Proteas coach Ottis Gibson put all his eggs in one basket, it fell and left him with a big mess that he won’t be around to clean up.
When he was appointed to the position of head coach, Gibson was given one mandate, win the World Cup for South Africa.
The ex-West Indies fast bowler had a plan to do so.
And that plan was built around building a mean Protea machine.
Back in his heyday in the mid-90s, Gibson played for a West Indies team that was feared because of the quality of their fast bowlers, guys with genuine pace.
RUN INTO THE GROUND: Proteas speedster Kagiso Rabada. Photo: Andrew Boyers/Reuters.
Curtly Ambrose, Courtney Walsh, Ian Bishop, Winston Benjamin, Franklyn Rose and some others all shared the leather with Gibson in that time.
Those were the days when fast bowlers ruled the game.
Gibson wanted to bring that back and he wanted SA to dominate world cricket in a similar fashion with the likes of Kagiso Rabada, Dale Steyn, Anrich Nortje, Duanne Oliver (before he took a Kolpak deal) and Lungi Ngidi in his arsenal.
Pitches, especially in Test matches, were prepared for these guys to bowl fear into opposition batsmen.
They did that and for a while we were celebrating, but then Olivier announced that he was taking a Kolpak deal, Nortje was ruled out of the World Cup, Steyn was ruled out, Ngidi battled with fitness after a long-term injury and Rabada was simply overused.
All of a sudden they had to rely on their batsmen to win them games.
An iconic venue, Lord’s cricket ground has been around for a long while and has created some of the best cricket moments.
Apart from this venue, which other cricket stadia on your bucket list would you like to watch cricket at? #ProteaFire🔥 #CWC19 #PAKvSA pic.twitter.com/nEJ3fpc030
— Cricket South Africa (@OfficialCSA) June 23, 2019
But while the fast bowlers were enjoying a purple patch on pitches tailor-made for them, our batsmen’s confidence took huge knocks, they too had to bat on those wickets and found runs hard to come by.
Before the start of the tournament, South Africa played 10 ODI matches this year, all of them on home soil.
Only once did they get past the 300-mark in 50 overs, with only Faf du Plessis, Quinton de Kock and Hashim Amla getting to three figures in those matches.
The lack of confidence spilled over into the World Cup and you could see that these players simply weren’t used to spending as much time in the middle.
NO FORM OR FITNESS: SA's Hashim Amla and Dale Steyn. Photo: Gavin Barker/BackpagePix.
The parkie cricket that is the T20 game also didn’t help much and our batsmen simply weren’t given the assistance they needed to perform at the highest level.
As for Gibson, he gave his all as boss of the national team and he prepared the team as best as he could for the plan he wanted to use at the tournament.
Unfortunately, their preparation led to their downfall and I haven’t even gotten to the lack of variation by our bowlers yet.