JOIN USMuch as they try to shed the chokers’ tag, it just refises to go away. The jokes and memes about their losses keep getting novel like their dismissals.
Generation after generation of exceptional South African cricketers have tried to break that notion but they keep finding newer ways to self destruct on the big stage. Another chance to redeem themselves came in the final Group B Champions Trophy clash against India. But, like many times in the past, they simply committed hara-kiri through poor decision making.
First, Hashim Amla and Quiton de Kock played extremely slow, showing way too much caution when a few calculative risks could have transferred some pressure on to the Indians. They then lost the wickets of A B de Villiers and David Miller through run-outs, the former a poor call and the latter through a comedy of errors. Eventually they played into the hands of the Indians who left them battered and bruised.
Faf du Plessis said the label of chokers doesn't haunt them and termed the loss against India to poor performance.
“We’ve confronted it and we’ve spoken about it. Obviously there’s a lot of (South African) teams that have gone through the same thing. We know as a team that the only way you’re going to get people to stop talking about it is if you actually win an event. And we didn’t do that this tournament. Right through the tournament, we didn’t play our best cricket, so we don’t deserve to be in the semifinal. Obviously today is a really bad day for us. We probably played our worst game of the tournament, but I felt right through that we weren’t the team that we should be. With all the players that we have and the cricket we’ve been playing, this tournament we haven’t had a game where everything has clicked together, so we don’t deserve to be in the semifinal.”