KOLKATA: When Australia and South Africa step onto the field for the second semifinal here at the sprawling Eden Gardens, Kolkata, on Thursday, it will be a rare sight of the two teams. Both are on the opposite sides of ODI World Cup history and would be walking down the ground chasing yet another piece of history. Australia have been the most successful side in the tournament winning five titles while the latter have been a perennial underachiever as far as this event is concerned.
In the previous 12 editions, the team from Down Under has reached semifinals eight times failing to advance only once in 2019 when they lost to eventual champions England. The contest on Thursday will be their third consecutive semifinal and ninth overall. The stadium, steeped in history, is all decked up. The weather though was a bit heavy on Wednesday with air quality far from encouraging. There is a prediction of rain, but the thunder would be reserved for the thousands who will be witnessing two great teams play.
History has not been kind to Proteas in the 50-over premier tournament. They had made it to the last-four stage four times in eight attempts so far but somehow found themselves on the wrong side of the result. Two of them had come against the Aussies. In 2007 they were comprehensively beaten but it's the tied semifinal of the 1999 edition which still hurts most of their fans. Even before those two tearful exits, the team from the Rainbow Nation had seen their campaign end in agony in their first appearance in the World Cup in 1992. The rain rule farce, if that could be said, meant they were assigned with an impossible task of scoring 22 off just one ball while chasing against England.
Irrespective of which side of history they have been, their past shows and face-offs could well play a part in the outcome of the second semifinal. More than Australia, the past defeats and agonies may weigh heavily on South Africa when they take the field on Thursday. There have already been salvos fired from the Aussies on this. Australia skipper Pat Cummins was asked about this during the pre-match press conference on Wednesday and he admitted his opponents had not achieved what they had set out for in the past.
"Yeah, hard to say. Again, we feel lucky that we've been in these situations quite a bit, a lot of our players. So, you know what it takes, but also, you're not really weighed down by history. You get more excited about the challenge and just get stuck into what needs to be done. So, yeah, hard to speak on their behalf, but I do know each World Cup, it does seem to be the story that South Africa haven't quite achieved, obviously, what they set out to do," he told journalists.
His South African counterpart Temba Bavuma also touched upon the subject and affirmed that they will stick to the methods they have followed throughout the tournament without thinking much of the result. "I guess they're all important semifinals. I think like you say with the way we've performed as a team it's obviously created a lot of positive sentiment but obviously high expectation," Bavuma told journalists.
Speaking on whether this can be the year for the men's team, he said, "A lot of people believe that this could be the year that we see ourselves within the final. And I mean, look as a team, individually we'd like nothing better than that. But we also respect the game of cricket. You know, we're not coming up against a Mickey Mouse team. Australia has a lot of experience and confidence in knockout games like this, so we've got to respect that. I'd hate to say that we deserve to go through because of the way we played our cricket. I don't think that's the way things go. But I think from our performances, from the processes that we've followed to get to this point, we'll continue to lean on that and we believe that will take care of the result in itself."
Unlike the 1999 edition when Australia defeated South Africa in the Super Six encounter which eventually helped them to progress to the final despite the semifinal ending in a tie, Cummins and Co lost heavily, by 134 runs to be precise, in the league match last month. The Australian captain, however, thinks the loss will not count much.
"Yeah, I don't think it counts for too much. You know, obviously, you start from scratch every time you play. They're a team we've played quite a lot and know quite well. But as you said, this week it's probably going to be quite different to say the South African series that we just played against them a couple of months ago. So, I think what helps us is we've got a lot of guys that have been in this situation before that have won one day World Cup, T20 World Cup, various other tournaments in big moments. So, I think that really helps."
As the Aussie leader said, past successes could come in handy for his team but still, the outcome will depend on how determined this South African side is. Will they be able to rewrite history by making it to their maiden final or will they return home from hereon as they did in the past? Only time can tell.
