When do the Proteas get ‘to pick themselves up’ then?

“We have to pick ourselves up. We haven’t become bad players because of one performance. We’ll have to work on our decision making.” — Graeme Smith, January 15 2011.

“We’ve got to learn from today, pick ourselves up.” — Graeme Smith March 6 2011.

Urm, yeah. Because that is an all new lesson which needed to be learnt. Forget 1996,1999, 2003 and 2007.

Let’s say this is a (relatively) new team with no past demons related to previous chokes. Cast your mind to the recent series against India in South Africa. Cast your mind back to January 15 at The Wanderers. South Africa’s bowlers did a decent job in restricting India to just 190 runs off 47 overs.

Great going right? South Africa need to plod along at four an over, see the innings through and gain valuable time in the middle under lights. No need to get carried away, no need to panic, just build momentum. Easy for an international team, right? Right?

We all know how that one ended. Graeme Smith batted with a fluidity he is yet to display in the World Cup. And that was that. All around him batsmen barely got a start as they fell like flies. And in the end, it fell to Wayne Parnell and Lonwabo Tsotsobe to steer the team home. And they failed. Understandably so, too.

The batsmen had failed at the simplest of tasks, keeping their wickets and not getting carried away with stupid shots.

Another quote from Smith: “We weren’t smart enough, especially with the bat.” Guess which match he was referring to.