Mumbai: Poor batting, sloppy fielding, slipshod bowling and the match is lost? No, that’s not all. Unlike football, the Englishmen preferred not to be drenched when swinging the red ball. Since then, rain has been cricket’s adversary with Duckworth-Lewis acting as the catalyst. Now, meet the team that fell prey to the duo’s curse thrice in two World Cups – South Africa.
If the chokers tag wasn’t enough, one could also call the Proteas the team which doesn’t like being involved with mathematics. Why? It ruined their chances of a first World Cup final in 1992.
Under Kepler Wessels, the team from the apartheid era, stunned the cricketing world by their stupendous run on the 22 yards. Allan Donald, Jonty Rhodes became household names.
The moment when the South Africans were a match away from creating history, Wuluwaid (the rain god in Australian aboriginal mythology) rose up and danced to an English tune causing hurly burly.
Chasing 253 in a 45-over semifinal against England in Sydney, they were 231 for the loss of six wickets in 42.5 overs. The Proteas needed 22 off 13 balls when it started raining. With Brian McMillan and David Richardson still in the middle, victory – if not inevitable, was possible. But the numbers befriended the English. The arithmetic went to such an extent that the Proteas’ target read 22 off one ball after the downpour.
Nobody knew the origin behind the absurdity of such rules but no questions were asked either. Initially, the scoreboard read 22 off seven balls before the final computations changed the course of the competitive encounter.
McMillan, who was unbeaten on 20 off 20, took a single off the last Chris Lewis delivery while Richardson remained not out on 13 off 10.
In 1996, West Indies beat South Africa and in 1999, it was the tied match against Australia – considered one of the best in One Day Internationals – that shut the doors for the Proteas.
The rains and the number games kept quiet for 11 years. It appeared again in ICC World Cup 2003 in their own backyard.
At Johannesburg, the South African team – riding on Herschelle Gibbs’ 143 off 141 – set a target of 307 for New Zealand in a must-win tie.
The Kiwis had never beaten the Proteas before. But they looked in good touch with Stephen Fleming leading from the front with a brilliant ton (134 not out). It is debatable whether the match belonged to South Africa but as they say, cricket is a funny game.
There was a 15-minute power failure and two rain breaks and then, a knock on the door. Yes, Duckworth-Lewis had arrived.
New Zealand, steady at 182 for one in the 31st over, needed only 44 more off 53 balls, 125 away from the actual target.
One never knows, scoring 125 off 117 could have been troublesome for the Kiwis had Shaun Pollock and company removed the in-form Fleming and Nathan Astle (54), who scored a handsome half-century.
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However, Fleming scored his first World Cup century and New Zealand beat South Africa for the first time in nine attempts.
South Africa needed to win all their matches to stay afloat in the tournament. Though they beat Bangladesh convincingly but could not stay away from another bizarre. They were chasing 269 for a win against Sri Lanka in Durban where Mark Boucher was misinformed about the rain-revised target – 229 for tie. He thought the team needed 229 to seal the fixture in case it rained further.
Hence, he casually pressed the last ball of the 45th over to the leg side without taking a single. The scoreboard read 229 for the loss of six wickets.
The rain grew heavy and fell hard on the Proteas. For the second consecutive time, they bowed out of a World Cup with a tied match.
In ICC World Cup 2015, the Proteas will again face New Zealand in the semifinal in Auckland on March 24. If the rain intervenes, there is a reserve day. But what if it rains on the second day too? Well, then South Africa will exit as the Kiwis have won more number of games and finished first in the group stage.
(South African captain AB de Villiers and New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum, Photo: AFP)
