‘Proteas have crippling fear of failure’

BIG-TIME players make bigtime plays in big-time moments.

But apparently no one told South Africa’s star players ahead of the failed World Twenty20 campaign in India.

The tournament — as much as accusatory fingers pointed at the inept bowling performance — once more illustrated South Africa’s top players’ inability to stand up when the infantry needed them most.

Some of the most eye-popping mental coaching ploys have been tried to rev up the senses when the pressure reaches boiling point — including Mike Horn’s climb up the Alps — but the result at an International Cricket Council (ICC) tournament remains the same.

Everest might be the highest peak, but Proteas cricketers are grappling with a steeper mental obstacle.

But what makes a Virat Kohli — a preening, conceited being — relish facing the final balls of a chase in front of close to 100 000 delirious Indian fans and an AB de Villiers or Hashim Amla?

What was in Aravinda de Silva that made him blast 107 not out to beat Australia at the 1996 World Cup final that Jacques Kallis, Herschelle Gibbs or Daryll Cullinan couldn’t mirror in the semifinal against the same team at Edgbaston three years later?

“It has a lot to do with pressure . . . and how you handle it,” said Gibbs.

“You either want those big moments as a player or you don’t.

“Not everybody is comfortable in that situation. I have seen some of the best players in the world buckle under the pressure of a World Cup. Why it happens, we don’t know.

“[MS] Dhoni and Kohli are renowned for being there when it counts. You can see it in their body language.

“Kohli gets himself in and is focused a lot of the time and there’s no emotion. He knows what he needs to do and he wants to do it.

“England’s Jos Butler and Joe Root were the same.

“For me, De Villiers and Kohli are the two most complete batsmen in the world. The one [Kohli] is better at chasing, but it doesn’t make him better than the other. I thought De Villiers didn’t give himself enough time to get in.

“It’s like [Lionel] Messi and [Cristiano] Ronaldo; some of their attributes and stats differ in a lot of ways.”

Former Proteas coach Eric Simons, whose 2003 World Cup team added further scarring to the 1999 horrors, said players needed to face up to the mental challenges that dogged the Proteas.

“It is a very complicated problem . . . and not something you can simply solve in a net practice,” he said from India.

“The worst thing you can do is ignore it exists. It is about the way you look at tough situations.

“Does it cause fear in your

World T20 once more illustrated SA’s top players’ inability to stand up when needed the most

belly or do you see it as an opportunity to be a hero?

“You need to learn to be excited about tough spots — to see them as opportunities and not threats.”

While India eventually bombed to the West Indies in Thursday’s semifinal, the Proteas’s group-stage exit can count as the tournament’s biggest disappointment.

The other reason this happened, said Simons, was that South Africa had an inveterate, crippling fear of failure.

“Ironically, wanting or needing to win too much in a game such as cricket, where the mental aspect plays such a huge role, is a hindrance,” he said. “It creates desperation and that leads to greater fear of failure.”

Former Proteas top-order batsman Gibbs said there were traces of this debilitating fear in other South African sports.

“How long did [former Springbok coach] Heyneke Meyer persist with Morne Steyn, a very predictable player?”