NEIL MANTHORP: Can Proteas snatch victory from the jaws of defeat?

In a cricket world setting fixture precedents weekly, SA staying in India to play an ODI series against an Indian B team while the Indian T20 team flew to Australia for the T20 World Cup set the bar a record high. Or low.    

But the Proteas desperately need the points to qualify automatically for the World Cup back in India next year and face a must-win game in the series decider in Delhi on Tuesday before packing their bags for Sydney. It still seems likely though that they will have to play in the second qualifying tournament in Harare next year alongside Ireland, Scotland, the UAE and the Netherlands. So how did it come to this?       

Just as the World Test Championship is far from perfect with each major nation playing against only six others, three series at home and three away, the Super League was devised with four series at home and four away. It left all 13 teams in the league without fixtures against four other nations.    

There was no science behind who played whom. It was simply a case of which teams were available and then fitting all of the three-match series into an already crammed international schedule. SA were drawn with home series against England, Pakistan, the Netherlands and Bangladesh and away series against Ireland, Sri Lanka, India and Australia. It was seen as “fair” draw with an even spread of major and minor opposition.    

So what went wrong? The answer is a mix of poor luck (if you include rain), questionable decision-making, some truly poor performances and a dose of complacency.    

Their campaign began with a walkout by England which, in hindsight and at the time, was ill-considered. That series has been rescheduled two years later for the end of January 2023.   

The second series was against Pakistan, also at home. Having posted 273/6 in the first game and lost on the final ball, the Proteas bounced back with a monster 341/6 in the second and hung on by their fingernails to win by 17 runs. With 10 critical Super League points at stake in the final game, they bade farewell to Quinton de Kock, Rassie van der Dussen, David Miller, Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortjé and Lungi Ngidi for the decider. They went to the Indian Premier League. SA lost the decider by 28 runs.    

In Ireland, the first game was rained out but in the second the hosts set a target of 290 and SA delivered an insipid run chase which dissolved to 247 all out. De Kock and Janneman Malan bounced back with an opening stand of 225 in the third game to secure a share of the series — and 15 points.    

In Sri Lanka, De Kock was rested for the ODIs. But played the T20Is. If the man needed a break, and doesn’t everyone, the team might have been better off with him playing for Super League points. SA lost a high-scoring game in the series opener, looked like they were regaining form with a 67-run win in the second before being bowled out for just 125 in the third game. Twenty points dropped.    

The first game against the Netherlands was washed out in Centurion 2021 with the second and third rescheduled for March 31 and April 2 next year, the latter will be the annual “Pink Day”. By then the points on offer may be irrelevant.    

A further 20 points were dropped against Bangladesh last season during one of the worst collective ODI performances by a Proteas team in over a decade. Dreadful bowling and clear complacency saw them concede 314 to lose the first game and equally inept batting led to a total of just 154 in the third game which the tourists chased down for the loss of just one wicket. The complacency probably came from the 3-0 sweep against India a month earlier, but that series was outside the Super League.    

The present series against India concludes on Tuesday. While  there is a mathematical chance SA can still claim an automatic place at the World Cup if they lose it, it’s a thin one. It will mean having to beat England 3-0 at the end of January in Bloemfontein and Kimberley just as the inaugural SA20 is reaching the play-off stages.    

And remember, Cricket SA was prepared to forfeit 30 points by not playing the ODI series in Australia in mid-January to ensure their best players were available for the SA20. So, what sort of team will they select to play England? A full-strength one? One that requires Rabada, De Kock, Miller and Heinrich Klaasen to travel to the Free State for a week and miss games for franchise teams which paid more than R4.5m for each of them? Even if they wanted to, it’s unlikely to happen. Very unlikely. The players’ major paymasters will see to that.