South Africa have been installed as favourites to win the World Cup, but the squad is determined not to let this affect their performances. Neil Manthorp reports
The belief that the World Cup can be won is tangible, especially after the 15-man squad get-together in Swellendam that was disguised as a “fun, bonding” weekend but in fact enjoyed a loftier status as a weekend of planning, talking and preparing. Many topics were discussed, not the least of which was the team’s status as favourites.
“We can’t hide from it and we aren’t interested in ignoring it, or trying to deny it,” Allan Donald said a couple of days ago while the squad concluded their preparations at Newlands in Cape Town. “If we have been installed as favourites then so be it. I honestly believe the tag won’t unsettle anybody and it shouldn’t affect anyone’s attitude or performance.”
In fact, the team ethos has gone a stage further than acceptance. It’s now, almost, a welcome acceptance. “Yes, we’ll take it. We talked about it and decided that, OK, we will prepare ourselves as favourites, we will play as favourites and we will try to win as favourites. If we’re good enough to be tipped to win, then let’s prove them right,” Donald said.
The attitude is infectious. For several months now there has been legitimate concern that the team has been too “hyper” in the build-up to the tournament; that, perhaps, they would burn themselves out with nervous tension and be drained by the time the real cricket actually started. The weekend of talking in Swellendam, combined as it was with abseiling, white water rafting and a bit of braaing, seems to have crushed the “fear factor” and channelled those loose nerves into a hard, fierce determination.
“We looked at the schedule and discussed it at length. We also talked about the other teams, of course, but there doesn’t seem to be much point in picking out favourites or trying to identify `easy’ matches. I mean, how many teams are going to be pushovers in a World Cup? It’s the biggest tournament of their lives. Maybe Scotland might not be so sharp, but they’re not in our group!
“Our first three matches are all World Cup finals. India, on a good batting pitch [Hove], followed by Sri Lanka [Northampton] and then England at the Oval. We have to win those matches if we want to gain momentum and make sure of a really good placing in the Super Six stage.”
Without exception, every international one- day team plays their best cricket when they have established a domination and are able, in the modern vernacular, to “express themselves” by playing with more freedom and less inhibition. In other words, concentrating on a spactacular kill rather than trying to stay alive yourself.
The way this World Cup is organised, with points from the five qualifying matches being carried through to the Super Six stage, a team arriving in the last six with a maximum of six points (points gained against non-qualifiers are discarded) will be hard pressed not to qualify for a semi- final, even if they lose two out of three Super Six matches. That’s why those first three matches are so crucial; if they produce six points then the team can relax, hopefully crush Kenya and beat Zimbabwe in the fourth and fifth matches and create such momentum that a semi- final against the fourth best team from the top six is the result. Then it’s just two matches to nirvana …
Donald predicted that the same starting XI will do the bulk of the work. “I think Hansie is pretty settled on the starting line-up that he prefers and the plan will probably be to stick to that team for all 10 matches. It depends on success, of course. There’s no point in sticking to a losing team and there’s certainly no point in being loyal to someone who’s lost form. The other four members of the squad are very, very good players. But if things go well, and we’re winning, then I believe it’s the right thing to have continuity,” Donald said, while confirming that his troublesome stomach muscle tear was “80 to 85% fixed” and that he was “totally confident there won’t be any more problems from it”.
In recent years Cronje has adopted a clever attitude to the weight of expectation heaped on him and his team by a South African public that is immovable in its demands for success and, sometimes, petulant when it doesn’t get it.
Donald said: “Hansie asked us in Swellendam how we would feel if our supporters just expected us to win a couple of matches … just try not to be humiliated. What would you rather have, 99 out of 100 people expecting – even demanding – that you win the cup, or everyone just saying, `Well, have a nice time and don’t forget to send a postcard’?
“Yes, it can be pretty daunting when you see the look in people’s eyes and it is a look of absolute belief that we will win, total belief in our ability. But it is our record over the last couple of years that has made them believe that, so why can’t we go out there and live up to it?”
Donald on Cronje
“He isn’t the only one who desperately wants to win it. He said as far back as 1995 that it was one of his major ambitions but we all feel the same. There is a group of five in the team that feel, rightly or wrongly, that this is our last chance. Me, Hansie, Gary [Kirsten], Daryll [Cullinan] and Jonty [Rhodes] don’t think we’ll be around in four years’ time so it’s now or never for us. That’s a strong motivating factor.
“The only way that such a strong desire to win can detract from the team is if an individual becomes over-focused on that desire and forgets to do his job on the field. That certainly won’t happen to Hansie and it won’t happen to anyone else. I’m confident of that.
“Hansie is immensely important. He’s the man that has controlled team performances for over four years now, and he is the most important part of a unit that has grown into something very special in his time. A lot of people look up to him and respect him very, very much … and not just in his team but around the world. We all see that. Seriously, I think he’s the leader of leaders in world cricket at the moment.
“He can be very intense, and I think he’s admitted that sometimes he can be a little too intense. Maybe he’s shown his emotions too much, not on the field but sometimes in the dressing room! But, the pressures of captaincy are something we can only guess at. Most of us have seen what Hansie has to do in his job, at all hours of the day and, I promise you, not only do we hope he carries on forever, but our respect for him doubles every season.
“Having said that, he’s so much more relaxed than he used to be and he’s learned that we follow his example. Given his quality as a player, we look to him set the tone on the field; when he’s relaxed, we are relaxed, and everyone knows a relaxed team plays better than a tense one.”
Rhodes
“I told the guys after I landed that I’d caught it in two fingers but they didn’t believe me. They just laughed and said, `Yeah, yeah, sure, Jo!”
But, as the picture has shown millions since, it was true. Jonty Rhodes’s “impossible catch” had just challenged his own place in cricketing history as the subject of the most dramatic outfield photograph ever taken.
The sponsors of the three-nation tournament in England last year, where the second picture was taken, also happen to be one of the World Cup’s most prominent sponsors this year. They were ecstatic when they saw that Rhodes had leapt between the words “Fly” and “Emirates” on a distant but clearly visible advertising hoarding. (Rhodes’s team mates may wish he’d dived somewhere else. They are compelled to fly to London on Sunday via Dubai …)
But it was a marketeer’s dream, and for the second successive World Cup, Rhodes became central to marketing strategies throughout the cricket playing world. (Remember the 1992 diving run-out of Inzimam-ul-Haq that was used to promote the 1996 tournament?)
Steve Waugh says: “He’s simply a threat all the time and the whole South African team seem to drop their standards when he’s not around. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that quite a few batsmen around the world are scared of him in the field.”
“You never quite know how things like that happen,” recalls the ever modest Rhodes. “All I can remember is seeing a bit of a blur, diving towards it and then hoping it wouldn’t pop out when I landed; you can see how slippery my grip was …”
Just one more time, Jonty. The stage is yours again.