Playing for Each Other...

Not for 'The Nation'

    Home advantage is a glorious part of sport and India would have been fools not to take maximum that advantage during the World Cup. Scheduling their first match against Australia at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai elicited many ‘knowing’ looks and the result was duly concluded.

    Australia’s batsmen aren’t very good against spin, the venue offers more of it than anywhere else, and the Aussies were bundled out for 199 losing six wickets to the three spinners selected. Despite a snag at 2-3 in the run-chase, the ball soon stopped swinging and the hosts eased to a mighty six-wicket victory with 8.4 overs to spare.

    South Africa’s head coach, Rob Walter, wryly noted before the tournament started that their fixture against India was scheduled for Eden Gardens in Kolkata. It also offers the spinners much to cheer. India will happily take on the ‘smaller’ nations with their excellent seamers at venues with pace and bounce, but their biggest rivals will face three spinners on helpful pitches. And so it should be. What’s the point of controlling the global game if you can’t organise the World Cup fixture list to give yourself the best chance of winning it?

    The strange thing is, however, this South African team, unlike the Aussies, are actually quite good at playing spin. Really good in the case of Heinrich Klaasen, possibly the best attacking batsman against the slow men in the world today. Apart from his unconventional method of playing off the back foot, even to full pitched deliveries, he is the embodiment of a new squad ‘attitude’ which is different to the seven which have preceded it.

    It has nothing to do with the record-breaking win against Sri Lanka but there really is something very different to the 2023 squad. I’ve said it in previous years, and actually believed it in some cases, but more often it was because I was writing or commentating for ‘mainstream’ media which required an upbeat rah-rah about South Africa winning the World Cup.

    The breath-taking total of 428-5 against Sri Lanka is far from unprecedented. Only four times has 400 been breached in World Cup history, three of them by South Africa, twice in 2015 when they blasted 411-4 against Ireland and 408-5 against the West Indies. And we all know how that campaign finished.  

    A combination of international status and convenient scar-tissue has given this squad the mettle to play the way they are. Quinton de Kock, Klaasen, David Miller and Kagiso Rabada are established IPL stars with nothing to prove to themselves or anyone else.

    Do Kock, Miller and Rabada also bear the scars of World Cup misery and, far from being hindered by them, they are reminders that the sun came up the next day and continued to rise in the days to follow which allowed them to live and play another day, and get to India for another chance.

    Temba Bavuma, too, has benefitted from the misery of the T20 World Cup exit at the hands of the Netherlands in Australia last year. It was a desperately bleak time for him and his stoicism was outstanding, especially with the free-for-all approach to the personal vitriol he received. The effect now has been to inure him to it, but not affect his drive to succeed. South Africans may, one day, remember his captaincy in the same way Siya Kholisi is regarded. Probably not. Much as cricket administrators like and try to think otherwise, rugby comes first. 

    An excellent mini-documentary by the World Cup production company, filmed before the tournament started, focuses on South Africa’s ‘choker’ tag. It is overlayed by footage from each and every calamity with comments from selected players. The ever sensible Keshav Maharaj admits it is label they “have to carry” and one they won’t rid themselves of until they win the cup.

    Klaasen, however, offers the fusion of a curled lip and a grin before sardonically saying: “Someone was obviously very bored when they came up with that label.” Having won just one of the six World Cup knockout games they have reached, often losing horribly in the final moments, it wasn’t a difficult label to apply.

    But Klaasen is not in denial, it’s more prosaic than that. He just doesn’t ‘get it’. As important as cricket is to him, and as dedicated as he is to it, he has always seemed blessed with perspective. Not for him the hand-wringing or white knuckled intensity in the crucial moments when a game is decided. There are no cold-sweats or nightmares. His natural ‘just a game’ demeanour spreads to those who may be inclined to elevate its importance.

    Another aspect of this squad which adds to its calmness is the refusal to carry the weight of a nations expectations on its collective shoulders. Way back in 1999, when the Nelson Mandela ‘sport can build a nation’ talk was still all the rage after the 1995 Rugby World Cup, the cricketers allowed themselves to be talked into a belief that their World Cup was a crusade far more important than them. That they had a ‘responsibility’ to win the tournament.

    CSA chief executive, Pholetsi Moseki, reading from the administrators manual, was at it again following the win against Sri Lanka: “All the reports I’m getting from the team is that the mood in the camp is amazing. I know the players want to do it for the country.” Rubbish.

    No, they don’t. They want to do it for themselves and each other. What did the nation do for them when they messed up? Heaped scorn and derision on them. The nation can celebrate and share their success if they do win, but they are playing well because they are thinking about the 15 of them, not the 70 million at home.