Rossouw settled after watershed ton

Team sports are centered on the collective. Success is everyone's success, even if one person has been more successful than everyone else. Failure is everyone's failure even if not everyone deserved to fail. Because of that sharing, an individual's brilliance or bad day can end up buried. But not in cricket.

The scorecard separates performances according to each player. A simple glance at it reveals who starred, who sunk and who just stood by. In Rilee Rossouw's 11th match, he experienced the first of those after a tough first ten games that put pressure on a career he had waited too long to take off. He seemed flummoxed at the chance to finally do it.

Rossouw has been on the radar since the 2008 Under-19 World Cup but he seemed stuck at franchise level since then. He was a regular among the top run-scorers in the first-class competition but was always going to struggle to break into a Test team with names like Jacques Kallis, Hashim Amla and now Faf du Plessis at No. 3.

Instead, he was initiated in the 50-over format and despite only one half-century in nine games was included in South Africa's World Cup squad. To say eyebrows were raised would do an injustice to the range of expressions Rossouw's selection caused. As a wild card, Rossouw understood he would have provide explanations for his inclusion through performance and they would have to come before the tournament. The century at the Wanderers, although overshadowed by AB de Villiers' record-breaking knock, was the first of those.

"I want prove I can play at the highest level in ODIs. If I can bat like I batted today come the World Cup, I am going to justify my position," Rossouw said. "I have been working really hard to represent my country and I want to be successful for my country and it hasn't gone to plan the last couple of games. Scoring my maiden ODI century was a relief and I am very happy and satisfied."

Before Sunday, Rossouw had batted 10 times in ODIs but only got runs in five of those innings. That is not the colloquial understanding of the phrase "got runs", it is the literal one. Ducks are an inevitable for all batsmen but Rossouw collected a flock of five in the same number of months and a duck, unlike any other number on the scoresheet, sticks out for all the wrong reasons.

Rossouw tried not to let it bother him too much and focused on the reasons he was being dismissed without scoring. "The times that I have been bowled on naught, I had to go hard or do something, except for the last one," he said. His first duck came on debut when anxiousness to get off the mark saw him run-out. That day he was opening the batting. The next one was in the middle of a hat-trick from Prosper Utseya, batting at No. 4, the third slogging when trying to accelerate the innings at No. 7, the fourth an indifferent stroke batting at No. 3 and the final one, being cleaned up by a full, swinging delivery when opening.

In all of that, it was clear what was causing Rossouw's uncertainty. "I feel like if I play at the Knights I know I am batting No. 3. That's my position, that's my role, that's what I do. It's a bit of an adjustment for me to open even thought I have opened in the past but I am not a Hashim Amla that's done it," he said. "Batting four is also new for me, but I am adjusting."

The No. 3 spot is where Rossouw is most comfortable and where he racked up the runs that got him his international call-up. Last winter, he was the overall top runscorer in a quadrangular A series in Australia and shortly thereafter, he was called up to the senior squad where he learnt that newbies cannot be choosers.

South Africa's seven-batsmen strategy means Rossouw is likely to fit in to the lower middle-order and he found a mentor in JP Duminy to talk through that with him but Quinton de Kock's injury also means he may have to open. Luckily, there is another senior man willing to usher him through that. Hashim Amla, whose own career-best 153 was forgotten in Rossouw's redemption and de Villiers' drama, helped Rossouw find his feet.

When the innings began, Amla kept strike while Rossouw scratched and eventually settled. When Amla could see Rossouw was ready to go, he let him and as the milestone neared, he offered advice. "Hashim was really a pillar for me," Rossouw said. "He gave me strength. He told me even if you get your 100 in the 40th over - because I was on 90 in about the 30th - don't worry about it, I am here for you."

That is the message Rossouw has received from everyone in the squad, even when things were not going well. "The team culture is fantastic. If someone is a little bit down, there are so many shoulders to go to and talk to," he said.

AB de Villiers has been a constant source of praise and was among the first to celebrate his maiden century. "It was a fantastic knock. No-one has ever doubted his talent and his ability to win games. I still think there is much more to come," de Villiers said.

Rossouw thinks so too, and having waited so long for his chance, wants to make it count everywhere including the scorecard. "If I got selected when I was 19, when I scored a lot of runs, it would have been a bit of a rush. I feel more settled now and I know my game much better. But if you do get selected at 19, you've got so much freedom. You can just play with flair and you make mistakes and learn from that. I am glad I got selected now," he said when South Africa's World Cup squad was announced. There, he was also asked what his biggest wish for the World Cup is. "I want to put in a match-winning performance for the Proteas."