Pat Cummins might have been a stand-up comedian whose manager had planted a couple of stooge hecklers in the crowd to feed him with convenient response material. And he was bang-on with his answers.
“We feel lucky that a lot of our players have been in these situations quite a bit so, we know what it takes and we’re not really weighed down by history,” Cummins replied to his first half-volley. “It’s hard to speak on their behalf, but I do know that each World Cup, it does seem to be the story that South Africa haven't quite achieved, obviously, what they set out to do.” Bang. Four more.
What about the 134-run drubbing South Africa handed his team in the second match of the tournament, or the 3-2 series win in South Africa before the tournament? “I don't think it counts for too much. You start from scratch every time you play,” Cummins said, warming to his theme.
“It helps us that we've got a lot of guys who have been in this situation before, that have won the One-Day World Cup, T20 World Cup, various other tournaments in big moments, that really helps and you can draw on that in the middle of the contest,” Cummins said, skilfully saying by implication what he didn’t with words.
“There’s a couple of different ways you can go about it. You can either build it up as the most important game of your life, or you can be ‘business as usual’. With our experience, just keeping it pretty chilled and business as usual seems to be the way to go. We know that our best is good enough, you don't need to try and push it too hard,” Cummins said, oozing calm for an appreciative audience.
His favourite Proteas calamity? “I mean, yeah, the ‘99 World Cup one, it's kind of Australian folklore, isn't it? I've seen that replay heaps of times and heard the stories.”
The final question: “Will you be reminding them of the choking tag?” “I think you just did that,” said Cummins with, admittedly, one of the most charming smiles in sport.
Temba Bavuma was charming, too, and touchingly honest: “I’m obviously a bit nervous about the game, it will be our first semi-final as a team,” he said. It appears he will be fit enough to lead the team although he admitted he was “…not hundred percent” after the hamstring tweak he suffered against Afghanistan five days ago.
To lead the team in the biggest game of his career so far “…would be massive. I've tried not to really allow myself to get into that space but it’s obviously something that I'm looking forward to and it’s something that I'll savour. I know it will mean a lot for the family and people back home,” Bavuma said.
“There's been an acknowledgement of the emotions, you can’t deny or run away from that. But there's also been solutions and mechanisms that have been given to us, how to deal with that anxiety if you feel that it overwhelms you,” Bavuma said.
“As a team we’ve been speaking about when the ‘crunch’ moment comes, when the pressure moments come, we come together as a team and we find a way to get over the line, like the Springboks,” Bavuma said.
“We also accept that it's for us to control what we can control, what our story is within the Proteas. We know what we'd like it to look like and we want to be there on the 19th of November, but for us to do that we have got to focus and deal with tomorrow as best as we can.”
The external ‘noise’ before matches of this size and significance are not unfamiliar to me. I’ve been responsible for creating some of it. But today it was essential to escape for a couple of hours, new districts and new sights.
The smallest details can be calming, like purchasing from the peanut-roaster who adds a couple of nuts at a time until his hand-held scales finally balance to 50 Rupees. He is Mohal. He has been selling roasted snacks, and making a living, in the same place, for 20 years. That is soothing in a time of sporting ‘stress.’
As a medical doctor, former cricketer and someone who tore hamstrings and calf muscles several times I know that torn / tweaked / strained muscles take WEEKS to heal. If Bavuma plays tomorrow there will be a VERY HIGH PROBABILITY his team will be trying to beat Australia with one man short. How ironic we lost the semi in 2015 because the politicians forced Philander to play with a torn hamstring