Former South Africa speedster Dale Steyn recalled the rather forgettable memories of their semi-final heartbreak of the 2015 World Cup against New Zealand in Auckland. It was a continuation of their poor fate in the World Cup for the Proteas, who have failed to cross the final hurdle at the knockout stages as well.
In a conversation with ESPNcricinfo, Steyn recalled, “I think we dealt with it really well in that 24 hours, and then we went home and everyone went our own way. But getting together the next time as a South African team and walking back to the dressing room, I felt like we hadn’t spoken about what happened few months ago. And we needed to make sure that that elephant was out of that room. It was certainly still in the room for what I felt was a long time.”
However, being one of the senior players, Dale Steyn shared how he had to wear a smile and remained professional about it as well.
He again shared, “I went into the dressing room and I sat down and I was like ‘this is where you have to be the true professional you are. You are a senior player’. I went around to some of the younger guys, the Quinton de Kocks. Morne [Morkel] was incredibly upset, visibly upset even on TV. But I thought to the public eye, when you’re on TV, you have to maintain that professional image. Put a smile on your face, be professional when you’ve been beaten in a big game.”
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However, he also opined on picking up the morale of the other players in the dressing room after the defeat in the game as well. And, he also shared that it was only after a year or two that they started to address it as a team as well. Moreover, Dale Steyn had a dismal outing in the New Zealand match, finishing with figures of 1/76 in his 8.5 overs. And, it was their fourth semi-final loss in as many tries in ODI World Cups, following heartbreaks in 1992, 1999, and 2007 also.
“You’ve got to take the losses with the wins and the good with the bad. But as soon as you get in the dressing room, my role was to pick up all the players around me. And that was very heavy. We all kind of went to our rooms that night, I’m sure everyone was upset,” Steyn stated. “The next morning there was a group message, ‘guys, there’s a breakfast planned somewhere’, and we all got together. Then it was as if the night before never happened. We tried to move on as quickly as we could. A year or two years after that had happened, did we start to address it as a team. As individuals, everyone dealt with it their own way. But as a team, we hadn’t unraveled it or spoken about it.”
“They’re more battle-hardened now. From 1999 through all those years, there was one World Cup every four years. Now it feels like there’s a World Cup every year, be it 50-over or 20-over and a lot of these players are participating in all of them. So they’ve learnt how to handle losing, going home, and preparing for the next one happening in a very short time. For this one, they are as ready as they can be. It can feel like they’ve had baggage for a very long time, they’ve lost out on other World Cups due to simple things – maybe net run-rate…. but certainly not for bad cricket,” concluded Dale Steyn.
