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Follow UsTake the bull by the horns
It is one of the scariest things to do in life. It is quite a tall ask, and taking the bull by the horns takes the utmost guts. Even if you think of doing it at a mall near you, you would be scared, at least for a brief moment.
That’s exactly what it takes to beat Australia. Do you want to beat them, or do you need to play like them? What does that mean? That means you need to be at your aggressive best and put the right foot forward every single time.
On October 17, South Africa can safely say that they took the bull by the horns. They just didn’t do it cautiously; they absolutely put on a trailblazing display of it. Prior to the big final, South Africa’s spin-bowling consultant, Paul Adams, only wanted one thing from his team.
"To visualise the semi-final as it is the biggest game."
South Africa just did that. They visualised the semi-final as their biggest game ever and put on a show that they can be mighty proud of. They were clinical throughout, ensuring they didn’t commit a single mistake.
Whether throwing themselves onto the ground or throwing the ball up and surprising the Australian batters, South Africa were inch-perfect. But if you really want to know what this team is made of, look no further than Anneke Bosch.
She’s 31, but it is just her second T20 World Cup. But that didn’t stop her from pulling the Australian bull by its horns. She’s never had a performance that has put her on the world map. You could even be excused if you didn’t know Bosch, but not anymore.
There was a knock here and there, but she never displayed consistency to make a place in the top four her own. But the one performance against India, a 32-ball 40, convinced the selectors to keep their faith in the power-hitting batter, promoting her to the top of the order.
For the public, there wasn’t one innings to cite and say she would wow the entire world and take on the mighty Australians. To give more context, when South Africa lost their only clash of the tournament against England, there were a lot of eyeballs on Bosch’s 25-ball 18.
It was a knock that was even dubbed as a ‘knock that hurt South Africa’. Hindsight is such a thing that if you look back at that statement, you would die wondering, are we even talking about the same Bosch?
It is a knock that would go on to become a folklore in South Africa women’s cricket history. It is perhaps a tale that a lot of Australian grandmothers are going to recite to their grandchildren when they don’t obey their orders, saying that ‘Bosch will be here’ to scare them.
When the score was 25/1, ask any fan; they would have told you that Australia are right in the game. One more wicket from thereon could have put the South Africa in a precarious position. But not under Bosch’s watch. She didn’t wait for the dust to settle, she took the attack heads on, showing skill with her sweeps.
A ball later, she danced down the track with the grace of a ballerina and the brute force of the world’s strongest person. It was muscled at such a speed that even someone with Tahlia McGrath’s reach finished second.
At every point when one hoped and predicted that Australia would make a comeback, Bosch punched the hardest. She welcomed Georgia Wareham with a boundary, straight as an arrow. She then used her street smarts to conserve her energy till the drinks break. But the return of Wareham just made it clear that Bosch wasn’t holding any hostages.
That’s when she showed her power. A full-blooded slog sweep followed by muscling the ball past the longest part of the boundary in such a way that even someone as tall as Ashleigh Gardner remained a spectator.
Just when they thought that, ah, okay, I got her trick, she likes to sweep the spinners, she turned the bat almost in your face with a reverse sweep that no one saw coming. She displayed a range of shots that put them in doubt as to whether it was the same Bosch that the world cricket had seen previously. 46 runs off an extremely talented Australian spin-bowling unit in just 23 deliveries perhaps was the biggest difference on the night.
She might have lost South Africa's clash against England, but on the big stage, she really proved why ‘visualisation’ is so powerful. If you want to beat Australia, you have to play like Australia, and that’s where Bosch channelled her inner ‘Australian’ to silence the Australians.
“My heart is racing a lot, it was tough out there, glad we got past the line,” Anneke Bosch said in the post-match presentation.
You might look at the post-match presentation time and time again, and not once in a lifetime will you will see it and say that her heart was racing a lot. If anything, Bosch was calm and clinical.
South Africa might have taken a big risk by making her bat at No.3, but as history has been written, that big punt has now taken them one step closer to destiny. A fortnight ago, she could have very well been a major reason behind South Africa's elimination, but a week later, she was the hero.
Streaks are meant to be broken; coming into this clash, Australia were 7-0 in head-to-head, very similar to The Undertaker's streak of 21-0 at Wrestlemania. But as history would have it, it would require Brock Lesnar's brute force and sheer disdain to script a new page in wrestling entertainment history. The Undertaker, at that point, was no longer invincible; his powers were fading, just like how Australia's powers were when Meg Lanning walked out of the team.
It required a Lesnar, and Bosch played one. She combined forces with her attitude in her 48-ball 74 to not just take the mighty Australians on but also defeat them to script a new page in women's cricketing history. 21-1, 7-1, it was clear that all streaks are meant to be broken at the RIGHT TIME.
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