The great South African go slow

When you trace the root cause of South Africa’s ICC failures, it is not rain or curses; it’s slow scoring.

David Miller is hitting sixes. Almost every ball, it’s crazy. Just absolutely violent southpaw carnage. But no matter what he does, it will never be enough. He can’t make up for the players early on.

But I am not talking about today’s game; this is the World Cup semi-final from 2015. A decade ago.

In that match they made 281 from 43 overs (43 overs is a bad omen for them by the way). Hashim Amla, Quinton de Kock, Faf du Plessis and Rilee Rossouw all made runs, but none of them scored at a faster rate than 82. South Africa only put in a decent total because when Faf went out, David Miller came in and made 49 from 18 balls. It was a brutal display.

But you know what happened next, another South African came onto the field, dressed in Black, and took the New Zealand team into the final.

Today Miller was a beast, but by the time he got going, the game was done. They had simply scored too slow early on, the same as 2015. When you trace the root cause of South Africa’s ICC failures, it is not rain or curses; it’s slow scoring.

Let’s go back to patient zero. In 1992, South Africa were chasing 253 in 45 overs. It wasn’t 50 because they purposefully went slow to turn it into a shorter game. Peter Kirsten made 11 off 26. Hansie Cronje made 24 off 46. People talk about the rain; but those 62 balls are a big chunk of a reduced match. And finally, they would only play 43 overs.

In the remaining overs, they had to score at 6.25 runs. And all while knowing (or not) the rain rules were nuts. So the slow batting was a much bigger part in that loss than the rain of the rules governing it.

In 1999, they were chasing 213. Gary Kirsten added 18 from 42. He was joined at the crease by Daryll Cullinan. He made six from 30. Now, he was facing Shane Warne, so not really his fault. But then Kallis made 53 off 92. Three players all massively below the rate. People blame Lance Klusener for this loss because of the run out at the end. But no one asks why he had to bash so many balls with the tail in what was a very low chase.

In 2009, they had to chase 150 in the T20 World Cup against Pakistan. Only two guys really made any runs – Kallis and JP Duminy. 64 and 44. But both were under the RRR in their final tallies. Kallis was 41 from 43 balls before a late splurge still left them short.

In the 2014 edition, JP was back again, making an unbeaten 45 from 40 balls in what was pretty much a 170-par game. Virat Kohli chased it beautifully. Oh, and JP batted for 14 overs for his 45 runs.

In 2011’s quarter-final, they faced New Zealand and needed 222 in the 50 over game. Kallis made 47 off 75, while JP added three from 12. It’s not an accident that these two keep coming up. This was their plan. And this time, when they tried to attack later on, they collapsed.

In 2003, South Africa started off chasing 269 against Sri Lanka in the 50 over World Cup. They started great, but Gary Kirsten and Boeta Dippenaar – coming in at different stages – stopped scoring, with a combined 16 runs off 36 balls. Remember, this is a game where they actually got back to par, which was one run less than they needed. But they did this with a big six, because they were behind the rate. So even their most cursed rain game still had slow batting.

What about when they were chasing 159 in a T20 against the Netherlands in the 2022 T20 World Cup? Three players, including Quinton de Kock, got in, but scored at only run a ball. Those other players, David Miller and Temba Bavuma, were our protagonists today.

We know what Miller did. After watching all the recognised batters disappear, he basically decided to try make all the runs on his lonesome. Obviously, he was never going to do it, but he still had a lot of fun.

The issue was that the chase was always too big. Part of that was poor bowling, but even then, New Zealand didn’t end the game. This was chaseable; they had a decent chance of making that total.

But they started slow. That was really just Temba Bavuma, right? The rest of the top four all went at more than a run a ball, and he was three off 18 to start his innings. He was 15 away from being run a ball.

He ended up with 56 runs from 71 balls. You’re never going to believe this, but that is also 15 away from run a ball. He simply never caught up.

Taking away the wides and Temba’s score, South Africa needed 299 from 229 balls.

The required rate was 7.25 in the chase, but without Temba and the extras, they would have needed 7.8. So the 363 was turned into almost a 400 chase from one end. You are probably going to lose wickets in that. They lost too many. Their main chance of winning was taking New Zealand death bowlers down. Miller did that, and it didn’t matter.

These are all the South African batters with 1000 runs in ODIs, then adjusted by our Zulu metric to normalise them for era. The player Zulu is named after is on this, Lance Klusener.

You can see Kallis, who is mentioned a few times. So is Duminy. But you can also find the Kirsten brothers, Faf, Dippenaar, Cullinan, and Cronje.

There is sort of a middle tier here where South African players are slower naturally, and then slow down more when it matters. That is where you find Temba Bavuma. Today he will be blamed, but the truth that is he is a fine ODI batter – raw numbers or adjusted. He just got stuck.

Other superior batters also have in big games before for South Africa. Cronje was actually a great finisher. Yet in the 92 chase, he was not. QDK and Amla are both fantastic players, and even they were mentioned. As was Miller.

Batters failing would be one thing, but this isn’t that most of the time. It’s batters getting stuck. Part of it is that they are a more naturally cautious team. They like to bat slow, especially early on. They’ve never had a smashing opener, with QDK being the closest, but not that player. That suggests this a choice.

Yet, if you look at the great batters in ODIs with more than 2000 runs, South Africa generally don’t have many of these slower players. In bilateral games, this is not an issue either. They have been one of the three best 50-over and T20 sides since their readmission in overall record.

But when batting becomes more tense in knockout games, they all seem to gear back. And then one of them gets stuck. In 2022, it was David Miller. In 2025, it’s Temba Bavuma. But it is always someone.

The great South African slow down is why they have one ICC trophy in three decades.