It wasn’t the script South Africa wanted, but the 2003 World Cup started in the most dramatic fashion at Newlands on Sunday as the West Indies upset the odds to snatch a three-run victory over the host team in the opening game of the tournament.
At one point the West Indies appeared to be cruising to victory after
making 278 for five and reducing South Africa to 204 for seven in the 41st
over. The South Africans had been docked an over for bowling their quota of
50 overs too slowly and with the bulk of the batting back in the dressing
room, the chances of a home victory seemed to have slipped irretrievably
away.
But Lance Klusener, whose heroics earned him the man of the tournament
award in 1999, suddenly exploded after a quiet start. With West Indian
captain Carl Hooper employing spin against the left-hander, Klusener launched
into a succession of massive blows that, unbelievably almost, hauled South
Africa back into the match.
He was fortunate on 31 when Pedro Collins took a catch of Chris Gayle
at deep backward square, but the fielder stepped back one step too far to
touch the boundary rope with his heel and instead of being dismissed Klusener
had his third six off the over.
From peering into the abyss, South Africa were back in it, and they went into the final over of the match needing nine to win with Nicky Boje on strike and Vasbert Drakes bowling. Boje took a single off the first ball, Klusener dug the second into the pitch and back up to Drakes who thought he might have had a catch, but the third ball flew high down to cow corner where Hooper held one of the most vital catches of his career.
Klusener was out for 57 off 48 balls. He had hit five sixes and a four, but, as was the case in the 1999 semi-final at Edgbaston, his efforts just weren’t quite enough for South Africa. Makhaya Ntini swung at missed at one, then got himself caught on the extras cover boundary and although Boje hit the last ball of the innings for four, the West Indies had won.
The sheer excitement of the final stages of the South African innings overshadowed the key performance of the game — a quite magnificent 116
from Brian Lara that enabled the West Indies to reach 278 for five.
South Africa and the West Indies have only met three times in World Cup matches, but twice now Lara has made a meal of the South African bowling. In Karachi in 1996 his 111 carried the West Indies through to the semi-finals.
At Newlands on Sunday he was once again in irresistible form. He was missed at second slip off the first ball he faced — a near-impossible chance to Jacques Kallis off Makhaya Ntini — but thereafter he played an innings that might well set the tone for this World Cup.
Lara has not played international cricket since he took a century off Kenya during the ICC Champions Trophy in Sri Lanka last September. He was taken ill with a virus infection during that match, but his return to the international stage befitted a man who holds both the first-class and Test match individual batting records.
Up until his arrival at the crease, it had been a splendid weekend for South Africa.
Saturday’s opening ceremony had been a happy, joyous affair and although the South Africans had lost the toss and had their national anthem murdered by one Deborah Fraser, Shaun Pollock had snatched two quick wickets. The West Indies, wobbling at seven for two, seemed on the verge of disappearing beneath the shadow of Table Mountain.
But Lara’s sheer brilliance set it all up for the West Indians as he Shivnarine Chanderpaul reprised the partnership which played South Africa out of the tournament in 1996. Then they put on 138 for the second wicket.
On Sunday the partnership was worth 102 for the third wicket, but as in 1996, the stand offered substance to the West Indian batting. Chanderpaul’s contribution was 34 — playing second fiddle to Lara is hardly a novelty for him — and it was a calm, assured piece of batting that gradually wrested the initiative away from the home team.
Chanderpaul was followed by Hooper, who made a run-a-ball 40 as the tempo of
the innings quickened, and once he and Lara had finally been dismissed, Ricardo Powell and Ramnaresh Sarwan thrashed about in the closing overs to add 63 off just 28 balls.
It was devastating hitting — Pollock went for 23 off his ninth over — and it stretched the West Indian total from around about par to a figure that proved just beyond South Africa’s reach.
The South Africans started well enough, with Herschelle Gibbs and Gary Kirsten reeling off an opening stand off 46 with no apparent difficulty, but once Gibbs had pushed forward lazily to Mervyn Dillon to be caught off the outside edge, everything started to fall apart.
Boeta Dippenaar got himself in, reached 14 hit Hooper for six and then was beaten completely through the air by , toppling forward to be stumped for 20. Jacques Kallis was another to perish off the outside edge, for 13 off the bowling of Pedro Collins. Jonty Rhodes was bowled off a bottom edge by Hooper cutting against the spin, and Kirsten was caught and bowled off a leading edge by Dillon for a typically resolute 69.
The backbone of the innings had been broken and although Klusener had still to get into his stride, the match was there to be won by the West Indies.
Back in September last year, Dillon bowled a leg side wide off the last ball of the game to gift the south Africans victory, but this time the islanders held their nerve. Only just though.
In some respects, losing their first game may be no bad thing for the South Africans in that they will now have a clearer idea of what they need to do in the coming days. At the same time, though, the West Indians are quite clearly a much better organised and confident team than they have been given credit for and they may well take some stopping now that they have got out of the blocks. And the points they took off the South Africans may well come back to haunt the hosts, assuming both sides reach the Super Six stage.
More cricket in our Cricket World Cup special report