I had the pleasure last week of watching Australia finish off India in the first Test in Melbourne, Australia.
As South Africans, it’s almost a birth right to “hate” Aussies, and this is, in my opinion, because jealousy makes us nasty.
We all know that we want our national sporting teams to experience the success they do. We all know that we want our government to allocate as much importance to sport as they do — but we as supporters don’t.
India set up a second innings lead of 292 runs and most people think that this would be a sufficient score. The scoreboard tells another story entirely. India lost the Test by 122 runs. The Australian cricket team has always had one very essential characteristic underpinned by a never-say-die attitude: guts.
This combination has won them many Tests when their performance did not warrant such a victory. The first Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) was such a day, they did not shoot the lights out with their performance but they have secured a resounding victory by 122 runs.
Almost 200 000 people have been into the MCG this Test to off support. We can’t judge the world’s cricket scene on South African’s poor support of live sport. I have the displeasure of watching the Proteas wilt under the pressure and superb performance of Sri Lanka’s bouncing back, ironically, from the customised SuperSport Centurion Cricket Ground in their first Test.
The Proteas were chasing a mammoth 450 runs to win with two days to do it — now you can’t chase 450 and be four wickets down for just 116 runs — the law of averages somehow arrogantly does not allow it.
The South African side, and pretty much all our national sporting teams, have lacked guts and so glory has evaded them.
I hate watching a South African team give the game up, there is nothing worse for a sports coach than their team just giving the game away; giving up and showing no guts to do what it takes to win the contest for your country.
For too long we have been fed cliché after cliché about the famous drawing board or the developing youngsters. We have lacked and still lack accountability. With accountability comes responsibility and we lack both most of the time.
I am not unpatriotic by any means, I am a passionate supporter as can be seen by many other articles I have written on this site. It is this passion that drives me to write such an article. I am so frustrated at the lack of confidence I have in our teams, I never watch with any certainty or confidence any of our teams contest a match.
The professional sports of rugby, soccer and cricket are paid exorbitant amounts of money and lack the key ingredient of guts which the likes of Morné du Plessis, Francois Pienaar, Darryl Cullinan, Kepler Wessels or Lucas Radebe displayed.
No one said winning was easy — it is anything but — it will not simply fall into our laps, we have to work, we have to be prepared to do what it takes to get the result we want.
Imagine if monthly earnings were attached to win vs loss? Winning is not everything but playing with every piece of you and leaving everything of the field is and we lack this killer commitment to achieving results.
The bottom line is that if you have no guts, you get no glory.
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