NEIL MANTHORP: Proteas hadn’t woken up, so choking was not to blame against Netherlands

Not a single SA media organisation had the inclination or budget to send a reporter to Australia for the T20 World Cup. Quite a few, however, found the cash to send staff members to Europe for the Springbok end-of-year tour. Make of that what you will. Needless to say, there were no Dutch reporters in Adelaide, either. But that’s because there aren’t any Dutch cricket writers.    

So, the questions were asked by journalists from other countries, quite gently at first, after SA’s inexplicably embarrassing 13-run loss to the Netherlands and subsequent elimination from the tournament.     

SA’s long, painful history at World Cups and persistent failure to perform in crunch matches ... are they all “stand-alone” events, or is there a common thread there, head coach Mark Boucher was asked.    

“I think each one is an individual event. I know there’s a lot of history at World Cups ... but at the last [T20] World Cup we lost one game and got knocked out. If you had said to us we’ve got the Netherlands to play to get into the semifinal, and we’ve got to beat them, we would have taken that at the start of the tournament,” Boucher said, perhaps trying to convince himself but not doing so with his small audience.    

Two minutes later the same question was rephrased by a different journalist.    

“I think it does start playing in your head a bit, that’s just natural,” Boucher said, U-turning, before quickly correcting the steering wheel. “But I don’t think that’s been the case of late. We’ve played in some tight games in World Cups, and we’ve actually won them. Usually, in the past, we’ve tended to lose those games. We were never really in this game today, to be fair.”    

Never in the game. He’s right. One of the favourites for the title needing to beat the lowest-ranked team in the tournament, and one of the lowest-ranked ever to qualify for a World Cup, and they were “never in the game”.   

The first question Boucher was asked was, “Where did it all go wrong?” His answer was a bleak attempt at gallows humour but many a truth is spoken in jest. “When we woke up,” he said, wincing.    

Two of the Dutch bowlers were sitting in the team change room at the Adelaide Oval at the start of their team’s innings, rather than in the dugout next to the field. They were watching the game on television rather than clutter the nervous energy of their batsmen in the dugout. It’s normal behaviour in T20 cricket.    

After four overs, with their openers having reached a startling 33/0, one turned to the other with an incredulous look and said: “What’s wrong with their guys? Looks like they haven’t turned up.” Ironically but understandably, Boucher used a similar phrase after the match: “We just didn’t rock up today,” he said.   

He wondered out loud whether it may have had something to do with the early start. It was the only game in the entire tournament schedule to start at 10.30am rather then 2pm or 7pm. After a month of leisurely mornings and late breakfasts, body clocks were undoubtedly a little out of kilter on match day but nobody, certainly not Boucher or captain Temba Bavuma, was blaming that.    

The schedule was noted before the tournament started, however, and questions were asked about why SA was given the only early start for their final group game when semifinal places were at stake. Early starts, especially in early and late season, tend to produce more surprise results than later games. But if the start time did have an effect, it was in the players’ heads.    

The opposition weren’t the only ones to notice that something was “wrong” with Bavuma’s team. It was obvious to several people in the small crowd. The bowling (apart from Anrich Nortjé) was tepid, the fielding insipid and the batting tentative.    

Psychologists and sociologists have studied the phenomenon of “learned communal behaviour” for centuries. It pertains to societal inheritance, young generations learning patterns of behaviour from their predecessors. It doesn’t normally pertain to sports teams, but it seems abundantly obvious that it does to the Proteas.    

Choking is about thinking too much, panic is about thinking too little. Choking is about the loss of instinct and panic is reverting to instinct. The sporting phenomenon which afflicted the Proteas on Sunday, however, could best be described as “freezing” — an immobility, or lack of mobility, caused by stress.    

Cricket SA director cricket Enoch Nkwe said: “The reality is that the team did not perform to expectations, which occasioned this disappointing outcome. It is our duty to regroup and rebuild based on our glaring shortcomings.”     

Cricket SA CEO Pholetsi Moseki said: “Our focus should be rebuilding the team for future success. Lessons learnt from this experience will be inculcated into strategies to redeem from the weaknesses and build a formidable attack in future.”     

There is much that can be done to help. Issuing gobbledegook statements in jargonese may not be top of the priority list.