Life goes on, even after such a heart-rending defeat. South Africa being defaulted from the Super Sixes contains any number of ironies and, as United Cricket Board chief executive Gerald Majola admitted, there would be an inquiry and a question of not so much where to apportion blame but what went wrong. After all, it was a tournament where South Africa was expected to be the first host nation to win a World Cup.More so when you consider South Africa’s record in the past six months: semi-finalists at the ICC Trophy and emphatic series wins over three Test nations: Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh.Were they perhaps too confident? Or was it a matter of too much pressure of playing at home with the weight of success of the 1995 rugby World Cup success heaped on their shoulders? All so much perpendicular thinking instead of lateral.Theoretically, though yesterday’s match was ruled as a tie, their own gameplan and team selection policy was flawed. For one thing, a schism opened early in the tournament when the D/L method was used at the Wanderers to decide the outcome of the Pool B game against New Zealand. This is when the lingering malaise of the Hansie Cronje soap opera was aired by Herschelle Gibbs, Allan Donald and Jonty Rhodes.The ‘‘dedication to Hansie’’ and Gibbs’s comments on Pollock’s captaincy performances did not sit too well with the team and resulted in a serious team meeting to thrash out the problems. It left a decidedly unpleasant stench about the team’s performance and the poor bowling efforts by Donald.Much before the tournament, former swing bowler Fanie de Villiers had warned that Donald’s selection would lead to a problem. Others had warned that a side containing five so-called black players on ‘‘merit’’ was a sure recipe for disaster because of the imbalance it would cause in the bowling attack.As it was there were also problems of who would take over from Rhodes when he was injured and the Safs were forced to find a replacement. They went for opener Graeme Smith, which could be read as a populist, rather than practical, decision. Apart from disrupting the opening pair of Gibbs and Kirsten, it meant that the big mouth was pushing himself as a ‘senior’ member of the side.Selection panel convenor Omar Henry, who took over after a major shake-up last April, had his mobile phone switched off last night and today and was not available for comment. No doubt when he has time to collect himself and the Sharjah selection is announced he will offer a few thoughts.Yet three names which continually emerged in discussions among the more knowledgeable were Daryll Cullinan, Neil McKenzie and Jacques Rudolph. While Rudolph is also an opener, Cullinan and McKenzie would have at least given them the extra middle-order option. As it was South Africa were always a bowler or two too many too heavy (Donald) or short of experience (Monde Zondeki and Charl Langeveldt).Steve Elworthy has bowled with the precision of Kapil Dev at the same age (for those a little older, Brian Statham or even Derek Shackleton) and he would not have let the side down either.Yet, has no one given a thought that South Africa, having played generally below themselves this tournament, were not out-played by Sri Lanka at Kingsmead? As Sri Lanka captain Sanath Jayasuriya mentioned in a private conversation, it was nice for them to have reached the Super Sixes, but they would rather South Africa had been in the equation as well.
