Cricket makes atheists of South Africans. They have no faith that their teams will play properly when it matters, a belief buried deep from years of watching them lose important games. It’s not that the fans demand their teams win, just that they don’t crumble under pressure.
That has been too much to ask too many times to mention here. If you want something to believe in, South Africa’s cricket teams aren’t it. Tuesday at Newlands loomed as another opportunity for South Africa to get it wrong: would they overcome the humbled hurdle posed by Bangladesh to reach the women’s T20 World Cup semi-finals?
The South Africans went into the match with a better winning percentage in the format against Bangladesh than against any other opponents they have played more than once. The only match in 10 they had lost to them was in Mirpur in September 2012 – South Africa’s first ever T20I in Asia.
That seems a solid indication that the hosts would do the business.
Indeed, in the same way that the only misfiring flamethrower among the six ranged around the boundary at Newlands was the most noticeable, sending an apologetic puff of grey smoke into the air instead of a barrelling burst of fire, a South Africa loss would be far more prominent than success.
For them to get the job done at the scene of their improbable implosion in the tournament opener against Sri Lanka on February 10, when they dribbled to defeat by three runs chasing just 130, only added to the weight on their shoulders. So did the fact that they would again have to bat second.
But when Bangladesh stumbled to a Richie Benaud – 22/2 – inside the powerplay and eked out 41 runs in the first half of their innings, it seemed the home side had matters well in hand. One catch had gone down in the second over, when Laura Wolvaardt made a hash of Shamima Sultana’s slash to backward point off Shabnim Ismail, but these things happen.
Another was spilled in the 12th, when Tazmin Brits put herself in the perfect position to catch Sobhana Mostary’s heave off Chloe Tryon. Except she didn’t take the catch. Then the last five overs spawned five overthrows. Wolvaardt called it like she saw it: “It was our worst fielding performance of the competition. We need to keep being positive, not hesitating that first moment.”
You could hear the substantial crowd murmuring: was this another case of the infamous jitters we could see before us? Even if it was, surely a target of 114 wouldn’t present too much of a challenge.
Or would it? Wolvaardt had to scramble for the non-striker’s end in the first over of South Africa’s reply after Brits drove Marufa Akter into the covers, set off and changed her mind. Brits tried to drive Nahida Akter over extra cover in the second over, and Mostary dived but dropped the catch. In the third over, the Bangladeshis botched the runout that should have been the result of both batters bolting for the same end. And all that with only eight runs scored.
Brits might have been stumped off Nahida in the ninth and off Fahima Khatun in the 10th, but Shamima’s glovework let her down both times.
South Africa could scrape together only 26 in their powerplay and were just two runs ahead of their opponents halfway through the innings. But, importantly, their openers were still at the crease. And looking like they had finally realised the game was there to be won. Wolvaardt smoked Fahima down the ground for four in the 11th, but it was only in the 16th, when she drove and swept Nahida for consecutive boundaries, that South Africa looked in control of their chase.
Wolvaardt conceded that the home side were not at their best during the first half of their innings: “We made it look a lot harder than it was; we were losing our shape a bit. We realised we can’t leave this for the last over. When I looked at our score after the powerplay I thought this was not that good, and this is a crunch match for us. I was very grateful that our bowlers restricted them to 113. It’s all mindset. After the drinks break ‘Taz’ and I batted the way we wanted to. It’s about having that mindset earlier and taking braver options earlier.”
Wolvaardt nailed their 10-wicket win with 13 balls to spare by unfurling a cover drive for four off Jahanara Alam. She had scored 66 off 56 and Brits 50 off 51, and their stand of 117 had come off 66. View that list of numbers in isolation and you might think the South Africans had breezed to victory. Of course, the atheists knew that wasn’t nearly the case; that they had come uncomfortably close to being at the scene of another calamity.
