2oceansvibe’s sports columnist, Sean Wilson, considers what lies ahead for the Proteas in the T20 World Cup that’s currently underway. And the c-word. That c-word.

As South Africa begin their campaign in a high profile limited overs tournament, the T20 World Cup, it was refreshing to hear AB de Villiers openly refer to the team’s history of choking. In the past, whenever the topic has been raised before a big tournament, the usual response from a South African captain was to put his fingers in his ears and loudly say “La la la la la la”.

It’s good that the team have moved on from their policy of psychological denial. In the past, a lot of anger had built up in the team when the public would label them with the c-word (insert your own “they also called them chokers” joke here).

This is a giant leap forward for a team on its road to recovery from past World Cup heartbreak. After all, the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. Call a choke a choke, not the c-word.

It’s such a nice contrast from how the team approached the touchy subject during last year’s ODI World Cup. As they approached the quarter-final of the tournament, they remained insistent that they were not susceptible to collapsing under pressure. They should have just accepted that come World Cup time, the Proteas tended to choke. I knew it. You knew it. Even the New Zealand 12th man knew it.

After some 18 months to stew over it, a change of coaching staff, and the odd team hike up the Alps, the team have maturely accepted their past failures. Now if a similar pressure situation arises out in the middle, they’ll be able to identify it as a situation where some players might not be thinking too clearly. Hopefully they’ll now be in a position to help each other as a team in those scenarios and then let their talent take care of the rest.

Even though the Proteas are not at the top of the T20 rankings anymore, don’t let that fool you into thinking that they are not in a position to win this tournament. In fact, don’t let any ICC rankings influence you in any way. They are the same people that think Shakib Al Hasan is the best test all-rounder in the world, that neither Hashim Amla nor Vernon Philander deserved awards for their stellar years and that the fans would prefer more of this bastardised format of the game to tests. It’s clear that they don’t watch a lot of cricket.

Can the Proteas win this tournament? Sure. Why not?

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