Wednesday, June 23, 2010

A rare feather in South Africa's cap

South Africa and New Zealand belong to a totally different club when it comes to international cricket with both the teams having made only upto the semis finals of a world cup and that too equal number of times. Both the teams have made it to the semi finals of a world cup on three occasions in 1992, 1999 and 2007. Here, South Africa makes news for the good reasons when the South African wicket keeper Mark Boucher celebrates his 500th test victim when he gets the West Indian player Ravi Rampaul out caught behind in the 2nd test at St Kitts.

This, I guess is the only feat that a South African individual can ever boast of after Lance Klusner was awarded the man of the series in the 1999 world cup played in England. Lance Klusner was out only on two occasions, one against Australia and the other against New Zealand in the 1999 world cup and deserved to be there holding the trophy despite there being Geoff Allot from New Zealand along with Shane Warne who had finished on top with 20 wickets each to become the highest wicket takers in the tournament. If not for that, no other South African player can boast of his achievements in international cricket.

This can be rejoiced by the South African team who has known to be unlucky though that is evident only by their outlook. South Africa is yet to make it to the finals of a world cup, let alone winning it. And, so is the case when it comes to the world T20. There is no South African batsman who has scored a triple hundred in test match cricket. All these happening despite South Africa having the potential to do it unlike Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. However, South Africa, as a team can boast of being the only team to have successfully chased down a total in excess of 400.

South Africa are the only team to have beaten Australia in Australia since 1994 when West Indies did the same. Oh! I forgot to mention Herschelle Gibbs' feat of hitting six sixes in an over in the world cup pool match against Holland though which draws much criticism for being achieved against a non test playing nation. But, the other side of the coin also suggests that no other batsman has been able to do that despite there being teams like Bermuda, Scotland etc. Of course, one should not expect Gary Kirsten's knock of 188* to be mentioned here for this is no general blog and has no general readers.

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