Host nation South Africa losing to a sub-continent team at Kingsmead stadium in Durban was reminiscent of the 2003 World Cup. The Proteas showed such promise at the start of the tournament, winning all their games, yet they seemed to lose all momentum against India on Thursday night.

The crucial game against India started with MS Dhoni winning the toss and electing to bat. Opposite number Graeme Smith would also have preferred to take first knock because, as all South Africans know,  chasing runs under lights at Kingsmead is a tough task.

India might have lost early wickets but they managed to score a respectable 153 for five off their allotted 20 overs with RP Sharma top scoring. South Africa got off to a slow start, losing Smith, Herschelle Gibbs and A.B de Villiers cheaply. As the wicket of Justin Kemp fell, a commentator said he had two words for South Africa . . .  ''Jacques Kallis''. I fail to see the link. Why would we need someone like Kallis eating away at our limited overs, just so we could steady the innings? What we needed were two more big-hitting batmen like Albie Morkel!

'We just didn’t have any “big-match presence of mind” like (and I hate to make this comparison) Australia'


I still stand with the decision to leave Kallis out of the Twenty20 squad. Whether or not he would have made a difference, we’ll never know.

After South Africa realised that they could no longer win the game, needing more than 50 runs off 12 balls, the team focused on the total of 126 – which would have secured them a spot in the semi-finals. We would have been safely through, but I feel the reason our net run rate was so low is because we didn’t beat Bangladesh convincingly enough.  We didn’t play that game at a Pro20 rate.

Sadly with the inexperience of the team, most people would say that South Africa “choked”. We just didn’t have any big-match presence of mind like (and I hate to make this comparison) Australia. They came in to this tournament as World Cup winers and ended up being beating by Zimbabwe, which could have been attributed to a lack of match practice. But they started to gain momentum after beating England, Bangladesh and firm favourites Sri Lanka. It’s a case of peaking at the right time – South Africa couldn’t keep their winning record going, losing the wrong game at the wrong time.

Now with the semi-finalists known, it will be New Zealand versus Pakistan and Australia against India over the weekend, with the final taking place of Monday. I won’t pick the winner because my first choice were knocked out by India, but I think in terms of great cricket rivalry it would be great to see sub-continent final – Pakistan against India, or a Southern Hemisphere battle between Australia and New Zealand.

I just hope that in the sprit of this hit-and-giggle cricket it’s a high-scoring final that will entertain the fans who have been so supportive of the format.

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