Ken Borland

Proteas captain Temba Bavuma did not explicitly say it was another case of South Africa choking at a cricket world cup after their shock loss to the Netherlands saw them eliminated from the T20 showpiece on Sunday, but he did admit that notorious tag would now be hung around their necks, like so many of their predecessors.

Needing to just beat qualifiers the Netherlands to make the semi-finals, the Proteas instead came out flat and uninspired, allowing the Dutch to post a challenging 158/4, and then batting limply to only manage 145/8 in reply.

“That tag will always be there until we get to a final and come out on the right side of it,” Bavuma said in the aftermath. “We have nothing else to blame, everything was in our own hands.

“We had the confidence, the belief and the form behind us, but when it mattered we just couldn’t do the business. There needs to be an element of learning to make sure young guys like Tristan Stubbs and Marco Jansen don’t make the same mistakes in future.

“But we are still going to carry that monkey on our backs, that tag. We knew we had to win the game, but I didn’t feel any different type of pressure personally.

“It’s very hard to say it was different because we knew we had to beat India and we won that game. We had the opportunity to make the semi-finals and we just did not take it,” Bavuma said.

Of his own future in the shortest format, Bavuma said he will park any decision on the captaincy until a new fulltime coach is appointed. The skipper admitted that all the speculation over his own poor batting form had also been unsettling.

“It’s been a tricky time and to consider the captaincy now, a lot of my thinking would be emotional. I probably will think about it and speak to the relevant people.

“We have to see who comes in as coach, generally the new person coming in might want a different leader to execute their vision. But I think I carried myself with dignity through the good and bad times.

“Mentally all the talk does affect you. You try to manage your mental space as much as you can, unfortunately social media and whatever is said about you, always seems to get to you no matter how you try to control it.

“I’ve tried to keep a level head through the good and bad times and stay as close to myself as possible. Not just for myself but for the group, who will now take a lot of flak, and rightfully so,” Bavuma said.

The scoreboard shows a 44-22 triumph for the Bulls over Benetton in Treviso, but they had to work extremely hard for the win, with coach Jake White saying how proud he was of the way they stuck together like a family to end their two-match losing streak overseas.

The Bulls were fortunate to only be 9-3 down at halftime, and even though they were much-improved after the break, Benetton were still leading 22-20 on the hour mark. It was a titanic tussle, but the Bulls finished superbly with three tries in the last 10 minutes to not only snatch a hard-fought win, but also claim an unlikely bonus point.

“It’s a massive relief and I’m really proud of the players for the way they stuck together and got the reward for the work they put in at training,” White said. “And it’s wonderful that it’s a bonus point win, I’m really happy.

“The second half was fantastic, after the first half when we did not finish our chances and gave them a couple of soft penalties through silly mistakes. I had a feeling that we would finish well because Benetton looked dead on their feet.

“The talk at halftime was that we’ve got them on the ropes, every time we got down their end, we could feel the ascendancy. We just had to keep going and bashing at the wall, and it did eventually break.

“From a game that could have gone either way, we won with forty points. Not many teams come here and win, so a bonus point win is really good,” White said.

The most outstanding area of the Bulls game was at the breakdown and, were it not for numerous steals in the first half, Benetton would surely have been much further ahead and the mountain to climb away from home would have been too much for the visitors.

“Having Bismarck du Plessis, Marco van Staden and Marcell Coetzee together really helps at the breakdown, they are masters of understanding when to go in and what to do,” White said.

“I was very pleased with the defensive breakdown and we were also able to get quick ball, unlike the last two weeks. When we get go-forward ball, we play so much better.

“It’s a credit to the captain [the man of the match Coetzee] and the belief in the team. Sometimes these sort of wins can be a catalyst to jumpstart the season, turn it around.

“Coming off two losses in a row, 9-3 down away from home, how much more character can the team show? And it gets rid of what happened here last year in the Rainbow Cup final,” a delighted White said.

With Tabraiz Shamsi returning to form superbly against New Zealand in their first warm-up match, the Proteas would dearly like captain Temba Bavuma to not only play but also get a good score behind his name in their final dress rehearsal for the T20 World Cup, against Bangladesh in Brisbane on Wednesday.

Bavuma has not appeared for the Proteas in two weeks due to illness, while before that he was out of action for two-and-a-half months with an elbow injury. He has struggled to find form at international level, scoring just 11 runs in four innings since his return to the national team.

So it would really solve an awkward selection dilemma if the captain can produce the goods against Bangladesh at Allan Border Field on the eve of the tournament starting. Everything else looks in place for their opening match on Monday against the top side in qualifying Group B, in which Scotland and Zimbabwe currently have wins over the West Indies and Ireland respectively.

Having spearheaded the nine-wicket win with 52 balls to spare against New Zealand in the Proteas’ first warm-up match, spinners Shamsi and Keshav Maharaj are once again the talk of the towns, enjoying the bigger Australian fields after being taken apart at times on their tour of various smaller Indian grounds.

While Wayne Parnell swung the ball up front to take wickets in his opening two overs, reducing New Zealand to 11/2, the Kiwis recovered to 52/2 after seven overs when Shamsi came on. He dismissed the big-hitting Glenn Phillips with his second ball, then bowled a wicket-maiden in his second over, and rested with outstanding figures of 3-1-6-2.

With Maharaj (3-0-17-3) taking a wicket in each of his three overs, New Zealand lost their last eight wickets for 45 runs in one ball short of 10 overs.

It was an apt reminder of how South African spin has dominated T20s against everyone except India.

“The pitch was a bit slow and that allowed us to utilise spin, but the tone was set up front and we were very disciplined in the field,” Maharaj said. “We know Shamo is world-class and it was good to see him back to his best.

“I know he has a big hand to play if we are going to progress on to bigger things in this World Cup. We were very professional and it’s important for the two warm-up games to create some momentum for us.”

SUN CITY, North-West – Like a smooth-running car, American Brooklin Bailey felt that all the different parts of his game were in synch on Thursday as he raced into the lead after the first round of the Blue Label Challenge at the Gary Player Country Club.

Bailey, who began his round on the 10^th hole, collected five birdies and an eagle for a bogey-free 65, that translated into 15 points in the modified Stableford scoring system. He was four points ahead of Portugal’s Stephen Ferreira, who had six birdies and a bogey, while the leading players under the South African flag were Ockie Strydom and Jaco van Zyl in third place on 10 points.

“It was nice, hot weather so the body got loose early and I felt super-comfortable after making a great start with birdies on my second and fourth holes,” Bailey said. “I played really well, it just felt fluent in terms of what my swing, my body and the ball were doing.”

Coming from Texas, a typically hot October day in the Pilanesberg, with the temperature reaching 36°, was no bother for the 28-year-old Bailey, who has played the famous Gary Player Country Club layout a couple of times before and embraces the challenge rather than being daunted by it.

“I haven’t gone on very well here before, although I feel like I played good golf but did not get much out of it,” Bailey said. “But it’s a venue I really like, a real test of golf, it tests every facet of your game.

“A lot of credit must go to my caddy George, who made a lot of great decisions and kept me patient. It was a great decision to lay up on 18 and make birdie, and then I holed out from the bunker on the first hole for eagle. Then I hit it to a foot on the next hole for another birdie,” a delighted Bailey said.

Picking up nine points around the turn really knocked the other contenders out of the first-round race, and Bailey is now focused on backing up Thursday’s marvellous score with another low one in Friday’s second round.

“My game has been there this season, just not necessarily full-time,” Bailey admitted. “You’re not going to win or finish top-10 every week, but making cuts is important and in my last seven events I’ve had three top-10s and missed four cuts.

“So I’m really focusing on my consistency. I’m playing well when I’m on form, but there are little parts of my game that need improving, especially in putting and finding the fairways, those are certainly the two key areas.

“I felt like I’ve found my Driver, and after having a putting lesson this week and working on it for three hours one morning, I was really feeling comfortable on the greens as well,” Bailey said.