad Airport for seven hours two days before the biggest match of their lives.
Their charter flight was due to take off at 10:40am for the 35-minute flight to Barbados but they didn’t arrive until well after 6:00pm after a small, private plane crash-landed on the runway at the Grantley Adams International Airport forcing the closure of all air-traffic in and out of Barbados and backlog of flights.
Several members of the TV production team including the commentators and several journalists were on the same flight: “The players were amazing, they coped with it so well,” Australian writer, Ben Horne said. “The players wives set up picnics in the terminal building to entertain the kids and the whole squad just seemed to ‘roll with it’, as frustrating as it was.”
+ “If I really told you how our travel has been the last couple of weeks you would be pretty shocked,” Miller had said just moments before the team headed to the airport. “It’s really been a monumental effort to really buy into where we are right now. I must be honest, there’s been some very interesting travel arrangements. It kind of blows my mind that the tournament dragged on for so long during the group stages and then, in the Super Eights, it was back-to-back, playing on different islands, different times, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, play, travel. It doesn’t make sense.
“Personally, I think it could have been structured a bit better during the group stages, but it is what it is so, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and we’re certainly stronger for it,” Miller said.
+ Shaun Pollock and Dale Steyn were both ushered into the commentary box shortly before the victory against Afghanistan was completed so they could be on air when South Africa ended their semi-final hoodoo at the eighth time of asking. Both reflected on their own disappointments at the last-four stage:
“We had a guy come speak to us, Mike Horn, who used to be a motivational speaker and he went to the top of seven of the highest peaks in the world without oxygen,” Pollock said. Gary Kirsten got him in to talk to the team. He always made reference to ‘trying to get to the top.’ That if you’re a person who is trying to achieve that, and you’ve had a few attempts and you don’t get there, it becomes an obsession.”
“It doesn’t go away. Semi-final losses, they hurt forever,” Steyn said, remembering the 2015 loss to New Zealand in Auckland when Grant Elliott hit him for the winning six.
“It was nine years ago, and yet there is not a day that goes by without thinking about cricket and when I think about cricket, it’s all the highs and lows that go with that word. That 2015 semi, I drag it with me everywhere,” Steyn said.
“This was just a massive release. I even said it when I got back to the hotel, it just feels so weird. We haven’t won. We haven’t won. But it feels like you’ve won because you’ve broken something. You finally feel we’ve broken through and that’s a win itself,” Steyn said.
“Yes, there’s a final still to be played but that moment there was almost as important as winning a trophy. There’s a big job to do, but that there was a huge thing. I can’t put my finger on it. I can’t put words to it, but it certainly feels different. To get over semi-final hurdle, I’ll feel differently going forward now which is great,” Steyn said.
“Because we’ve been in so many campaigns, we always looked and thought, what is it? What is the ingredient that you’re going to need to be able to do it?” Pollock said.
“I don’t know if there’s any magic you can prescribe. But all they’ve done is show their ability to find a way, to scrap and show some character. And if you look at some of the victories they’ve managed to pull off and you analyse them, you think, ‘how did they manage to do that?’
That’s probably the trait that you need more than anything else. More than, maybe, the massive amount of talent in the squad. It’s just getting the job done, under a bit of pressure, at that time,” Pollock said
+ “This is not just for us,” said Tabraiz Shamsi after the semi-final. “It’s for the people back home and for the players that have played before us. They’ve laid the foundation for the team to progress and it’s just our duty to take it one step forward. Obviously, we’ve had great teams in the past, great players, so we are really happy with the achievement for them and the whole country,” Shamsi said.
+ Afghanistan may have been thrashed in the semi-final but they may have done South Africa a huge favour by effectively eliminating Australia and allowing the Proteas to avoid meeting the opponents who have beaten (or tied with) them more often than any other team at this stage, including just seven months ago in the 50-over World Cup in Kolkata.
But a (very) small part of the Australian team will be on the field during the final – or at least, some words of advice which Mitchell Starc shared with fellow left-armer, Marco Jansen.
“I asked him a few questions when we met in the gym at the ground before the IPL final and I asked him a couple of questions on how he swings the ball and what he focuses on and that helped me a lot,” Jansen said after his 3-16 against Afghanistan.
“We are similar but we are different in our own ways. He gets a lot of pace off the wicket, where I get a little bit more bounce. I took what I could out of that, he’s a very nice guy and was more than willing to chat and share what his processes are and how he thinks, how he sees the game which I really appreciate,” Jansen said.
+ So, just in case you need reminding, the 32-year-old roll of nine dishonourable knockout matches at World Cups is: Sydney in 1992, Karachi in 1996, Birmingham in 1999, St Lucia in 2007, Nottingham in 2009, Dhaka in 2011, Dhaka again in 2014, Auckland in 2015 and Kolkata last year. And it ended in Tarouba, Trinidad, two days ago. It was just South Africa’s second victory in a knockout match.
Fantastic. I watched the whole semi which still enabled me to get 2 hours sleep before work! I will never forget the farce of Sydney 1992- watching on TV with mates- nor the agony of Birmingham alone with nobody to scream at!
In my opinion, 2019 CWC in England was the only one where Proteas did not start as favourites and you knew before the tournament started that they won't go far or do well. I don't know what happened or what was the reason why they were so poor ?