Tony Becca :ON THE BOUNDARY

AFTER 13 days and 26 matches the ICC World Twenty20 championship comes to an end tomorrow in the Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg in South Africa. Contrary to the expectations of many, to the disappointment of the home fans, South Africa, the home team, will not be there. In fact, they were not even in yesterday's semi-finals.

Second favourites to Australia at the start of the tournament, South Africa were knocked out by India in the final match of the Super Eights and, as happened so many times in their history, they will be sitting at home twiddling their thumbs and wondering, for the umpteenth time, what happened this time around.

unfortunate situation

Apart from the unfortunate situation when, after rain in the semi-finals of the 1992 World Cup in Sydney, Australia, they were given, by Messrs Duckworth and Lewis, the impossible target of scoring 21 runs off one delivery, South Africa have had some bad memories in one-day cricket.

For those who do not remember, here are some of them:

In India, in the Titan Cup in 1996, South Africa, after defeating both India and Australia in the earlier matches, took on India in the final and restricted them to 220 for seven - a total that was considered easy pickings for South Africa.

South Africa, however, crashed to 96 for seven on the way losing the match.

In the Super Six round of the 1999 World Cup in England, South Africa scored 271 for seven. Australia, who had to win the match to reach the semi-finals, were 48 for three at one time, through Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting they staged a good recovery before Waugh, on 56, was dropped, unbelievably, by Herschelle Gibbs at mid-wicket, who appeared to have taken the simple catch, started to celebrate, and dropped the ball.

Waugh, who went on to score 120 off 100 deliveries out of Australia's 272 for five off 49.4 overs, is reported to have said to Gibbs immediately the ball hit the grass, "Hersch, you've just dropped the World Cup.".

In the semi-finals, it was South Africa versus Australia, in the last over South Africa needed nine runs to win with one wicket in hand, Lance Klusener scored two boundaries off the first two, with one to win, Klusener hit the fourth delivery past the bowler, in a grand mix-up, Alan Donald was run out and the match ended in a tie with Australia going through to the final and winning it.

In the early rounds of the 2003 World Cup, hosts South Africa needed to defeat Sri Lanka to advance to the next round, the Super Eights, in a game interrupted by rain, they were set a target of 230 off 45 overs to win.

misunderstanding

Duckworth/Lewis gave them the par score of 229 after 45 and, obviously misunderstanding the situation, probably thinking that the par score was the winning score, after getting to 229, Klusener, batting at the time with Mark Boucher who had refused a single off Muttiah Muralitharan, blocked the last few deliveries of the match, and South Africa, to their amazement when they were told that the result was a tie and not a victory for them, dropped out of the competition by failing to score one more run.

In the last World Cup, South Africa were again one of the favourites, to many they started as second favourites to Australia, and when they got to the semi-final against Australia, many believed they could win with the majority at least expecting a fight - a fight to the finish.

Once again, however, with the promised land in sight, South Africa trembled, they shook, their knees knocked, they buckled under the weight of the expectations and they crashed to defeat without even putting up a fight.

Batting first on a good batting patch at Beausejour Stadium in Castries, St. Lucia, South Africa were on the skids at 27 for five and never recovered.

They never even made Australia work up a sweat.

scoring

On Wednesday, South Africa, after knocking off the West Indies easily by scoring 206 for two with eight wickets in hand and 14 deliveries to spare, after defeating Bangladesh with seven wickets and seven deliveries to spare, after defeating England 19 runs and after whipping New Zealand with six wickets to spare, lost to India, who they were expected to beat, by 37 runs at Kingsmead.

After restricting India to 153 for five, after chipping to 11 without loss in the first over, South Africa were reeling at 31 for five after 5.5 overs before struggling to an embarrassing 116 for nine.

"Choke" is not a word that the representatives of South Africa like to hear, but regardless of what captain Graeme Smith wants to say, whether he likes it or not, South Africa have not only found ways of embarrassing themselves: they have also mastered the art of snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory.

There is hardly another word to describe what has happened to South Africa over the past 11 years or so and more so what happened to them on Thursday under the lights in the sprawling city of Durban.