In cricket World Cups, South Africa has a (very well deserved) reputation for choking at the crunch time. They just lost a World Cup Semi Final (for the fourth time in 6 tournaments) but there has been a controversy if they did indeed “choke” or were simply beaten by the better side.
What are the hallmarks of a “choke” in sports? (I agree its a very subjective topic). My own view is that it requires
i) A favoured team/player to lose matches that they were should have won and their performance was subpar on the day. It does not count as a choke if you were simply outplayed that day, like France’s defeat of Brazil in the 1998 final.
or
ii) Lost from winning or even dominant positions. So Jana Novotna at 1993 Wimbledon.
and/or
iii) Failed to take multiple clear opportunities to put the opponent away. So, England soccer team at every tournament.
Going by that, I would say RSA, whose fielding was sloppy and missed two run out and two catching chances did indeed choke yesterday.
I think it’s a pretty remarkably stupid sentiment to have about the WC semi final for several reasons.
For a start I don’t think SA were entitled to be favourites. New Zealand are unbeaten, SA had been flogged by India and Pakistan, and left out their best bowler. I in fact backed New Zealand.
And after the rain interruption I was very happy because SA would have probably scored 350 plus without it, in no small part due to New Zealand’s dropped catches and poor late innings bowling. Were New Zealand choking?
Sure looked like it when they were batting. They were cruising toward a very gettable target and then threw away Guptill’s wicket with a soft run out, then Taylor gets out to a poor shot and for about 5 overs I thought SA were on top. At 203/4 they have two men set and try to throw away Anderson’s wicket but fail because AB fumbles. So they get to 252/4, needing only 45 and Anderson thinks, “I should go the slog here and get out.” Ronchi continues his woeful performance by chipping one straight to a fielder and now SA think about winning. I, meanwhile, think, “are the Black Caps going to choke on me?”
I guess so. Anderson plays a get out shot to end the penultimate over, pulling from wide of off and predictably skying it down square leg’s throat. Luckily his “choke” is trumped by the SA “choke” and I get my money.
It’s that easy for things to look like choking, and simply not be. If you look at the AB fumble for instance, he nearly manages to reach around the stumps, grab the ball one handed and knock out a stump, twice, all while falling. If he’d managed to knock one out it would have been the most clear headed dismissal I think I’ve ever seen.
Anyway whatever happens tomorrow don’t accuse Australia of choking because despite the betting I think India deserve to be favourites for that game and I have backed them too.
How many do they normally miss? There are dropped catches in every cricket match. Did RSA drop more in the semi than in other games? The collision between Duminy and Behardien might count, but that’s just one opportunity, not multiple.
Ditto for run outs - it’s quite hard to hit the wicket on the run, and the majority of run-out attempts don’t come good. Why do you think these misses were due to choking and not just run of the mill expected outcomes from that situation?
You need a single to win. Your partners plays a good shot and sets off running. You stand stock still while the whole stadium shouts at you to run: that’s a choke. This match just doesn’t compare.
Clearest cases of choking occur with individual sports with heavy emphasis on hand-eye coordination IMO - things like golf, snooker, darts. 100s of examples - one off the top of my head would be Greg Norman going into meltdown whilst leading the masters on the final round, allowing Nick Faldo to overtake him (they were playing together IIRC, so it was particularly bad).
Ironically so, as these sports are often derided as ‘games’ due to the lack of athletic endeavour. The mental side, though, is immense. The pressure is really crushing at the lower levels of something like darts - make double 16 and I’m a professional player who gets paid. Miss and I’m back working on the building site.
Well then, if thats the case the 1999 SF was not a choke either. They were playing against that Australian side, probably the greatest ever. They were up against Warne and McGrath in their prime. And they were losing, they needed, 16 runs of 8 balls with one wicket in hand, it was only a Klusener blitz that got them where they did.
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How many do they normally miss? There are dropped catches in every cricket match. Did RSA drop more in the semi than in other games? The collision between Duminy and Behardien might count, but that’s just one opportunity, not multiple.
Ditto for run outs - it’s quite hard to hit the wicket on the run, and the majority of run-out attempts don’t come good. Why do you think these misses were due to choking and not just run of the mill expected outcomes from that situation?
You need a single to win. Your partners plays a good shot and sets off running. You stand stock still while the whole stadium shouts at you to run: that’s a choke. This match just doesn’t compare.
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The ball before the famous run out in 1999, Donald was very nearly run out backing up too far and the Aussies missed a simple throw, so he was being over cautious when *it *happened. So you could say the same for then.
Both AB run out and the Duminy catch should have been taken. They were regulation, run of the mill stuff and they messed it up. Yes errors take place, but when they take place when they should not, thats a choke.
When Bernard Langer missed the 4 foot putt to give the US the Ryder Cup, was that a choke? Certainly. I don’t think you can say not, even though putts are often missed.
IMO “choke” is a insulting term used by fans who imagine that the losing side didn’t just get outplayed or have bad luck, but must have lost because of some sort of lack of moral fiber. Maybe, as Busy Scissors says, nerves might interfere with performance in amateur or semi-pro sports, but I don’t think anyone gets to the highest professional levels without overcoming those sorts of difficulties. Can’t we just give them the benefit of the doubt and say they lost without engaging in amateur psychoanalysis?
Choking is either losing when expected to win or losing very badly when you should have been a contender. RSA did neither of those.
I also disagree that the English football team choke. They are genuinely just not very good, sometimes due to very ordinary players and sometimes due to being a group of names rather than a team, but still not very good.
The problem is that RSA now have a reputation of choking in semi-finals, and they’ve genuinely done it at least twice. I don’t think if a different team - India, say - had been beaten by NZ in exactly the same way that people would be saying that India had choked. But because it’s South Africa, they were always going to be called chokers if they’d lost.
When did chasing 298 in 43 overs become a very gettable chase?
I think Martin Crowe put it best in the cricinfo Matchpoint discussion after the game: It was as though both teams didn’t know how to win, and the game was a sequence of both sides getting into winnable positions only to hand it back to the other side saying, ‘Here you go you win it,’ right up till the end.
As Teuton said, it’s only being called a choke by some because it involved South Africa.
This is the same logic which leads some to describe every All Black failure in the Rugby World Cup as a choke, just because they failed to win between 1987 and 2011 - indeed, I remember in the RWC 2011 thread defending NZ against these accusations in all but 2 instances (1999 and 2007). Just because a side loses a lot at certain stages, doesn’t mean that it’s always a choke - if that were the case, then whoever lost on Tuesday would have to be labelled as chokers (SA for their recent history, NZ because they had stumbled at the SF stage, what?, 6 or 7 times). In other words, I agree with both of you.
It’s the manner of the defeat that’s important and I can’t agree that SA choked on Tuesday. That was a damn fine game of cricket that turned on a few fine margins. It’s hardly like being two tries up on an up to then unremarkable France with the best team in the competition and failing to close it out.
The best example of a choke in this thread is Greg Norman, sadly. Closely followed by Jana Novotna.
There is a psychological type of choking in sports when an athlete suddenly forgets how to do very basic tasks.
One famous example was Mackey Sasser, a catcher for the NY Mets in the 80s who suddenly lost the ability to throw the ball back to the pitcher.
There was also Rick Ankiel, a pitcher for the Cardinals who in 2000 suddenly became incapable or throwing the ball anywhere near the plate. Ankiel won 11 games that year, but had to give up pitching completely – though he made a comeback as an outfielder.
There also was Chuck Knoblauch a second baseman who lost the ability to throw to first with any accuracy.
I would define a ‘choke’ as losing after you’ve put yourself in highly advantageous position to win.
So for instance, the Yankees taking a commanding 3-0 series lead over the Red Sox in the 2004 ALCS, only to lose four straight games and lose.
I’m not sure that really counts as a choke; the Jets dominated the game. Yes, Baltimore was favored entering the game, but the Colts never led at any point.
If the Colts had led 20-0 in the fourth quarter but then surrendered three straight touchdowns and lost 21-20, that would be a choke. But in this game, the Jets were simply the better team.
I agree. Saying the other player “choked” was an elementary school taunt that we all outgrew by the time we got to junior high, right up there with “we want a pitcher, not a belly itcher.”
The first example I thought of was Game 1 of the 1995 NBA finals, when Nick Anderson (normally a very good free throw shooter) missing four straight free throws with three seconds left in the 4th quarter.