South Africa's Captain Temba Bavuma (C) departs as Netherlands' Paul van Meekeren (R) celebrates his wicket with teammates during the ICC men's Twenty20 World Cup 2022 cricket match between Netherlands and South Africa at Adelaide Oval on November 6, 2022 in Adelaide. Brenton EDWARDS / AFP
After this weekend’s sporting nightmare, perhaps it is time for South African sports fans to consider the awful possibility that our national teams are just not as good on the field as they are in our heads.
The Springboks’ close loss to Ireland in Dublin was flattering to the home team, because the men in green and gold served up yet another disjointed, lack-lustre performance made even worse by atrocious kicks at goal.
On the other hand, the Irish are currently ranked Number One in the world, so perhaps the SA result was not bad.
Less so that of the Proteas, who crashed out of the T20 Cricket World Cup yesterday, losing by 13 runs to The Netherlands.
Going down to India, Australia, England or New Zealand would have been painful… but the Netherlands?
By saying that our cricketers “choked” once again on a major international stage might, however, be the entirely wrong way to look at the defeat, because it implies we should have won, were it not for our heads being “in the wrong space”.
No.
Perhaps we need to consider the reality that we are now a second-rank team in world cricket and that we should be scared even of the “minnows”.
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