Postcard from Singapore: The Choker tag is lost!

Well its time to for all of us to once again head home after another tour away from the shores of South Africa having done battle with the Sri Lankans, the Aussies and Pakistan and New Zealand in Singapore.

The South African cricket team has had a stigma attached to it; no, were not talking of the choker tag but a history of not finishing tours off properly with our minds already thinking of home-cooked food and thus losing the last and often the most crucial match of the tour.

Take for instance the West Indies in '92 when we lost the Barbados test match or India in '96 where we lost the third test in Nagpur to lose the series 2-1 or the same story in England in '98.

The biggest one of them all was probably in Australia in '94 where going into the final test match at the Adelaide Oval we were 1 nil up yet we lost to Australia and the spin of Warnie on the fifth day and drew the series.

So, from the team's point of view it is very encouraging to have finished this long trip well on all three legs of our 2 months tour.

We lost the first test in SL badly and we really needed to bring it back in the second test to save the tour. We did so in Kandy and but for the rain in the third test match in Colombo we may have even won the series and equalled the feat of the '93 teams' tour.

Again in Melbourne we found ourselves totally outplayed in the first match and it was a wake up to us all and honest thanks to the coaching staff who stood fast in their belief that we could overturn the loss and still provide a challenge to the Aussies. Well, it was not exactly as we wanted it but squaring the series in Melbourne did mean that in the 6-match contest, we came out on top 3-2 winners.

Singapore was to be the final telling point of the team, a judgement of whether we could be away for 2months and still finish strongly. Barring the hiccup in the first match when we lost to the Pakistanis, the team really gelled in the next 2 matches against New Zealand and in the final and we again displayed the true grit that the South African side has long be known for.

We leave for home in a few hours and so leave you with a few individual thoughts on how things went.

Roger Telemachus; Hard gekom (came hard at them). Nicky Boje; wonderful, marvelous, but time to head home. Makhaya Ntini; looking forward to holding my baby. David Terbrugge; friendship, loyalty, comraderie and lovely memories, but lets be honest, I'm relieved to be going home. Shaun Pollock; be there, stay there, Boeta Dippenaar; A thick and juicy Bloem steak is one its way. Andrew Hall; great trip, looking forward to my honeymoon. Neil McKenzie; rule number one; make sure your cricket trouser drawstrings are firmly tied, especially in-front of a bouyant Aussie crowd. Nanty Hayward; its not a fishing programme but tight lines do apply.

So for the final time for CricInfo, its cheers from us until we head out again.