Doing it the hard way

September 2, 2003 by neil manthorp

There is salt for the gap­ing wounds of the loss against the West Indies and it is the unpalat­able but unavoid­able truth that it was nev­er that close.

Three runs and a mile, they are the same thing. The match was lost much, much ear­li­er than the final dra­mat­ic overs.

Mark Bouch­er spoke for the whole team when he said they want­ed to “do it the hard way” before the tour­na­ment began. He was not, of course, refer­ring to los­ing the open­ing game.

He meant the team were not afraid of any even­tu­al­i­ty, that they were pre­pared to face the hard­ships and dif­fi­cul­ties that inevitably accom­pa­ny a tour­na­ment last­ing over six weeks and that they expect­ed no favours.

Now is the first, and pos­si­bly most test­ing, of those dif­fi­cult times.

The team spent three days get­ting to know each oth­er in the Drak­ens­burg, try­ing to under­stand how they might react under pres­sure and what made them tick. Rid­ing moun­tain bikes and build­ing rafts may go some way towards that objec­tive but it is noth­ing to the chal­lenge they faced last night and will face over the next few days.

The dan­gers of brood­ing anger and sim­mer­ing recrim­i­na­tion must be con­front­ed and han­dled. And then the rel­e­vant ques­tions must be asked.

Shaun Pol­lock asked for the press to be pos­i­tive and con­struc­tive before the tour­na­ment began and that is the least he deserves after just one defeat — it is the least the team deserves.

They must be remind­ed again and again over the com­ing days that one loss is not ter­mi­nal. The World Cup is still very much alive. (Remem­ber what a show­er the Aus­tralians looked at the begin­ning of the 1999 tournament.)

But a sim­i­lar request can be made from the media and the pub­lic to the cap­tain, coach and selec­tors. Be hon­est and do not be afraid to be ruthless.

If the obvi­ous ele­ments of the team that failed so pal­pa­bly on Sun­day night do so again, action must be tak­en — how­ev­er ruth­less or heart­less that action may look or feel.

If the cam­paign is to founder they must not give their sup­port­ers the chance to say: “They were afraid of change. They did not face the truth.”

But what a game, hey?!