“I haven’t heard the ‘c word’ much recently,” says Dave Nosworthy, a South African coach who has sat on numerous panels set-up to conduct post-mortems on previous Proteas’ World Cup implosions.
“I think, we’ve been preoccupied with choking, but these guys have shown that if you stick to the basics, if you know your role, and you’re confident in your ability, then you can go and make history. The past doesn’t matter to these guys.”
An entire nation will be watching from behind their collective sofas hoping that he’s right, because when it comes to World Cup failure, South Africa have a PhD in it.
It started in 1992, when South Africa – playing in their first-ever World Cup after their return from sporting isolation – were beaten by England, the weather and a scoring system that appeared to have been devised by a class of primary school children.
“Ridiculous,” says Allan Donald, or White Lightning, to a generation of cricket lovers from Birmingham to Bloemfontein.
He has a point. South Africa needed just 22 from 13 balls when Sydney was hit with a 12-minute deluge that rained on the returnee’s parade and sent England into their second World Cup final.
By the time the umbrellas were down, the new target flashed up on the SCG scoreboard. First it was 22 from seven balls – an Everest-like effort 31 years ago – before a correction kept the target the same but reduced the number of balls to one.
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Even England looked embarrassed. No choking here, move along. In fact, if anyone could be accused of losing their nerve, it would have been the tournament organisers who refused to utilise the reserve day in a bid to get the last-four clash finished on the night.
A quarter-final defeat to the West Indies four years later, when South Africa came up short in a then hefty run chase of 264, was seen as a respectable failure despite them enjoying a 100 per cent record in the group stage of the tournament.
What happened in 1999, though, has proved to be a millstone around the neck of every South African side since. Lance Klusener’s pyrotechnics had drawn the Proteas level with the Aussies’ score of 213 with four balls of the final over remaining.
All they needed was a single. Instead, the last pair delivered a kamikaze run-out, with Donald the man to go, to send the Aussies through by virtue of their superior run-rate at the Super Six stage.
![1999 Cricket World Cup Semi Final, Edgbaston, 17th June, 1999, Australia v South Africa, Match Tied, Australia celebrate as South Africa's Allan Donald (left) is run out leaving the game as a tie (Photo by Popperfoto via Getty Images/Getty Images)](https://wp.inews.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/SEI_180165958.jpg?w=760)
Stage fright? Quite possibly. Sporting madness? Most definitely. Choking? Well, it depends who you ask.
“You can only get to choke if you’re up there competing when it matters,” says former South African great, Barry Richards. “Aren’t the teams who didn’t get to the final stage worse chokers because they’re not there when it matters most? It’s a nice label isn’t it. I’m sure the Aussies will remind them of it at every available opportunity.”
Pressure does funny things to a side. England supporters hardly need reminding of that after the car-crash cricket witnessed by the current holders in India.
South Africa’s supporters and players, though, could be forgiven for thinking that the sporting gods have had it in for them since that night at the SCG.
In their home World Cup of 2003, a miscalculation of Duckworth Lewis sent the hosts tumbling out in humiliating fashion.
In 2007, they were at it again, skittled for just 149 by Australia in the last four in Saint Lucia.
As they rattled up 281 for five in just 43 overs in their 2015 semi-final against New Zealand surely their luck was about to turn? Enter Johannesburg-born Grant Elliott, who then smashed 84 from 73 balls to get the Kiwis over the line.
“I think choking is probably one of the biggest insults you could throw at an international cricketer,” says Tony Irish, the former head of the South African Cricketers’ Association.
“There is always a huge amount of pressure on a South African cricket team, a very big build-up to any Cricket World Cup. But we haven’t had that this time because there has been so much focus on the Rugby World Cup.
“I think that has had a big impact. A lot of these guys also play under pressure all the time in IPL and I think that has helped a lot of these guys to cope with the big moments.
“As a nation, the experience of ‘99 still hurts the most. They didn’t have to take that run. That was just a shambles. A lot of people have used that choker label and those players obviously didn’t like that tag.”
Regardless, Donald is hoping that his countrymen finally get over the line in Kolkata, so that people stop talking about that famous match in Birmingham 24 years ago.
“That would be nice,” he says. “I turned on the news this morning and they were showing it again. I’m sure that won’t be the last time I’ll see it between now and Thursday.”