Pune: South Africa and New Zealand have a short but exciting rivalry in ODI World Cuphistory. And both have not won the trophy despite playing in numerous knockout games. Their pivotal face-off came in the 2011 World Cup quarterfinals at Mirpur when India co-hosted the event with Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. For, it was the game when either New Zealand or South Africa were almost assured (barring a washout) to break their 100% failure rate in the knockout phase of the World Cups.The Kiwis had lost all the preceding six knockout games at World Cups starting with the 1975 semifinal against West Indies and ending with 2007 semis defeat to Sri Lanka. On the other hand, South Africa had reached the knockout phase four times in the five World Cups (at the time of their 2011 meeting) since their debut in 1992 but could never cross that hurdle. Worse, they had failed to reach the Super Six stage at the home World Cup in 2003. The win by 49 runs against South Africa in the last-eight stage in Mirpur took New Zealand to the semis. Remember Man of the Match Jacob Oram? He took 4-39 with his medium pace in this game. But the Kiwis went on to lose to Sri Lanka in Colombo. They, however, used the 2011 platform as a launchpad and reached the title clashes of the next two World Cups. They defeated South Africa in the semifinals in an epic match in 2015 and humbled India in the semis of 2019 when India had to chase on the morning of a reserve day in Manchester. South Africas best opportunity to win the Cup probably came in 1999 in England when they had two chances to knock a struggling Australia out. But first they lost in the Super Six (Herschelle Gibbs dropped Steve Waugh) and then failed to beat Waughs men in the semis after a pulsating tie. The Kiwis had met a similar fate seven years ago when they failed to oust Pakistan through the last league game and then lost to them in the semis (Man of the Match Inzamam-ul-Haq). South Africas two otherheartbreaks were astounding. First, an equation of 22 off 13 balls was reduced to 22 off one ball in the 1992 semis against England after a rain interruption. And in the 2003 World Cup, Shaun Pollocks men got the Duckworth/Lewis calculation wrong, and ended on a par score against Sri Lanka in the group stage as Mark Boucher played a dot ball off Muttiah Muralitharan before the rain had the final say. One more run would have taken them to the Super Six stage. Kiwi Brendon McCullum was careless against Australia in the final of 2015 and gambled (charged down to Starc in the first over of the match) to start their downfall. His compatriot Martin Guptill was not at all careless when he tried to run out Ben Stokes in the final of 2019 at Lords (when nine were needed off three balls) but the ball ricocheted off the diving Stokes bat for four overthrows that kept England in the game. Finally, Kiwis suffered the ignominy of being the second best on the boundary count after even the Super Over was tied. The World Cup rivalry of New Zealand and South Africa and their team journeys have underlined how sport can be a matter of similar scripts and thin margins.

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