Charl Schwartzel’s victory in The Masters at the weekend left me scratching my head for two reasons. Firstly, why do the fates always conspire against me when I bet? I had a few quid on the Australian Jason Day, who finished second, at odds of 150-1.
I couldn’t believe my eyes when Schwartzel made four birdies in four holes to steal the green jacket away from an Aussie that nobody, apart from me, had heard of. However, more relevant to cricket, I couldn’t believe it when I saw that Shwartzel’s nationality was South African. Aren’t they the guys that usually choke?
South Africans’ ability to choke like Alan Border in Still the Twelfth Man (when a ball gets lodged down his windpipe and retrieved by Big Merv’s tongue) is legendary in cricketing circles. Everyone knows they’ve never won a single match in the knockout stages of a World Cup.
Their cricketers seem to find any number of improbable ways to lose in embarrassing fashion in major tournaments – from misreading the Duckworth Lewis chart to crazy run outs and dropped catches. So why is it that South African golfers always win when the pressure is on – no matter how obscure the player in question.
Last year, a little known South African called Louis Oosthuizen won the British Open. Before the event, he was the least known person at St Andrews. Even the BBC tea ladies had a bigger following on twitter. Four days later he was the winner of a major tournament. Charl Schwartzel wasn’t such an unknown at Augusta, but he was still the world number 27 or something. What gave him the right to play like Tiger Woods?
Golf fans will also know that Ernie Els and Retief Goosen are ice cool under pressure. The latter has been struck by lightning and lived to tell the tale. So why do the storm clouds gather over South Africa’s cricketers every time a tournament is on the line?
I’ve thought about this long and hard and I can’t think of a single reason. It’s not Graeme Smith’s fault, because Hanse Cronje’s teams choked just as badly. And it can’t be anything to do with South Africans’ mental makeup as their rugby team is like a well oiled machine – or at least it was until they appointed that nutcase to coach them after the last World Cup.
Consequently I’ve come to the conclusion that their cricketers’ travails are the result of a gypsy curse cast by Jason Gillespie sometime in the 1980s. Furthermore, I reckon that Makhaya Ntini was on to him – which is why Ntini talks scribble most of the time. The ex-Aussie pie chucker must have suspected he was rumbled and robbed Ntini of the ability to construct a coherent sentence. What do you think? All theories welcome.
James Morgan
