Lets see some occasions in the history where South Africa has choked.
◄1992 out in the semi finalGot to say they were very unlucky due to the rain affected match which reversed their target to 22 runs needing in one ball. But before the rain 22 needed from 14 balls which could have gone either way.
◄1996 QFSA won all matches in the first round and clearly choked in the Quarter Final against West Indies who even lost to Kenya and bowled out for 93!
◄1999 SF Choking at its best. Just needed a single to win with several balls to spare. It was one of the silliest run outs which tied the match and ended SA’s successful run in the world cup.
◄2003 out from the first round.Once again SA choked due to the home field pressure. They lost to NZ and WI which two teams they defeated comfortably at home in ODI series prior to WCup. And tied with SL the same team they whopped 5:1 and 4:1 before the world cup at their home soil!.One would assume that they misjudged the D/L score but the fact of the matter was they failed to defeat the top 3 teams in their group and don’t deserve to be in the super 6 on the first place.
◄2007 SF choked against the invincible Australian team
◄2011 QF once again they choked big time to lose to an average team like NZ after playing so well in the group stage even defeating India!
If you look at above examples, the fact is apart from the 2007 SF, SA chocked against the teams who are below them(the underdogs)
Sri Lanka winning '96 Wold Cup.
- Against 2007 Australia,
- 2009 against Pakistan,
- 2011 against India
- 2012 against WI, in the own den.
Apart from West Indies and Pakistanis at the time, all the other teams were actually favorites and ahead of Sri Lanka before the big game. (Australians were the team of invincible, India was always with some advantages over Sri Lanka with the home conditions, Mathews injury,etc ).
So it proves that SA has always lost to the underdog while SL was defeated by the top dog most of the times in knock out stage. Losing to the top dog can’t be called as choking while losing to the underdog is clearly choking. So with all respect to the great cricketing nation, i'm afraid we have to call South Africans the biggest chokers.
Sri Lanka has won a world cup but South Africa hasn't grabbed the gold as of yet. SL just choked in finals recently. They were still good enough to win crucial first round matches, Quarters and Semis to qualify for the finals meanwhile the S.Africans have choked during the QF and SF stage before even going in to the finals! So they are the ones who got choked harder.SA have been choked by the under dogs while SL has been choked mostly by the top dog.
But, despite their team not getting the tag, Sri Lankan fans had to go through too many suffering nights, one might be surprised to see them still backing up Sri Lanka after their team failing to make them happy in four grand finals. But hopefully Sri Lanka will get the big night in '15. Sri Lanka gets its fans hopes up only to dash them by choking in the big one. Couple of people even committed suicide but I am sure many more did and have over all the finals Sri Lanka has got to and lost. Hopefully next one they can win..
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