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South Africa and its tale of World Cup chokes!

South Africa is facing Australia in the 2nd Semi-Final of the ICC World Cup 2023 and they are struggling big time here. 8 runs 2 wickets down in 7 overs??
Not a good start. Will they choke again today?
 
Bavuma with that legendary Duck ensure his name will be etched in SA history as a perennial Choker
 
Some things never change, and we have witnessed it again today. South Africa is almost out of the ICC ODI World Cup 2023
 
They choked when they decided to select on quota and play with 10 players as soon as they took Bavuma aka Southern African Shan Masood.
 
another world cup semi final for south africa and another same story of chocking at the wrong moment.

Sad ending of the promising start by South Africa in this world cup.
 
Personally if they didn’t have a history of choking, I wouldn’t call this particular match a choke. The pitch was very tough up front, they found a way to keep themselves in the game and also fought back well with the bat.

They went out fighting today.
 
This match met several requirements of a choke. 46 dot balls in 60 balls like they bat on Headinglye pitch against peak Anderson and Stuart broad. Absolutely no effort to disturb the line and length. They were crease bound going neither forward nor backward stuck on crease simply poking flashing at the ball. All the warning signs were there.
 
TheSultan said:
Personally if they didn’t have a history of choking, I wouldn’t call this particular match a choke. The pitch was very tough up front, they found a way to keep themselves in the game and also fought back well with the bat.

They went out fighting today.
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If it wasn't for the catch drops I wouldn't call it a choke.
 
TheSultan said:
Good point about the drops - de kock looks and acts like a worrisome choker and he made quite a few mistakes
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Quinton is always an issue.

He's been the problem for 10 years in cups now. Despite being a 🔥 player in group stages he aways shuts down in important games
 
They came into the tournament with very little chance of winning the cup but did well.

Played a good brand of cricket.

Nortje missing also, but I'm not convinced about Bavuma as skipper.
 
Sunny Gavaskar predicted SA could be a surprise team before WC started.
But SA didn’t surprise at the end.
 
This was not a choke - South Africa were out of it from the word go and never really looked like winning.
 
Another one to add to a rich choke history.

Even if the pitch wasn't straightforward to bat on, they should have done better given their bat first record. Instead they lost 4 early. Got momentum back with klaasen but he missed a simple one, and needed Miller (the only one that didn't choke) to drag them huffing and puffing past 200.

Took until the 7th over to bring in spin on a pitch they saw was slow, which by then the aussies had already blasted 60. They got back into the game but then proceeded to get butterfingers and drop so many chances.

MenInG said:
This was not a choke - South Africa were out of it from the word go and never really looked like winning.
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They had their chances to win, they didn't take them.
 
I was expecting Markram to open along with Rabada.They have done it against India on a slow pitch in SA.They are not even bouncing out Head,then what's the purpose of bowling with fast bowlers. They may have brought shamsi after 10 overs straight away again delayed (coetzee's over)and got a phainta for 15 runs unnecessarily. There was no slip for smith and decock dropped a catch although its tough for him,slip may have got it.They have not tried Markram when Smith and Inglis were going good instead sticking with fast bowlers. Most importantly Bavuma should not have played faking injury for the team.
 
There you go, SA cricket going in circles from Edgbaston to Barbados another horror story written , 30 req of 30 with 6 wickets and both set batsmen yet SA conspire against themselves to bring back the ghost, Donald, Klusener might be having a breather tonight they are not alone, SA and its list of WC chokes took a new turn and as Mbungwa said " SA have suffered & suffered"
 
biggest choke indeed, 30 off 30 with 6 wickets in hand.. that choke job was right out of Pakistan’s book as they did v India chasing 120. But SA actually played aggressive throughout, and when they needed calm heads with only 5 overs to go they bottled it big time. This loss will hurt for a long time.
 
Outrageous choke. This is extreme choking even by SA's standard. LOL.

They needed 27 off 28. 6 wickets in hand.
 
Combination of choke and lack of resources. When you expose your tailenders at Barbados wicket against seamers like Bumrah, Arshdeep you have to expect the unexpected. They have to restructure their team. It is a good team that relies on perfect games. Cannot afford to make any mistakes. I said before the start of the match. If there is one area of weakness it is their lack of batting depth that India should target. Boy did they target or what.
 
Fans are talking about SA long tail.

They needed 30 off 30 with 6 wickets in hand, they didn't need to take risks and lose wickets. Just pick up singles and odd boundary. School boy stuff from SA
 
Amjid Javed said:
Fans are talking about SA long tail.

They needed 30 off 30 with 6 wickets in hand, they didn't need to take risks and lose wickets. Just pick up singles and odd boundary. School boy stuff from SA
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Maharaj was ridiculous with the bat. Scored like 2 off 6. That increased RRR.

They should've sent in Rabada who could hit better.
 
Amjid Javed said:
Fans are talking about SA long tail.

They needed 30 off 30 with 6 wickets in hand, they didn't need to take risks and lose wickets. Just pick up singles and odd boundary. School boy stuff from SA
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30 of 30 with 2 Bumrah overs.. you forgot that little fact.
 
Amjid Javed said:
Fans are talking about SA long tail.

They needed 30 off 30 with 6 wickets in hand, they didn't need to take risks and lose wickets. Just pick up singles and odd boundary. School boy stuff from SA
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Run a ball is generally not hard but Bumrah changed the momemtum with two gun overs. It's not as if others have found it easy to score run a ball against Bumrah. His ER is 4 in tire WC. Over all agree that SA should have won from that stage. I also backed SA to win, but there was some brilliant bowling and brilliant catch with tails exposed.
 
If India did not play 3 spinners but played 4 seamers SA would have been demolished. They were lucky that India with 3 spinners all of them conceded 106 runs in 9 overs. Seamers conceded 63 runs in 11 overs. This is a seamers wicket.
 
Buffet said:
Run a ball is generally not hard but Bumrah changed the momemtum with two gun overs. It's not as if others have found it easy to score run a ball against Bumrah. His ER is 4 in tire WC. Over all agree that SA should have won from that stage. I also backed SA to win, but there was some brilliant bowling and brilliant catch with tails exposed.
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SA played brainless cricket, they should have looked to get a minimum single of each ball. Instead they ate up dot balls looking for big shots when it wasn't needed. Sending maharaj at 8 was plain dumb, shud have sent rabhada in.
 
jnaveen1980 said:
If India did not play 3 spinners but played 4 seamers SA would have been demolished. They were lucky that India with 3 spinners all of them conceded 106 runs in 9 overs. Seamers conceded 63 runs in 11 overs. This is a seamers wicket.
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And Jansen went for 49 in his 4 overs on this pitch.

He is an average T20 cricketer, and should never be trusted to open the bowling aswell as bat at number 6.
 
Well we could call it a choke, but honestly RSA suffered from not having batting depth. Jansen himself is a bowler who can hit a few shots, nothing more.

Moreover, it was bowlers of the quality of Bumrah that turned the game on it's head. Those two overs of Bumrah changed the game. Tell me any other bowler who could have done that?
 
Usman Chadda said:
And Jansen went for 49 in his 4 overs on this pitch.

He is an average T20 cricketer, and should never be trusted to open the bowling aswell as bat at number 6.
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He is a guy who could not defend 25 runs in the last over in the IPL against Rashid khan. He is always a hit or miss bowler
 
Another thing, had WI defeated RSA they could have been knocked out in Super 8 stage due to chocking against USA which went unnoticed.
 
Should stay strong CT 2025 , 2026 T20 WC , 2027 WC coming up so still they can get over the line in one of the event like England did after 2016 WT20/2017 CT debacle.
 
p
jnaveen1980 said:
If India did not play 3 spinners but played 4 seamers SA would have been demolished. They were lucky that India with 3 spinners all of them conceded 106 runs in 9 overs. Seamers conceded 63 runs in 11 overs. This is a seamers wicket.
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pitch looked absolute flat. and i called it during innings break that Bumrah’s overs will make final difference and it was the case. at the back end ball started to reverse a bit which helped India’s cause. the ball that klaasen got out was pretty much harmless. so India defending 30 off 30 with miller and klassen on the crease is nothing short of miracle. after 10 years looking back when Indians will watch the highlights , they will feel proud of themselves
 
This will be hard to swallow. After klaasen gave Axar a hammering, even I thought they can’t mess this up. Bit naive of Klaasen to lose concentration straight after a break. However, he had set the game up, all it required was a finish. Run a ball.

I don’t know if they can come back from this.
 
Miller officially joins the South African chokers club. He tried hard last Word Cup not to join but these last two knockout games, he has sealed his fate as well.
 
It would be interesting to run Monte Carlo simulation to see from how many different positions RSA can choke. How about 15 off 15 with 4 wickets in hand in a KO game?
 
TheSultan said:
This will be hard to swallow. After klaasen gave Axar a hammering, even I thought they can’t mess this up. Bit naive of Klaasen to lose concentration straight after a break. However, he had set the game up, all it required was a finish. Run a ball.

I don’t know if they can come back from this.
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Pant showed Gulbaddin how to do good acting
 
oatmeal said:
Rizwan acting is never for the team. It's always his personal PR campaign and it's always cramps or hamstring 😁
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That’s the stupidity of it all. You can play act and do some gamesmanship sure, I’m all for it within reason, but that buffoon does it for no reason whatsoever! He started play acting when his own team had the momentum!
 
oatmeal said:
Rizwan acting is never for the team. It's always his personal PR campaign and it's always cramps or hamstring 😁
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Unlike Gulbadin's acting which was dumb and obvious, Rizwan's acting came in a high-pressure runchase in hot and humid conditions, where he used that acting to bide time, break down momentum and ultimately seal the highest successful runchase ever in a WC match.
 
South Africa usually struggle when they get into the 30-40 runs remaining territory zone. There is a clear weakness of lack of clarity in their game which exposes continuously in these final overs.
 
RedwoodOriginal said:
Unlike Gulbadin's acting which was dumb and obvious, Rizwan's acting came in a high-pressure runchase in hot and humid conditions, where he used that acting to bide time, break down momentum and ultimately seal the highest successful runchase ever in a WC match.
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The momentum was with Pakistan in that game. As I said it was utterly stupid. He just hit a six and went down like a sniper got him. Talk about killing your own momentum
 
TheSultan said:
The momentum was with Pakistan in that game. As I said it was utterly stupid. He just hit a six and went down like a sniper got him. Talk about killing your own momentum
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I don't think you were batting out there so you have no idea of how hot and humid it was or how much he needed that time to just think and breathe. It was a smart bit of thinking that not everyone would have known about if he hadn't spilled the beans in the post-match. Ultimately, he played one of the greatest innings by a Pak batter in ODIs and won us the match so I don't see what the big problem is.
 
South Africa have died alot of deaths in WCs as a team. But this might be one of the hardest ones for their fans to take, that is on par with 1999. Feel bad for South African fans. I can't imagine how it must feel like to come this close only for your team to meltdown in this fashion. Now their new generation of players has their own fresh trauma that they will carry into ICC tournaments in the future. 2023 you could argue they were a bit unlucky. This was as bad of a choke as you will ever see.
 
Another chapter added to the choking saga
Klaasen was batting so well and then chased at probably the widest delivery he faced all day, that was the moment it all changed
 
Cricket Warrior said:
That was an ultimate choke by SA which will be remebered for many years
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The thing is it's not limited to SA in this world cup. Quite a few number of teams choked when it was relatively easy to win. Pak losing against India, BD losing against SA, Eng losing vs SA in the penultimate over from winning positions. I'd credit to teams keeping composure and excelling in defensive bowling.
 
Ab Fan said:
South Africa usually struggle when they get into the 30-40 runs remaining territory zone. There is a clear weakness of lack of clarity in their game which exposes continuously in these final overs.
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You need a tall batting order to win hig games. SA probably has the longest tail among big teams. Teams get into these lower order with 20 to.30 runs remaining and they typically falter. SA needs those all rounders as they did in the 90s
 
Poor SA they just can't ever get over the winning line. It's a mentality thing with them it seems that they keep failing at the last hurdle. To support them I'd say with the likes of Bumrah coming at you and fielders taking catches like superman their is always a chance of losing from nowhere. At one stage it was 80% they'd win then Bumrah comes on and rattles the wood a few times. At least they gave India a tough fight unlike our losers.
 
Once again, SA established the fact that they are the chokers, THE REAL CHOKERS.

The situation they were in, they should have won that game but Choker mentality prevailed.
 
Another thing, since momentum is very important in T20, ICC need to start introducing a rule where you can't take unnecessary breaks just to disrupt momentum.
 
rhony said:
You need a tall batting order to win hig games. SA probably has the longest tail among big teams. Teams get into these lower order with 20 to.30 runs remaining and they typically falter. SA needs those all rounders as they did in the 90s
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You don't need tall batting order in T20. RSA top 5 is better than many team playing 9 batsmen.
 
They were 98% winning at 27 needed of 28 balls with 6 wickets in hands. I don't care how much of a genius Bumrah is, they still had other bowlers to score these runs off. A choke indeed.
 
Hikaru said:
They were 98% winning with 27 needed of 28 balls with 6 wickets in hands. I don't care how much of a genius Bumrah is, they still had other bowlers to score these runs off. A choke indeed.
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They couldn’t score against pacers in the start , they couldn’t against them in the end.

The only bowlers they scored against- Spinners
 
Hikaru said:
They were 98% winning at 27 needed of 28 balls with 6 wickets in hands. I don't care how much of a genius Bumrah is, they still had other bowlers to score these runs off. A choke indeed.
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RSA was aware of its weaknesses during the match. They did asses the situation correctly. Much better than India I must say.

They were aware that they cant extract much runs from the pacers. So whatever they do, they will have to do against the spinners. The pacers hold the key which RSA knew but Rohit trusted his spinners way too much.

Once the pacers are back RSA went in to a shell. Not because they choked but because they couldn't maintain it even earlier when they had wickets in hand.

I wouldn't call it choke though. They had a big hole to cover, they knew it, tried to cover it.

Rohit accidentally (and delayed) made the right choice.

It was different from chokes of RSA from before. I don't think klassen would have made a difference if pacers were bowling in the middle overs.
 
South Africa has a very long tail with Jansen in at 7. It was always on the cards and India knew it. The only thing they will be gutted about was Klaasen getting out to Hardik and that wasn't a good ball either. Once that happened, it was anyone's game.
 
Itachi said:
RSA was aware of its weaknesses during the match. They did asses the situation correctly. Much better than India I must say.

They were aware that they cant extract much runs from the pacers. So whatever they do, they will have to do against the spinners. The pacers hold the key which RSA knew but Rohit trusted his spinners way too much.

Once the pacers are back RSA went in to a shell. Not because they choked but because they couldn't maintain it even earlier when they had wickets in hand.

I wouldn't call it choke though. They had a big hole to cover, they knew it, tried to cover it.

Rohit accidentally (and delayed) made the right choice.

It was different from chokes of RSA from before. I don't think klassen would have made a difference if pacers were bowling in the middle overs.
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Let's be honest, in the hindsight we can say all this, but final 5 overs, we knew it was all over. Even Rohit's body language suggested it was over. If someone played Doctor Strange here, South Africa would win the situation 80% of the times at worst.
 
South Africa choked big time. They were in control when Klassen was there. Run-a-ball was required but then klassen played a foolish shot and gifted his wicket away. then Indian bowlers bowled brilliantly to further strengthen the choke and end up beating them in the end.
 
BDfanforever said:
You don't need tall batting order in T20. RSA top 5 is better than many team playing 9 batsmen.
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You need depth in batting. Jansen is playing at 7 and that spot is too high for him. Once he got out Miller became cautious. Maharaj couldn't even rotate. This hurt SA throughout the world cup even though they won those close games.
 
Hikaru said:
Let's be honest, in the hindsight we can say all this, but final 5 overs, we knew it was all over. Even Rohit's body language suggested it was over. If someone played Doctor Strange here, South Africa would win the situation 80% of the times at worst.
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See it from RSA perspective, not Indian. You'll realize how RSA team was approaching the game.
 
SA will rue this opportunity for a very long time , this was in their bags, Klassen just killed all momentum for India add to it that was run a ball requited, surely India had luck on their side otherwise 9 out of 10 Times chasing team would had won.

Don't know SA cricket and fans will take this , quite a setback it is
 
I said to my faily as we watched Klaasen and Miller's partnership grow dramatically, behind these guys SA have nothing. They all looked at me weirdly. I knew one if not both of them had to be at the end.

That said even when Klaasen was out, SA still should have coasted home but the innings from Keeshav Maharaj was an awful innnings. He piled so much pressure on Miller. Maharaj did what Imad did for us against them. The inability to just get bat on ball and run, this is what cost them in the end.
 
bones said:
I said to my faily as we watched Klaasen and Miller's partnership grow dramatically, behind these guys SA have nothing. They all looked at me weirdly. I knew one if not both of them had to be at the end.

That said even when Klaasen was out, SA still should have coasted home but the innings from Keeshav Maharaj was an awful innnings. He piled so much pressure on Miller. Maharaj did what Imad did for us against them. The inability to just get bat on ball and run, this is what cost them in the end.
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Maharaj scored like 2 off 6 at one point. That dramatically increased the RRR. They should've sent in Rabada maybe (Rabada can slog better).
 
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