A blind impersonation

Remember Croatia’s Goran Ivanisevic, the ace-hurtling machine? How his opponents barely got their racquet strings to his booming serves. So much so that Sweden's Stefan Edberg lamented: "It’s not about power but how well you move on court."

We may, however, recall that Ivanisevic’s game came a cropper against Pete Sampras who had a more nuanced style.

Sampras, winner of 14 Grand Slams, was endowed with all the varied elements involved in tennis: accurate serve, deep shoestring volley, sliced backhand, a compelling service return and certainly power, which remained his lifeline for the big points. The landscape of tennis had altered radically but Sampras went out a winner.

The two lopsided semi-finals are proof, if any, that pure muscle force may not prevail at the neglect of elementary skills. The Proteas seemed so keen to lay into the Baggy Greens that they turned starkly ignorant to the game’s primary virtues: watertight technique, nimble feet and mind management.

Graeme Smith’s early dismissal called for a quick shift to the austere school of batsman-ship (Read Mahela Jayawardene’s knock against New Zealand). One would have thought Jacques Kallis would bring a method to the madness. But he attempted an encore of Smith — trying to take on Glenn McGrath of all people — in the most unpropitious hour.

Quite surprisingly, it was the zesty Justine Kemp who showed the willingness to arrest the imbalance.

We may argue that South Africa's high-handed attitude worked wonders in Johannesburg where they hunted down a record 434 and later on in this World Cup at Warner Park where the openers nearly made a match of 377.

As we rewind, it will flash that those weren’t knock-out matches. The one at Johannesburg was the decider of a one-day series which — if not for that epic chase — would have held no relevance. In both the games the Proteas had to mount tall scores and had no choice but to attack from the onset.

St Lucia was a different setting. There is a different wake to a big match, particularly if it is a World Cup semi-final.

The kangaroos must have done a serious post-mortem of the way runs were leaked in those two matches. True champions don’t rest on laurels. Rather, they perfect their wins.

Given the Proteas’ poverty of class, a ‘270-first’ approach could have been a better bet than an attempt for 350, fraught with perilous implications. It never appeared that South Africa had a Plan B in place.

Plain barbs don’t ruffle these Australians. South Africa did not learn from India’s mistakes in the last World Cup final. In order to impersonate Australia (and also the mind games that they play), one needs to have the adequate skill sets and self-belief.

Ricky Ponting, during his brief innings, put on view that playing classical, orthodox cricket does not stymie aggression. Watching him bat, purists would be thrilled that cricket’s pristine allure continues to stay alive.

Once again we owe something to Australia.

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