South Africa’s Miserable World Cup Luck

South Africa must be the unluckiest, star-crossed team in the World Cup competitions, this despite the fact that they missed out on the first four Cups because of the apartheid boycott. New Zealand lags a distant second with their frequent semi-final appearances, but for sheer drama, terrible luck and self-inflicted wounds, there is no beating the South Africans.

1992 World Cup: South Africa showed little sign of having been in the wilderness for two decades, as they marched confidently into the semi-finals while pre-tournament favorites Australia were knocked out. The South African team became popular with cricket fans, not least because of Jonty Rhodes’s amazing runout of Inzamam ul-Haq. The semi-final lineup (NZ, Pakistan, England & SA) was indicative of the innovations in the 1992 tournament, such as pinch-hitting openers, and spinners as opening bowlers.  All four teams were favored in contrasting ways to win the Cup, even Pakistan who squeezed into the finals, but were clearly on the ascendancy.

The semi-final match between England and South Africa would turn out to be a thriller, until it disintegrated into a farce. Set a target of 253 in 46 overs, South Africa were 231/6 when rain intervened. The rain rules, at that time, lopped off the lowest scoring overs of the first team batting, which meant that when 2 overs were taken off, South Africa now had an impossible target of 21 runs from a single ball. This was perhaps the worst sports moment until Zinedine Zidane would end his international career in the 2006 soccer World Cup with a head butt.

1996 World Cup: As the 1996 tournament went on in the subcontinent, most people expected Sri Lanka and South Africa to face off in the finals. While Sri Lanka confounded all expectations by using the hitherto unused combination of two pinch-hitting openers, they were still a new force on the international scene. South Africa, on the other hand, had proven their mettle with good ODI and Test performances since the 1992 Cup.

Everything was set until in their first knock-out match in the quarterfinals, South Africa met a 1-man army, namely Brian Lara. The South African bowlers were dispatched to the cleaners as Lara hit a stunning 111 runs off just 94 balls. The target of 265 (at that time, a pretty hefty one) would prove too large for SA who fell 19 runs short. This would be among the first matches that would earn them the unflattering moniker of “chokers“.

1999 World Cup: And the last match for South Africa in this World Cup would cement the chokers reputation. South Africa would once again top the tables in their preliminary group, although with an unexpected loss against Zimbabwe (that would knock out England). And they would beat everyone in the Super Six round except against Australia, that would turn out to be as consequential as NZ’s loss to Pakistan in the 1992 group stage.

The semi-final match between the two teams would remain the cliff-hanger to beat all cliff-hangers. Australia restricted to a modest 213 seemed beaten as the SA openers raced to 48 for no loss in the first 12 overs. Then Shane Warne came on, reprising his 1996 semifinal heroics against the West Indies, to take 4/29 as South Africa kept losing crucial wickets. But when all seemed lost, Lance Klusener started hitting some lusty blows taking SA to the verge of victory.

At the start of the last over by Damien Fleming, South Africa needed 9 runs to win with Klusener on strike. The first two balls were dispatched to the boundary with immaculate strokes. At this point, no one would have given Australia any hope. The third ball had Allan Donald backing up too far and almost getting run out. On the fourth ball, Klusener sets off on a single, while Donald starts late (perhaps because of the memory of the last ball), drops his bat and is run out at the wicketkeeper’s end. Although the match is tied, Australia go through into the finals having won the previous encounter between the teams.

2003 World Cup: Surprise, surprise! Kenya would crash into the next round as the hosts South Africa failed to qualify. They could blame two persons from other teams: Lara, once again, with a century helping WI pip SA by 3 runs and Fleming leading NZ to victory with an unbeaten 134 in a rain-curtailed match. But the real villains would prove to be two of their teammates who could not read a piece of paper properly.

Once again, the rain rules in this World Cup would prove to be the end of South Africa, though this time it would be the more respected Duckworth-Lewis. As rain threatened to stop the match, the South African team gave the batsmen a table that provided the number of runs required to equal the opposition total. The two batsmen in the middle, Mark Boucher and Lance Klusener (yes, him again!) would misinterpret it as the runs required to win, thus avoiding a single off what proved to be the last ball in the match. The match was tied (yes, again!) and South Africa would miss the knockout round by a single point.

2007 World Cup: South Africa has the misfortune of peaking too soon (Gibbs’s 6 sixes, anyone?) and then having to face Australia at the height of their supremacy. Although Australia had won the 2003 World Cup without losing a single match, there were quite a few matches that could have gone either way. Not so in the 2007 World Cup, as Australia swept away every opposition in sight, big and small teams alike.

There was a lot of talk about South Africa besting Australia because they had beaten them in that amazing ODI in Johannesburg where they overhauled Australia’s then record score of 434/4 and won the 5-match series. Unfortunately, they did nothing of that sort with the semi-final turning to be an utter disaster, SA slumping to 149 all out and Australia romping home with 7 wickets and almost 19 overs to spare.

Will it be different in the next World Cup? Wait and watch!