From the iSport Cricket Pavilion: Sport has this remarkable ability to bring out varied emotions in you, oscillating from pure unexplained joy to extreme agony and heartbreak. It’s difficult for a sports fan to explain this involvement, especially when he has no direct stake with the event, except the unconditional fervour and passion for the sport and his team. iSporter Anup Narayanan pens his thoughts.
When you are a fan of the South African cricket team, your situation becomes all the more confounding, your justification unconvincing and your frustration apparent. Tournament after tournament, series after series, the Proteas have shown remarkable consistency in raising one’s expectation and then slaying it in one painful blow. Adding to this frustration is the ‘chokers tag’, which seems to hang around, like an albatross, on the neck of every well-wisher of South African cricket.
Thus, as South Africa prepares to slug it out against their old nemesis Australia in a two match test series at home, even the most optimistic fan of the Proteas would not be expecting anything more than a 1-1 stalemate. On paper, South Africa is the stronger team with a potent batting line-up in Amla, Kallis, De Villiers and Smith, ably supported by Ashwell Prince. On the bowling front, they possess the most explosive new-ball combination in the world in Steyn and Morkel with the in-form Tsotsobe and the hugely talented Imran Tahir completing the line-up. South Africa is also ranked 2nd in the ICC Test rankings and can overtake England if they win convincingly in this series and their next home series against Sri Lanka. Australia, meanwhile are in a re-building phase and rely heavily on the experience of Hussey, Ponting and Clarke. Bowling will be a cause of concern for the Aussies, especially if the inconsistent Mitchell Johnson is not able to replicate the kind of form which he demonstrated during Australia’s previous tour of South Africa in 2008.
Yet, one cannot be bereft of the fact that, when pitted against each other, Australia have always played better cricket in comparison to their rival, whether it is the longer version of the game or the shorter format. Rewind to 1998, where the Proteas had the upper hand in the Adelaide Test, however were denied by the remarkable resilience of Mark Waugh, who played an outstanding knock of 115 to save the series for his country. No cricket fan can forget the1999 World Cup, where South Africa matched Australia in every aspect, yet could not overcome their rivals when it mattered. Lastly the 2008 series, where the Proteas finally managed to defeat their rivals in their own home, (the first time Australia had lost a series at home since 1993), only for the Aussies to exact revenge a month later against the same rivals, this time in South Africa.
It is disappointing that a potentially explosive clash between two heavyweights is reduced to just 2 matches, in what looks to be trend of the future as this was done to accommodate the Champions League Tournament and a few T20 matches. Nevertheless, one expects an exciting series between these two great rivals, with the ardent Proteas fan hoping that his team does not flatter to deceive once again.
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