Proteas won’t be bothered by ‘chokers’ tag, says Kallis

The legendary Jacques Kallis has dismissed a widely-held view that the Proteas are still haunted by their “chokers” tag at the World Cup.

A veteran of five tournaments, the 43-year-old experienced some of South Africa’s most painful moments, notably 1999’s infamous semifinal run out and 2003’s Duckworth-Lewis fiasco in Durban, which saw the national side crash out of the showpiece they were hosting.

“Of course you’re aware of the ‘chokers’ tag the team is labelled with after losing in four semi-finals but I think the media make a bigger deal of South Africa not having won a World Cup than the players do,” Kallis wrote in column for the ICC on Monday.

“The players don’t worry too much about it. You realise that when you play international sport, if things don’t go well for you then you are going to catch some criticism – that’s fair enough.”

There’s indeed a fair amount of optimism that the group coach Ottis Gibson and skipper Faf du Plessis have assembled won’t be burdened by past failures.

None of Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi, Aiden Markram, Rassie van der Dussen, Andile Phehlukwayo, Dwaine Pretorius, Chris Morris and Tabraiz Shamsi have played in a World Cup before.

“From a personal point of view, I never read too much media and maybe the outside noise affected one or two guys but it certainly didn’t bother the majority of us,” wrote Kallis, the Proteas’ leading run-scorer in ODIs with 11 579.

Another factor counting in the current crop’s favour is that the South Africans don’t quite rank as one of the favourites for glory, which could allow the team to blissfully merge their youth and experience without the distraction of high expectation.

That’s not a luxury Kallis enjoy during his time.

“It’s probably one of the first times they’ve gone into a tournament not widely expected to win it, which should relax the guys and allow them to play with freedom,” he wrote.

“To be clear, they are most definitely more than capable of winning this World Cup though. They’ve got some world-class players and when they do get it together and play some good cricket, they’re capable of beating anyone in the world. In a way they’re almost a dark-horse side of this World Cup and every team should be very wary of them.”

The Proteas travel to London on Monday, where they face England at The Oval in the tournament opener on Thursday.

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