South Africa - Curse of Rain and WCs!!

 

There is a joke of late actor-comedian Tamil actor Vivek, thanni la kandam which roughly translates to the actor specifying that he has a curse of water(rain). South African cricket team fortune seems to follow that route is very strange fashion.

Curse - 1

At the start of 90s, South Africa were not able to participate in any of the cricket tournaments as they were banned due to apartheid. After the abandonment of apartheid in 1991, cricket was the most played sport along with rugby. At the start of ’92 world cup in Australia, South Africa (SA) were one among the favorites to win the tournament boasting of some very good players.

Things came to a head when SA were playing in semi-finals against England. Needing to score 22 runs in 13 balls with 4 wickets in hand with the game favoring a first SA entry to the finals. And then, the curse started. Rain stopped play, but only for 10 minutes. That was enough to cause quite a farce scenario, wherein SA now had to make 21 off just one ball. This was enough to send England through to finals and SA back home.

Curse – 2

Hansie Cronje, the most charismatic Midas touch captain, who had led the team to crowing glory in the 1997 champions trophy and had led them to No.1 rankings had admitted to his role in the bookies scandal where he and his players had taken money to deliberately lose or influence the matches played in India. This devastating scandal took the cricket world by storm, causing him to lose his captaincy, his place in the side and ultimately his death in a plane crash in 2002.

In the back-drop of this terrible incident, SA tried to re-build their image and their way under Shaun Pollock and tragedy struck again in 2003 world cup which they were incidentally hosting. Boucher, SA’s best wicket-keeper had just hit a six, when it started drizzling in their league game against a weakened Srilankan side. Boucher understood that under the Duckworth-Lewis (absolute crazy) method, they had achieved the score they require to win the game and blocked out the last ball of play with no run scored of that. Unfortunately, the underlying fine print reflected the teams need to score 1 run more than the par score to win the match and the match was a tie resulting a heart-broken exit of a host country in the preliminary stage of the World Cup competition.

Perhaps Curse – 3

In the most recent match of SA in the current T20 world cup hosted in Australia, they faced off against a resurgent Zimbabwe. In a rain reduced match Zim scored 79 runs in 9 overs. As more rain drizzled through, SA were set a target of 64 in 7 overs, with them making an astonishing 51 in first 3 overs and then play was abandoned. Boucher (who is now the coach coincidentlu) refused to get drawn into the comparisons with the 2003 world cup and perhaps time will only tell whether this abandonment is crucial for them to make it through to the next stage.

 

                                                      Champions Trophy Victors - 1997

Nonetheless, the world cups or mutli-country tournaments have not been very favorable to South African cricket teams and the general ‘chokers’ tag in association with their heart-breaking and crushing semifinal defeats of 1999 and 2007 world cups to eventual champions Australia have itself been a curse for them in a general. The hope against hope is that they find enough strength and firepower in their wonderful team to make it to the next round in this championship and break all the curses once and for all.

DESERT STORM– Déjà vu!!!

Nearly quarter a century ago, a couple of friends and me watched Sachin Tendulkar hunker down as the desert storm ravaged the Sharjah stadium. A couple of Australian players had even left the field, while Sachin plotted to blow away the Australian mighty attack to shreds right after the storm subsided. What happened next is was absolute goosebump worthy moment as Sachin tore apart every bowler that night and came so close to winning the match. He single-handedly helped India qualify for the finals where another masterful century sealed India’s famous win. This ultimately established Sachin’s place in annals of cricketing history as one of the best batsman. 

 

For a very long time, people would switch off their television when Sachin got out. This trend diminished to a great extent when Dhoni took over the Indian team. But nobody in their dream had thought that there would be a heir to his cricketing throne. But the next King had arrived in a grand style. His best of 183 along with the Master Blaster tore Pakistan’s bowling in Asia Cup a decade ago. 

Kohli rose from one high to another in a very short span of time, but things never go according to any plan in life, do they? The last 3 years have been excruciating for the world (with Covid) and more so for Kohli. His paternity leave for his first daughter through the most important Australian test series was heavily criticized as India were expected to be whitewashed in his absence. Fortunately we won a historic series, with contributions from the least expected players. His much publicized fight with Ganguly (former BCCI president), losing his captaincy and a change in head coach from his favorite Ravi Shastri to Rahul Dravid must have quite shaken up any normal player. But Kohli is no mere mortal. 

India needed 28 of 8 balls, with in-form Rauf running in hard. As with why Misbah chose the scoop over the 100s of shots in that in-opportune moment in the 2008 world-cup final to why Rauf banged a slower ball back of length to the regular hard length delivery, nobody knows. The bowler nearly won as he had Kohli jam up in a very awkward position with the ball hitting high up on his bat. But then the magic happened… Kohli hit the ball with his all muscle memory and it travelled all the way for a SIX!! (a true Desert Storm Deja va). This one shot, given the magnitude of the game, playing conditions and his own dismal form is why he will be considered a legend whenever he decides to hang his boots.

 

But it is this iconic picture that speaks a thousand words, as a tear dropped in from his eye as India finished winners in this iconic match. He is still human, he is still one among us, a human being with deep feelings. This is perhaps a gentle reminder to all of us to be caring, patient, positive and forever cherish this beautiful game as well as our lives!!