Champions England on brink of losing World Cup crown
South Africa v England, 21st October 2023.
South Africa 399–7
England 170 all out
South Africa win by 229 runs
Well this wasn’t supposed to happen was it!
On a sporting Saturday toward the end of October, the mighty nations of England and South Africa faced off not once but twice, but whereas the England rugby team would lose a World Cup Semi-Final in Paris they’d largely dominate and be incredibly, incredibly unlucky to lose by one single point in the dying embers of a physically brutal encounter, they were rather embarrassed by a rampant South Africa who looked light years ahead of a tired, injury plagued and completely out of sorts England who now stare into the abyss of an early elimination from a World Cup they are the proud holders of, and currently 9th in a cricketing table of 10 behind tournament lightweights the Netherlands, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
For 45 minutes this morning England were outstanding. Opening bowlers Reece Topley and David Willey used the new ball expertly with Topley snagging the early prized wicket of Quinton de Kock with only the second delivery of the contest and Reeza Hendricks and Rassie van der Dussen had no alternative but to, in the cricketing vernacular, “dig in”, preserve their wickets and ride out the early storm. Another minor injury to Topley saw him leave the field early (he returned later in the innings with 2 wickets but at a heavy cost of runs against him) and with his early departure, the storm passed, and Hendricks and van der Dussen made hay. Hendricks, only in the team 45 minutes before the start of play due to the illness of captain Temba Bavuma, crashed 9 boundary 4’s and 3 boundary clearing 6’s on his way to an impressive 85 from just 75 balls received as he shared a 121 run partnership with van der Dussen for the 2nd wicket, the senior man rattling a run-a-ball 60 before both South African batsmen fell to the leg spin bowling of Adil Rashid, England’s best bowler again on a day you had zero reason whatsoever to attach the label “best” to anything connected with England Cricket.
In an innings typified by dominating batting partnerships, stand-in skipper Aiden Markram knocked a run-a-ball 42 in league with Heinrich Klaasen, before the big hitting Klaasen was joined by the gangly fast bowler Marco Jansen, and their 151 run partnership was something to behold, as well as a chastening and embarrassing couple of hours for a tired looking England completely and utterly out on their feet. Jansen finished the innings on a remarkable 75 not out from just 42 balls received but even this display paled into the shadows of a quite extraordinary cricketing “knock” from Klaasen. The 32 year old from Pretoria reached his half century from 40 balls received and his century from 61. Read that again! If my mathematics are correct, he went from 50 to 100 in just 21 balls! Furthermore, and perhaps the most sobering and overwhelming statistic of them all this morning, was South Africa smashing 131 runs from the final 9 overs of their innings, and at a rate of over 2 runs per ball received. Staggering stuff.
Setting England 400 to win was fantasy land stuff even before England crumpled, crumbled and collapsed to defeat, and in just 22 overs.
"The Spirit of Cricket" (self-published book)
"Ashes to Ashes" (self-published book)
England disappeared out of sight as they collapsed from 18–0 to 100–8 in just 14 overs bowled and had it not been for a 70 run partnership for the final wicket between Gus Atkinson (35 from 21 balls) and Mark Wood (43 from 17 balls), they could have lost by an even bigger and more embarrassing margin than the already, and final, difference between the two teams of a gargantuan 229 runs. Again on a day when “best” could not be applied anywhere near the England cricket team, this is a little unfair on Atkinson and especially the lusty and entertaining blows from Mark Wood who simply took aim and crashed 5 almighty boundary clearing 6’s and 2 boundary 4’s in his 17 ball cameo at the end of an innings all of his teammates will wish to forget in a hurry and quite frankly, they have to.
Still a mathematical possibility of qualification, and still a light shines of possibility should they clamber their way into a Semi-Final spot, but this England team looks fragile, “cooked” in the cricketing vernacular, and abject in any language you wish. Sri Lanka are up next on Thursday in a “must win game”, a moniker that applies to EVERY game from hereon in, including the tussles with old foes Australia, India and Pakistan.
England are out but in the quirky nature and indeed language of cricket, they’re still in. They’ll be out soon enough, and then the inquest shall commence.
Elsewhere in the World Cup, New Zealand trounced Afghanistan by 139 runs and India defeated Bangladesh by 7 wickets, thus setting up today’s cricketing battle of the final two undefeated teams in the tournament. At the time of writing, India need a further 128 runs from 24 overs (crowd darling Virat Kohli 26 not out) and New Zealand a further 7 Indian wickets in which to preserve their respective 100% records. Australia have finally got their tournament underway after brushing aside a weak looking Sri Lanka by 5 wickets as well as smashing 367 total runs against a Pakistan team they eventually defeated by 62 runs. Pakistan remain an enigmatic presence at this World Cup, flattering to deceive or mightily impressive, and they would rue a dropped catch or three on their way to eventual defeat by Australia and especially spilling a cricketing “dolly” of a catch that would have dismissed David Warner on just 10 before the Paddington born fighting alley cat would smash his way to an incredible 163 from just 124 balls received.
You wait around for a seismic shock at the World Cup and just 2 days after England’s humiliation at the hands of Afghanistan came the Netherlands thoroughly deserved and dominating victory against England’s victors today South Africa, and despite a number of these results going in favour of England clambering the table towards the top 4 positions, today’s result happened, and on the back of each nation receiving an ignominious defeat on the cricketing field of play, I can only see South Africa squeezing into the Semi-Finals, and England trudging off home early.
Since we were last together, the forever war continues in the middle-east without the paragons of virtue in the “Evil Empire” of the USA and UK daring to call for a ceasefire. Tens of thousands of lives have already been cast to the deathly winds, hundreds of thousands are in constant fear of when their turn will come and millions of our fellow human beings are the ultimate dark prize of a handful of dark eyed souls in expensive suits that dominate our telescreens with their blood-lust and desires for death and human destruction. These anti-human wraiths and vacuous vexatious vermin will bang the war drums in Israel and Palestine until the early months of 2024 when, and I bet you every penny you have in your pocket, they’ll turn their deathly attentions back to eastern Europe, and Ukraine, and an outside world of the forever war and the pumping out of fear that boils my piss into a stewed vinegar, will continue unabated and long after these words remain unread on the dusty, overstocked shelves of the internet.
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"...boils my piss into a stewed vinegar..."?
I quoted Monty Python last time, and now you're sounding like them.