Analysing South Africa's loss at Indore and their tendency to choke in One-Day cricket
The 2nd ODI between India and South Africa at Indore proved to be another instance where the South Africans showed their ignominious, unique way of losing games from moments of true superiority as they crumbled drastically from 131-2 to 143-5 in a matter 3.4 overs. Pundits and players are starting to run out of ideas on how to describe such frequent drastic collapses, especially with the Proteas batting in one-day games.
Instances upon instances can be extracted from history to show how they have given away games from times where they had clear ascendancy and were coasting to victories. In this match itself, the South African bowling and think-tank has to be put at fault first, for they simply went defensive and allowed India to post a decent total of 248 after India were reeling at one point of time with the score at 124 for 6.
De Villiers’ poor captaincy
Though it can be easily concluded that Dhoni’s plunder in the slog overs disrupted their ideas, this is not the first time that De Villiers has failed to hit the final nail on the coffin. His circumspect approach, as we had seen in the fifth Carlton Mid One-day series in Australia (where the hosts chased down 267 after being 98/5 after 24 overs) and in the 2015 World Cup semifinal against New Zealand (where after taking Williamson’s wicket,South Africa went defensive and kept Imran Tahir back).
De Villiers has to be blamed for allowing India free runs by giving Duminy nine overs and Behardien only one. This very point makes one wonder why Behardien is even playing; If Behardien cannot give you a stable 5th bowling option what is the use of playing him at 7 as an all-rounder. Why does not David Weise get the chance? He has certainly performed better as an all-rounder in the T-20s.
In T-20s, South Africa has a much proactive captain in Francois Du Plessis who has led his troops brilliantly (he holds an impressive record of losing just one T-20 series home or away and took his team to the semifinals of the 2014 T-20 World Cup). Unless De Villiers learns from Du Plessis, the Proteas would fail to grasp the right moments which would ultimately decide which way the match would pan out.
South African batting crumbles too often while chasing
Wicketkeeper-batsman Quinton de Kock, in spite of being so many opportunities, has failed to justify his backing by the South African team management as he tends to throw away his wicket easily after making a good start. What is the point in playing him time and again? Why not give the Test openers Dean Elgar and Stian van Zyl a chance ? What is wrong in trying out J.J Smuts?
Apart from that, Du Plessis was perhaps the only bright link in Indore and he has been proving time and again that he is the most vital cog in a South African run chase (similar instances being in the 2015 World Cup 2015 match against India the first one-dayer where he staged the platform for the late flourish ).
Duminy’s inconsistency in South African one-day run-chases have been a major concern for some time now as he has failed to truly justify his temperament when the occasion called for it most. There’s no doubting De Villiers’ ability as a match-winner when his team bats first but he is no Dhoni when his team bats second.
The South African middle order in David Miller and Farhaan Behardien is a huge exploitation region for any opposition team, which is another major cause as to why South Africa so often lose momentum in a run chase and succumb to a loss on a far more regular basis.
Whether it is the nerves while chasing a low-scoring target or the fear of repeating their previous failures, South Africa are proving time and again they fail to build up a proper understanding in the middle-order which have been the root cause of their ‘chokers’ tag. Again, at Indore, they did not lose, they simply choked.