It’s hard enough trying to take the cricket World Cup from Australia. The difficulties host South Africa faces are magnified greatly when the pressures of playing in front of a demanding home crowd are added to the mix.
No host nation has ever won the World Cup. While the thought of bucking the odds seems intimidating, South African captain Shaun Pollock points out that records are made to be broken.
”There is no better time do it than now,” he say just three days before the opening game against the West Indies.
”There has been a lot of nervous energy and excitement in our build-up at home. But that is part of the experience which we are relishing, and we will take that energy and excitement with us onto the pitch.”
The hosts are being very careful not to get ahead of themselves in the rush to meet their fans’ expectations of a place in the final and even ultimate victory: ”We are focused on our first game against the West Indies,” says Pollock.
”After that, we will focus on each game as it comes. There is no easy road to winning the World Cup.”
Pollock is going to be one of the key ingredients in South Africa’s bid to do what its rugby team did when it hosted the World Cup in 1995.
He has become the third most experienced one-day international captain in the world behind New Zealand’s Stephen Fleming and Sri Lanka’s Sanath Jayasuriya. He has led South Africa to victory in 54 of the 84 matches in which he has been at the helm, and has grown into the position.
After a shaky start in which he inherited the reins from the discredited Hansie Cronje, he has become progressively more creative and intuitive in the driving seat, making changes when a somewhat formulaic plan seems to be having little success.
Critically, he has not lost his ability as a bowler to squeeze the runs out of a rampant batting line-up, and as a batsman to hit the ball cleanly and to all corners of the ground.
His burgeoning confidence is in part due to the maturing of some of the players around him — notably Herschelle Gibbs, Jacques Kallis and Makhaya Ntini. These three have grown from promising young players into match-winners in any form of the game.
Gibbs has changed from a flighty but prodigiously talented batsman into one who is clearly hungry for runs. He has become willing to curb his impetuosity in favor of a savagely calculated assault which is as exciting as any of his previously outrageous innings as a youngster.
He is as stylish as he is brutal when he gets on top of a bowling attack, and his one-day international record of 3 829 runs in 116 matches at an average of 35,12 is improving all the time. Kallis is widely regarded as the finest all-rounder currently in the game, and such are his abilities, he may be one of the best of his generation.
His career spans 168 one-day internationals, and he has scored 5 902 runs at an average of 44,04, with eight centuries and a highest score of 113 not out. Add that to his 164 wickets at 29,73 and a best haul of five for 30, and his value to South Africa becomes clear.
He has recently turned his bowling into a powerful tool to match his batting prowess and he commands the respect of opponents from all over the world.
Ntini rose through the ranks to become the first black player to represent his country in a multi-racial side. He started his international life as a bustling but somewhat one-dimensional fast bowler, but has matured into one of the most successful strike bowlers in the world.
He has rocketed up the test rankings into the top 10, and, as his one-day international career lengthens, his economy-rate — previously his weakness — is coming down.
His very vocal presence in the field, his irrepressible energy and his aggressive bowling has made him indispensable in the South African game plan.
Add this core of maturing talent to the undoubted qualities, tried and tested, of veterans like fast bowler Allan Donald, acrobatic fielding superstar Jonty Rhodes, batting bludgeon Lance Klusener and record-breaking opening batsman Gary Kirsten, and it is clear South Africa has the talent to win.
When South Africa rose to the top of the somewhat puzzling ICC rankings as a test-playing nation early in January after defeating Pakistan in a home series, the Australians were justified in being derisive of that status.
Australians also point out that they smashed South Africa 5-1 in the last one-day series the two played in South Africa. But that was then. – Sapa-AP
More cricket in our Cricket World Cup special report