THE RUB OF THE GREEN
The Proteas know World Cup heartbreak, but a slice of luck could change it all
In the first Cricket World Cup final in 1975, a tall Guyanese left-hander in a floppy white hat strode to the wicket with his team in trouble at 50 for three.
The left-hander’s name was Clive Lloyd and it was a summer’s day at Lord’s in London. With the West Indies playing Australia and so many West Indians living in London, the occasion had a Caribbean flavour.
Fans in string vests and corduroy bellbottoms drank rum as they waved their islands’ flags. Sometimes they spilt onto the field — with beverage in hand — to offer the boundary fielders their wit and wisdom.
When Lloyd was finished at the crease he had scored 102 and the West Indies were no longer in trouble. His whirlwind century took 82 balls and 100 minutes.
It is no exaggeration to say those 100 minutes shook the cricketing world and established an empire.
In its way, it was as significant as sending a man into space, or planting the Stars and Stripes on the moon. Those runs began, and defined, the start of a buccaneering cricket age.
Though they scrapped right until the end, the Aussies couldn’t reach the West Indies’ total of 291 for eight in 60 overs.
Four Aussies were run out in their chase and the West Indies won the inaugural World Cup by 17 runs.
It meant that a small group of economically and geopolitically insignificant islands in the Caribbean and a country on the South American mainland (Guyana) were now champions of the cricket world. They would win the 1979 World Cup four years later and would be (surprisingly) beaten by India in the final of the tournament in 1983.
In Test cricket, the West Indies walked with giant strides through the game’s sacred garden, dominating the world for 15 years. From March 1980 to January 1985 the side lost only once. They were now called, simply, the “Windies”, with its breezy evocations of a warm trade wind sweeping through the cricket world.
It’s true that Lloyd had some luck that World Cup final day. When he was on 26, he hooked the great Australian fast bowler Dennis Lillee to Ross Edwards at midwicket, but Edwards, the best fielder in the Australian side, put down a difficult diving catch. “Big moment,” said Lloyd.
This underlines a cricketing truth that South Africans know all too well, which is that all teams need a little luck.
A parade of misfortune
If one is to be charitable to the South Africans and their World Cup exploits, you could suggest they’ve seldom had much luck.
In 2011 in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in a World Cup quarterfinal against New Zealand, Hashim Amla was caught after he chopped the ball onto his boot and it