Why Your Team Sucks: South Africa at the ICC World Cup 2023

I’m required to start this one off with a statutory warning: keep your children away from the South African cricket team because they are a choking hazard. They constitute small parts of madness, moronism, and mediocrity that may be unsuitable for the tiny tots. You’re welcome.

Now that that’s done, here’s a riddle – what do you call a tree with strong roots rapidly wilting away due to lack of care? A sad but eerily accurate metaphor for South African cricket. Or as they are known in the sport’s fraternity, the Rainmen. No, not the Dustin Hoffman-flick kind, although I imagine that’d be obvious given their gross inability to handle numbers. But in the more literal sense of having a truly spiritual connection with the deluge from the heavens. It’s absurd how gifted the Proteas are at conjuring unfathomable circumstances involving the weather – I guess you could call them Rain Men in both senses after all. 

Well, I have some good news then – the rain is largely expected to stay at bay in the Indian cities where they are slated to give their IPL auditions play their World Cup fixtures. That must add to your already overwhelming optimism for the team following their recent trumping of Australia. It has to be a big deal defeating the five-time world champions, especially given how they have been a formidable ODI side in recent years. Except for losing to India of course. And Pakistan. And Sri Lanka. 

ANYHOO, hope never hurt anyone and it’s time to focus on the task at hand anyway. India is no easy place to play cricket as the Proteas players will well attest to (on a side note, it’s very thoughtful of the organizers to schedule the team’s World Cup opener on the one-year anniversary of their 99 all-out, and at the SAME VENUE TOO – classy). Hence, I’ve generously prepared a brief guide for the side to battle through the arduous six weeks that await. Here goes nothing, take note @Proteas.

• Take a knee – Whenever you feel the game is slipping away from you, just silently go down on your hinges and put your firsts on your hearts immediately after a delivery is bowled. Remind the opposition and viewers alike that there are much more important things than a colonial sport played by 10-odd nations. Hopefully, the batters will feel obliged to imitate you out of fear of social castration, at which point you should feel free to run them out. Think twice before involving Quinny in the plan though, lest he retires prematurely for being ‘stripped of his rights.’
• Practice your tackles – If a partnership by the opposition feels unbreakable and you can imagine the fans at home growingly visibly frustrated, randomly “spear” one of the batters. What better way of reminding fans that instead of losing sleep over you hopeless lot, they can instead tune in to the Springboks – the guys that actually have World Cups instead of just showing pRoMiSe – and enjoy their ruthless dominance at the ongoing Rugby World Cup. (Note: Only use this one as a desperate measure because it may(will) lead to legal suits.)
• List the Proteas as a charity – When the World Cup campaign is inevitably hanging by a thread and a choke-up seems to be around the corner, get South Africa Cricket registered as an NGO. That way at least you’ll be able to canvass the BCCI for some hefty donations during the remainder of your stay in the subcontinent. I mean, the first step was already taken last year by awarding not one, not two, but ALL your SA20 franchises to the IPL overlords. Lord knows the CSA is incapable of keeping afloat a sustainable cricket ecosystem in the country for much longer anyway.
• Mask-up – Get some AB de Villiers masks made for each player or maybe get his name printed on the back of your shorts. At least the fans will then have some reason to root for you guys because your cricketing talent’s definitely not going to cut it.
• Blame the skipper – Well, this one’s more for the media but will help you players get away scot-free nevertheless. As soon as things start going south, think of every inventive way in which you can discredit Temba Bavuma. Criticize his poor knowledge of the physics governing the behaviour of spherical objects anytime he loses a toss. Call him a quota captain and question the empowerment of black players. Oh wait, this one’s already done.

That should be enough to have the Proteas ready for the marquee event then. As for cricketing merit, the fans will undoubtedly be looking up to Anrich Nortje to bail them out of tricky situations – oops, I forgot. The batting depth’s more important on the flat decks anyway and with Marco Jansen coming as far down as *checks notes* – umm, at least the players will be able to get some practice on Indian pitches for IPL 2024. Yep, that’ll do.