While all of India, it seemed, obsessed about Virat Kohli equalling Sachin Tendulkar’s world record of 49 ODI centuries at Eden Gardens on Sunday, South Africa fixed their focus on winning. Or at least staying competitive well enough to emerge with their dream of a first ever title not having curdled into another tournament nightmare.
Like every other side who have faced the Indians at this World Cup, Temba Bavuma’s team did not achieve their primary goal. But the second mattered more, as too often at past events they have played unrecognisably, infuriatingly poor cricket compared to their performances from just days before.
Their place in the semifinals this time is assured, like India’s. But South Africa’s chances of advancing to the final would be severely impaired should they be blown away by the strongest side at the World Cup in a manner that raised the ghosts of their previous exits.
Essentially, they needed to give India a run for their money. As Rahul Dravid said on Saturday, “If we keep executing our skills and somebody outplays us and beats us, then good luck. We shake their hand and walk away.” So, can the South Africans say they went down to demonstrably the better outfit on the day/night, and that they gave as much as they had and were hammered regardless? Or that they let themselves and their supporters down in an all too familiar fashion? The simplistic answer would be yes, but that doesn’t get us far in analysing what happened.
Being beaten by 243 runs – South Africa’s heaviest defeat in all their 667 ODIs – is never a good thing. Suffering that fate because you were bowled out for 83 – their joint second-lowest total – in 27.1 overs is even worse. Neither is it edifying to haemorrhage 91 runs in the powerplay. Nor to concede 326/5, India’s second-biggest total of the tournament. Only four times in their 1,049 ODIs have India inflicted a bigger hiding.
This was domination. And that, counter-intuitively, is good news for the South Africans. They did not beat themselves. They were outplayed. After so many years of wondering how they could give such an unworthy account of themselves, particularly when they were under pressure, this represents progress.
Or does it? With both sides knowing they were already in the semis, there was minimal pressure in terms of the bigger picture. At least not on South Africa. What has become India’s travelling roadshow of a World Cup means they are duty-bound to play a high-octane brand of cricket at all nine grounds they will visit. And, when it’s working as well as it has, the pressure on the home is purely positive.
Perhaps that philosophy prompted Sharma to bat first, which could be read as a gamble – his team had won five of their seven matches chasing. But South Africa had been victorious five times out of seven when they had taken guard first. It shows India’s confidence that, in the interests of negating their opponents’ proven prowess, they were willing to change tactics and move away from their own strength. You can do that when you have a team who have no apparent weaknesses.
That could also be said of the South Africans, but to an exponentially lesser degree. Playing against them is taking on an excellent team of mortals. Coming up against India is tantamount to trying to retain the right to be on the same field as demigods of the modern game. As hyperbolic as that sounds, the Indians are backing up that statement with their performances.
When these teams met at the 2011 World Cup, in Nagpur, Tendulkar himself scored a century for the ages but South Africa won. On Sunday, Kohli’s unbeaten 101 was – by his standards – scratchy and at times unconvincing; his strike rate of 83.47 is his lowest when he has made a hundred, and that can’t all be ascribed to a pitch that turned sharply. But Kohli and his fellow superhumans in India’s team know who and what they are.
So do the Eden Gardens crowd. The only other time India have played a World Cup match at this ground, the 1996 semifinal against Sri Lanka, the game was awarded to the Lankans “by default”, the scorers recorded, after spectators rained missiles onto the field – mostly plastic bottles – to protest India’s shaky display. Play was abandoned immediately a glass bottle was thrown onto an area of the outfield where Kumar Dharmasena was stationed.
This time there no such regrettable aggression, and nothing to spark it. Even the lift that services the members’ club has been committed to non-violence: its muzak is the puerile non-jazz inflicted on the world by the talentless Kenny G.
The real music was played on the field. As they have done everywhere they have played, the Indians wooed and wowed their fans. And impressed the sprinkling of South African supporters in the stands into the bargain. Dharmasena, too, would have had his World Cup memory of the ground updated – he was one of the standing umpires on Sunday.
If you weren’t South African you went home giddily happy. If you were South African you went home dazed and confused at how the second-best team in the tournament, as per the standings, not opinion, could have been left in the dust so convincingly. All went home with the precious memory of the day/night Kohli caught up to Tendulkar.
