A day to remember for the South Africans who left home

Not only can you take South Africans out of South Africa, it is also possible to take a damaging kind of South Africanness out of South Africans. Once you get them out of South Africa, of course. And that, it seems, is the sensible thing to do for some players.

How else to make sense of a Netherlands XI containing four South African-born, raised and coached players, and which had two South Africans on their coaching staff, earning a shock win 13-run over Temba Bavuma's team at Adelaide Oval on Sunday? Two of the transplanted Saffers, Stephan Myburgh and Colin Ackermann, top scored with 37 and 41 not out. Another, Brandon Glover, was the best bowler in the match with a haul of 3/9. The other, Roelof van der Merwe, took a spectacular catch at backward square leg to end David Miller's important innings.

Myburgh, who turns 39 in February, played the last of his 67 white-ball internationals on Sunday. He never featured above first-class level in South Africa, and even then only in 14 matches. Neither did Ackermann, who played 82 first-class games in the country of his birth. Glover played a four-day match and seven 50-over games for South Africa's under-19 side. Van der Merwe did make it to the highest level in South Africa, earning 26 ODI and T20I caps before he made good his escape. But even when he was in the team he wasn't appreciated. "He's a bit of an imposter, isn't he," was how a selector who was on the panel at the time spoke of the feisty left-arm spinning allrounder.

The Netherlands' interim coach, Ryan Cook - son of Jimmy and brother of Stephen - got the job in May after Ryan Campbell suffered a heart attack. Cook appointed Gary Kirsten, whose academy he has worked for in Cape Town, as the Dutch batting consultant. Kirsten's is maybe the most powerful of all the stories of South Africans spurned at home. His compatriots were dismayed and bemused when he was appointed India's coach in December 2007. He had had a fine career in his 101 Tests and 185 ODIs, but he was unknown as a coach outside of his own academy. South Africans stopped pointing that out when Kirsten's team won the 2011 World Cup.

All of those players and coaches are white. You may have heard that South Africa's racially influenced selection policies chase away talent that is not black or brown. That's up there with conspiracy theories of white genocide, rampant murders of white farmers, Donald Trump beating Joe Biden in the 2020 US presidential election. It is racist claptrap. The truth is that South Africa's elite schools produce exponentially more quality players than the country could ever absorb into the national team.

But why is it that those who choose to leave and try their luck elsewhere are able to, on days like Sunday, outplay those who have stayed loyal to the national cause? Did taking South Africans out of South Africa help cure their propensity to choke?

"No, I don't think so," Glover said. "Yeah, there's a strong South African influence in our team, what with the Dutch heritage in the country. Yeah, we chose a different path, and yeah, for various reasons it's paying off for all of us.

"It's always special to play against South Africa, always nice to stand out there with them. We love South Africa and all that stuff, but we're dedicated to the Dutch and we've been working extremely hard for this team, and it's good to see things are paying off now."

South Africa is a depressing place to live. Racism is rife, along with homelessness, unemployment, inequality and a quickening economic meltdown. The power keeps going out, crime is rampant, and government corruption is commonplace. Was not trying to build a cricket career there - going elsewhere, even somewhere where the game is smaller but the bigger picture is more stable; somewhere like the Netherlands - better for players in a mental sense?

Glover, breezy bloke that he is, flounced past that question, also: "Oh, not necessarily, no. Like I said, it's just the way life has worked out for us. There's always been a [chokers] tag on South Africa, which we all know about. Unfortunately it came out today for them. But we've just got to focus on our game and our career paths and all that stuff. We took opportunities elsewhere, which are paying off.

"Yeah, you've just got to go where mother cricket takes you and enjoy the ride, myself included. I was born in South Africa, grew up in South Africa, obviously supported South Africa as a youngster. But I've chosen this path. I'm loving playing for the Dutch and want to give my all to the Dutch. And it's the same feeling for everyone else in the changing room."

Maybe it's easy to glib about these things when you've been born privileged enough to be able to pass yourself off as Dutch because of your familial connections to South Africa's first colonisers. Or maybe the culture of cricket in countries like the Netherlands is exactly what's needed to get the best out of some players, a culture that doesn't exist in South Africa's harsher game.

"The environment we have, and how small the Dutch cricketing community is, once guys get involved they love playing at every opportunity," Scott Edwards, a transplanted Australian, said. "For various reasons, sometimes players can't play. But we all love representing the Netherlands, and it's home to us now."

So the Dutch must have felt at home when no more than a few hundred spectators turned up at the ground on Sunday. Most of them supported Pakistan, which meant that they would shout for the Netherlands. Because if the Dutch beat South Africa, Pakistan would still have a shot at making the semi-finals.

"We're not used to super big crowds, so it's always nice when we get a few supporters - whether they're supporting the Netherlands or Pakistan," Edwards said. "Their supporters are great. They're always loud. Even in the Netherlands they always come with a big fan base. It was good to have them on our side this time."

Strange things happen when South Africans leave South Africa. They play better cricket and make interesting friends in faraway places. Maybe they still harbour warm feelings for where they came from, but not enough to have to put up with living there. Besides, sport and patriotism should never be confused.