South Africa / Frank Gregan / 28 February 2011 /

Often fancied pre-tournament, the Proteas have a reputation for disappointing their backers. Frank Gregan discusses their chances of overcoming fear of failure this time...

South Africa started their World Cup campaign with an emphatic victory over the West Indies last Thursday. They came into the tournament as the fourth favourites with only the hosts India shorter in the betting. It's easy to see why as South Africa have a squad packed with talent and experience.

Many pundits believe that this will be their year. A quick look through the archives will tell you this is often the case prior to the World Cup getting under way but they always end up underachieving once it comes to the business end.

Semi-finalists in 1992, 1999 and 2007 is as good as it has got for the Proteas, a record that has earned them a reputation of being bigger bottlers than Coca Cola! There's no reason to suspect that things will be any different this time around. The pressure increases as each trophy-less World Cup passes. There's no heat during the group stages, there's always the next game to put it right but when sudden death comes around the South Africans wilt like hot spinach.

Nothing instils fear of failure as much as failure. It's a cycle of failure, you fail and you feel despair which means that you get scared of failing which means that next time around you fail again and so the cycle continues. Sports psychologists believe it's all about the 'here and now' and 'past performance has no relevance to the present.' Yeah right, good luck telling that to a guy who has lost two World Cup semis!

One way of getting rid of the monsters between the ears is to get young blood into the side. The young are fearless because they have yet to experience the pain of flopping and not fulfilling expectations.

Another way is to break the vicious cycle. Most players who fail feel despair but that's not always the case with some individuals. These players are often not the most talented but because of their personality they take defeat and victory with the same balanced view. Consequently they don't care when they fail or at least they don't beat themselves up about it, which means they are unlikely to choke the next time.

There used to be plenty of those type of characters in the game but with much higher professional standards being applied these days they are getting rarer. You know the guys we're talking about; those who have just won the World Cup Final with a boundary off the last ball and say "Get in there - let's get to the bar!" and those who have just lost a World Cup semi final by 10 wickets and say "Oh dear - let's get to the bar!"

It's a given that South Africa will make the last eight but from there on in it will come down to how much self belief they can muster. They will be three matches away from being crowned World Champions, that's three massive occassions during which they mustn't choke. They are currently [5.6] to back to lift the trophy which given their 'previous' is very skinny.

To put it in perspective, it's possible to play about with the figures and back England at [10.0] the West Indies at [29] and New Zealand at [30] and get a better return for your investment should any of those three teams lift the trophy compared to the return you would get by only backing the perennial bottlers. Three for the price of one - you wouldn't get that from Coca Cola!

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