New Zealand's Cole McConchie delivers a ball during the 2026 ICC Men's T20 Cricket World Cup semi-final match against South Africa at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Wednesday.
Image: AFP
Who the hell is Cole McConchie?
This was the message that was blowing up my Whatsapp for the first 30 minutes of the Eden Gardens semi-final.
To be brutally honest, I did not know much more than his recent heroics with the bat against Sri Lanka in the Super Eights clash.
After a frantic internet search, I discovered that McConchie was a 34-year-old off-spinner that has never played any international cricket outside of the subcontinent despite having debuted back in 2021 already.
Also that he wandered around playing second division English County Championship cricket for Hampshire and Durham 2nds, and oddly enough ran a commercial cleaning company with his father, Brent, before setting up a gym along with his wife, Sarah, and former Proteas fitness trainer Greg King.
But here he was, bowling the second over of a T20 World Cup semi-final at the colossal Eden Gardens, and dismissing the cream of the Proteas’ top-order in Quinton de Kock and Ryan Rickelton with successive deliveries.
And then like an angel in the night, disappeared to the boundary, and was not seen again at the bowling crease.
Yet again, New Zealand had unearthed the most unlikeliest of heroes, just like when South African-born Grant Elliott bashed the Proteas out of the 2015 World Cup at Eden Park, mullet-haired Colin de Grandhomme had figures of 1/25 from his 10 overs to push the Lord’s 2019 World Cup final into an epic Super Over, and Daryl Mitchell crushing England’s hopes into the desert sand of the 2021 T20 World Cup semi-final in Abu Dhabi.
It was something that had sat with me in the build-up to the Kolkata T20 World Cup semi-final.
I was a live witness to all three of those aforementioned events and had voiced it to none other than former Proteas captain Graeme Smith - who himself suffered at the hands of the Black Caps in a World Cup knockout game - on the eve of the latest semi-final that New Zealand always manage to find a way. It’s in their DNA.
And this is what bothers me most about the harrowing Proteas defeat. Man for man, muscle for muscle, the Proteas are a better cricket team than New Zealand.
But yet it is Aiden Markram's men who are awaiting a flight home and not preparing for another shot at T20 World Cup glory.
Proteas coach Shukri Conrad was spot on in his frank assessment afterwards that his team got “moered” and “snot klapped” all at the same time. It was that bad.
It is this type of honesty that will be required to pick up the pieces. Hard questions need to be posed to a group of players that went from the sublime for seven matches to downright awful.
The opposition are allowed to play well - very well like the Black Caps did - and teams have “crappy nights”, but the successful high-performing teams also peak when it matters most.
Often after such harrowing defeats, the inclination is to reach for the panic button and for the witch-hunting to begin in terms of finding a scapegoat.
That can only do more harm than good. These are the best players Proteas have at their disposal. Equally, Conrad is comfortably the best coach for the Proteas right now.
Together they have 18 months before the next World Cup to find a way to be comfortable with tags such as favourites. To not be overwhelmed with the notion that people expect them to win.
Even the double World Cup-winning Springboks thrive on the underdog tag. Backs against the wall, almost feeling sorry for themselves that the world is against us, mentality. It’s South Africans’ DNA.
Sometimes playing on the front foot, and not catching-up all the time, can be a liberating experience.
During this period they may just find their own Cole Edward McConchie. The unknown that slips under the radar and gets the job done.
Because for all the Proteas' wonderful gameplay during the group stages and Super Eights, they have failed in their mission to get the job done. And that’s ultimately the ugly truth.