Can Somebody Please Break the Spell of Choking!

Yet again South Africa managed to choke in a knock-out game. Recently on such occasions, the standard excuse has become that this particular loss was not a choke, South Africa either competed all the way to the end (the 2015 World Cup semi-final loss to New Zealand), or it was the pressure from their own fans (the 2011 World Cup quarter-final against New Zealand) or simply had a moment of complete team-wide lobotomy (the 2007 World Cup semi-final loss to Australia). On and on. But today was different. Future editions of the Oxford English dictionary will have a copy of Sunday’s scorecard next to the word choke.

For all that, Cricket South Africa (CSA) is unlikely to change its response to the latest setback. CSA is likely to express full faith in coach and captain, regardless of the fact that both may soon be replaced. No need for any rush to judgement, you see. All very stiff upper lip and all that. You’d swear South Africa was still a British colony. And proud of it.

There is an old joke: the beatings will continue until morale improves. The Protea version would be: the choking will continue until CSA acknowledges it. Better start preparing for the next spectacular choke… On a more personal note, one wonders: is AB de Villiers simply going to spend the next two years in denial, and set himself up for heart-breaking disappointment at the 2019 World Cup? Is he going to be expecting any sympathy at the point?

Of course, acknowledging that there is a problem is just step one. The more interesting question is what has South Africa been doing wrong for the past 25 years to get themselves trapped in an endless cycle of choking? As ever, there is no single reason for such an extended period of failure. Political interference is one. Depressingly for Protea fans it’s not going away anytime soon.

Selection is another. How Wayne Parnell earned yet another recall to the team is a mystery. To their credit, the selectors corrected that mistake before the game against India. But it meant that Andile Phehlukwayo had to step into a key game cold, with no recent game experience. In the 2011 World Cup semi-final against New Zealand, of course, political interference meant that Vernon Philander was forced in cold. The selectors, though, must accept responsibility for side-lining a white-hot Kyle Abbott. They certainly had options. Morné Morkel’s form at the time was nowhere near what he is capable of. More fundamentally, this was a chance to correct their tournament-long insistence on selecting one batman too many and one bowler too few. Alas, the selectors were apparently having a grand old time in Australasia , and weren’t going to interrupt that with some real work.

But the main recent problem for South Africa is something South African batting coach Neil McKenzie mentioned in an interview reported by Firdose Moonda two days before the game. The coaches were trying to keep the players calm and confident before the game. The mere mention of trying to keep the players calm hinted at serious trouble. Such negative instructions (“Don’t panic!”) work just as well as: “Quick! Don’t think of a white rose. I said DON’T…!” Unsurprisingly the coaches failed in spectacular fashion, as witnessed by the hesitant running between the wickets on Sunday, when apart from three runouts, no less than three additional runout chances were created. Imagine the Indians had taken all of them. But as disturbing as that is, it’s not the main problem.

McKenzie mentioned a blueprint. A blueprint is something you use to ensure a complex protect is completed successfully. It is, per definition, an explicit admission that the complexity of the project exceeds the ability of the builders to figure things out as they proceed. It is also implied that the project can be planned ahead of time with a high degree of certainty. Follow the blueprints exactly, and you can be reasonably confident of a successful project. The only problem is a construction project is nothing like a game of cricket. Or any sport for that matter.

The point is not that planning doesn’t have a place in sports – obviously, planning isn’t going anywhere. Rather, the point is that plans must by definition remain fluid, since the progress of the game cannot be predicted. Blueprints printed even five minutes before the toss is of little value. Ultimately the players must own the plans. And have the authority to adjust as necessary.

This has not been the South African approach, though. In the embarrassment that followed the tour of India in 2000, CSA embraced captains who don’t bother to think for themselves, exemplified in different ways by both Shaun Pollock and Graeme Smith. AB de Villiers started his international career under Smith’s captaincy and seems to strictly adhere to the don’t-bother-me-with-ideas-while-I’m following-orders approach to captaincy.

In fairness to CSA, the coaches and messrs. Pollock, Smith and De Villiers, the brain-dead blueprint approach actually works great in regular season games. In those regular games, a disciplined team, following a well-worn, even deeply flawed plan beats the team playing a more spontaneous game more often than not. That’s because the spontaneous team just show up, play their natural game and find themselves surprised by the discipline and application of the blueprint-holders. If the Proteas want to be no more than the No. 1 rated team in the world, this approach works fine. There is no scandal in being the Dutch football team of cricket. Just perpetual heartbreak for the fans at every, single World Cup. Not to mention the Championship Trophy. Or the World Twenty20.

Knockout games are different, though. Now your opponents bother to do their homework. They check on how it is you’ve risen to No. 1. If you happen to be following a very basic blueprint (wink, wink) they notice. They start thinking about a counterstrategy. They notice, say, that your top order get to putter along through the first 40 overs, with no sense of urgency, they know they can get 40 overs out of anybody, as long as they keep two decent bowlers for the final 10. They know to look for the moment you try to accelerate, and that this is a key opportunity to take a couple of quick wickets, and send the blueprint up in smoke.

McKenzie stated that “We've tried to emphasise that our blueprint is good enough to beat any side. Our game plan is good enough to beat any side. It's making sure we can execute that." Allow me to object to the statement in the strongest terms.

In some ways, the Proteas have been blessed with lower order batsmen who bailed out an irresponsible top order in game after game, year after year, World Cup after World Cup. Notice, for example that in the 1999 World Cup, arguably South Africa’s highwater mark in World Cups, Lance Kliusener batted himself to the Man of the Tournament award, coming in at No. 9. After Biff and CSA, incredible and scarcely believably, subjected Klusener, to even more abuse, the mantle was picked up by Justin Kemp. Then Albie Morkel. Lately David Miller, Chris Morris and Phehlukwayo have all showed some ability to bail out the reckless and feckless top order. Make no mistake – it’s great to have the lower order that can bail you out on occasion, if the top order fails, as will happen from time to time. But when that lower order bailout becomes part of your game plan, your much ballyhooed blueprint, you are courting disaster.

Consider Game 2 of the warmup series against England. South Africa was chasing a fairly challenging 331, slightly more than a-run-a-ball. At one point Quinton de Kock and De Villiers were batting together, one approaching his century, the other his half. Given that those two are the most explosive batsmen in the South African top order, you’d expect them to be lifting the South African run rate to well above the required rate. Not so. Batting to McKenzie’s blueprint they seemed happy to putter along aimlessly. At the start of the over that Faf du Plessis got out the SA run rate was 5.81, at the start of the over De Villiers got out it was 5.84. In those 23 overs the required rate swelled from 7.0 to 8.0. What is the point of having two of your best batsmen bat out almost half the overs, if they are simply going to leave the real work for the lower order?

Little wonder then that South Africa eventually lost the game. True to form, Miller and Morris got South Africa to a very achievable 10 runs required from 10 deliveries. But any disciplined attack can stitch together 10 good deliveries, especially those that, unlike the South African bowling blueprint, use the occasional Yorker to keep the batsmen honest.

More to the point: in the pressure cooker of must-win games, the top order procrastination causes lower order panic, as any procrastinator well knows. We’ve seen that movie, repeatedly, and no matter how many times you watch it, the end is never going to change. It’s only CSA and AB de Villiers who seem to believe if we did the same thing again, the result next time will be different.

And we have not even mentioned rain yet. Think about it: McKenzie’s blueprint all but guarantees that if rain interrupts the South African innings, when chasing, they will be behind whatever target the Duckworth-Lewis formula produces. Instead of providing a workable plan for winning, the blueprint all but guarantees failure.
Finally, there are other random bits of brain fade in the Protea batting approach, such as their tendency to default to sweep shots against spinners, which isn’t clear if it is part of the blueprint or simply bad habits that refuse to go away. The disappointing thing from a fan’s point of view is how many of these persist for decades, many going back all the way to readmission.

The best example of how to respond to pressure comes from the 1999 World Cup, where Australia found itself with its collective back against the wall, needing to win every single game to survive in the competition, after losing to New Zealand and Pakistan in the first round. The captain, Steve Waugh, responded by saying: “Cometh the hour, cometh McGraw.” It would take a full column to do justice to the strategic genius contained in that short statement. Suffice to say that by calling on his main strike bowler, Waugh was focussing the attention to the batting and fielding effort, where the pressure is shared among eleven individuals. Waugh understood that every delivery starts with the bowler taking the initiative. No surprise then that the Australians won the next seven games on the trot to claim the cup.

Compare that to the South African bowling and fielding effort on Sunday, when it was treated as an afterthought, an unpleasant task that had to be completed by a bunch of uninterested schoolboys before they would finally be allowed to go home.

It wasn’t always thus. Back in the day when South African teams had the strategic nous to match any team, Hansie Cronjé twice defended scores of less than 150. Due apologies to CSA for bringing up the name they have spent the better part of twenty years trying to scrub out of the cricket history of the beloved country. The point is, unlike what we saw on Sunday, it CAN be done. It takes some determination and clear thinking. Both appear to be in short supply in the current Protea team.

Nobel Prize winner Anatole France once remarked: “To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.” The Proteas are so busy with the acting and the planning that they are leaving the dream to die on the vine and stamping out what remains of the believing.

It is time to tear up the blueprint and release the inner genius of our batsmen. Sure, they are prone to make mistakes. They may also learn how to recover. The blueprint destroyed the careers of some of our best batsmen, including Herschelle Gibbs and Lance Klusener. Both proven matchwinners, as it happens. The blueprint is once again threatening the careers of Quinton de Kock, David Miller and Chris Morris. It’s time to set them all free and see what they are made of. Collectively, they may just repay such faith with a trophy.

And let’s have a captain who engages his brain when he decides who should bowl the next few overs as the rain clouds build in the background.