Why chases have been South Africa’s bugbear at the World Cup over the years
There’s a five-letter word starting with ‘c’ that merges the destinies of South Africa and New Zealand in World Cup cricket. It is not as viciously spat out, or unimaginatively uttered, or unoriginal as ‘choke’.
But it arches over the entirety of their bat and ball 50 over World Cup history.
The word is ‘chase’, and the two sides meeting in Pune on Wednesday uniquely mirror each other, with New Zealand a few paces ahead of the South Africans in how the chase race has panned out. South Africans botched their modest run-chase against Netherlands a few days back.
They stuttered against the mighty Australians famously in 1999, and stumbled forgettably against minnows Bangladesh in 2007. So the defeat to the Dutch in the middle of some serious run-loots and 400-plus scores, evoked a wry shake of the head as if to say, “That’s just them.”
Poor run chases look like anomalies in most of their World Cup campaigns, until suddenly they are the coup de grace. 1992 to Duckworth & Lewis and England, 1996 to West Indies, 1999 to Australia, 2003 to Sri Lanka and 2011 to New Zealand.
But excitingly for this edition, the Proteas arrived in Pune to face their sweet-smiling nemesis New Zealand who tripped them up in both 2011 and 2015 Knockouts, on the back of a 1-wicket thrilling chase against Pakistan in Chennai.
Keshav Maharaj’s roar alongside Tabraiz Shamsi’s dogged defense, set alight this World Cup edition. It was merely a league match against a Pakistan in shambles, and ought to never have been a desperate last-wicket scramble. Still, the roar showed what going past the line meant to the Saffers.
The country’s most shocking loss when chasing against New Zealand in World Cups came in 2011, when Daniel Vettori exerted a spin-strangle on a wicked Dhaka wicket to squeeze the batting life out of a vaunted SA top 6 of Amla, Smith, Kallis, AB deVilliers, Duminy and Faf, and Jacob Oram landed the knockout punches with 4 wickets.
