Gary Kirsten reveals how he tried to address Proteas choking problem

Former Proteas coach Gary Kirsten has revealed how he tried to address the national team’s failures in major tournaments.

Kirsten did not get the opportunity to coach the Proteas at the World Cup but was steering the ship as coach during the 2013 Champions Trophy semi-final. South Africa infamously collapsed against England in the semi-final.

Coach unable to address issue

The coach, who guided India to the 2011 World Cup said that at that time the focus was on improving the Test team but his frank admission that the Proteas had a choking problem ruffled some feathers in the team.

Some players were reluctant to accept a label brought about by their predecessors, one of whom was Kirsten himself. As a player he was involved in three World Cups where South Africa bowed out in inauspicious circumstances.

“One or two players did approach me about that afterwards,” Kirsten told the Following On Cricket podcast. “But I mean, it didn’t take a fool to see what was going on. I’ve always maintained [that], certainly [in] my journey with the one-day team, less so in the Test team … our Test journey was very different to the one-day journey. Certainly, my two years that I was with the team [as coach], we were certainly very focused on becoming the No.1 Test team. The team was set up for that.

“The one-day journey was slightly different. We were bringing in a lot of young players at the time, we were two years away from the World Cup, after the Champions Trophy. One of the things I wanted to focus on in the one-day team was around big events. I wanted us to be real as people and as brutally honest as we could to each other around the history of these big events, and how we could overcome them.”

Players remain reluctant to address the label, preferring to try and move the legacy of the Proteas in major tournaments to the back of their minds.

Proteas must acknowledge choking to overcome it

“Prior to that [Champions Trophy] semi-final, we spoke into that space,” Kirsten said.

“We were open and direct about the challenges that we got in these big games, to the point where I stood up and said to the team, ‘Unless we actually acknowledge that we’re actually choking, we’re not going to move forward as a group’. And I was met with … not resistance in a tangible way, but I could see there was resistance, people were scared to go there.

“[It has always been] it’s not an issue, let’s move on, play the game as we need to, play in the moment. I have always been from the school of thought that until you address the elephant in the room, it’s going to stay there. So we, with the help of Paddy [Upton], tried to go down a bit of a journey, but we never got enough legs on it to really make some good progress. I think it still needs to be done, to be honest.”