Another World Cup, another anxious wait
In just over three months, the Cricket World Cup will be underway in Australia and AB de Villiers will be out to achieve what no South African captain has done in the past – coming home with the trophy.
That is what we wish. That is what the fans demand.
Being a Proteas fan has not been easy over the years. One could say that supporting the South African national cricket team means we will forever be in tears as our beloved bunch of losers keep losing tournament after tournament, even when it seems losing is the least likely outcome.
I’ll bring up two World Cup tournaments in the past that we should have won; the 1999 edition in England, and in 2003 when we were the hosts.
If ever there were two World Cups we were meant to win, it was those two. In 1999 we were unrivalled, ranked as one of the best ODI sides in cricket, and we regularly handed the then No 1-ranked Aussies a whipping.
Hansie Cronje’s boys seemed the perfect machine. Gary Kirsten was sublime with the bat, along with a young Jacques Kallis and the untameable Herschelle Gibbs. Lance Klusener was destructive with the bat, while Allan Donald, Shaun Pollock and Steve Elworthy were a fearsome threesome with the ball.
If ever there was a team that should have won the World Cup, it was that team. We all know what happened, how they choked in two games against Australia.
In 2003, it was meant to be our turn. Never mind that at the time, no host nation had ever won the tournament, we were optimistic as supporters. The boys were going to exorcise the ghost of 1999 and avenge what had happened. And, the boys were going to “play for Hansie”, as Gibbs controversially stated ahead of the tournament. The disgraced former skipper had died the previous year in a plane crash, and Polly – son of Peter, nephew of Graeme – was now at the helm. It was as if it was written in the stars. Written in the stars or not, the clouds in Durban had other things in mind, and once again, the team failed.
It happened again in 2007 in the West Indies and 2011 on the Indian subcontinent, but it can be argued that the team was not at its best in those years.
I don’t want to get ahead of myself here, but currently, the Proteas look good, they look balanced, and we’ll know how realistic our chances are of winning Down Under.
We’re ranked second in the world, one point behind India, and skipper De Villiers and Hashim Amla hold the top two positions in the players’ rankings, joined by the prodigiously talented Quinton de Kock (ranked in eighth place) in the top 10, and the Steyn Remover (Dale Steyn) is third among the bowlers.
The Proteas are looking good, and I cannot help but get excited about the tournament. After the disappointment of previous World Cups, I did not allow myself to show too much emotion in 2011 in case I got hurt again. But it’s different this time around, I can tell. I’m going to be one of those guys who wake up at ungodly hours of the morning with green face paint and I’m going to throw my heart into it.
I mean, what’s the worst that could happen? Surely they won’t choke again this time. This is it. I can feel it in my bones. The ICC 2015 Cricket World Cup is ours. Besides, the Aussies haven’t been at their best.
No pressure boys.