“The important thing is for everyone to give their input and then trust the guys we’ve trusted to do the job for us.” – Rassie van der Dussen
Telford Vice / Cape Town
THERE is a West Indian way to hit a cricket ball, a method that taunts the limits of torque and machismo and is not at all uneasy on the eye. It’s about curves and crunches and curbing, just, the ambition to smack it clean out of the Caribbean.
That way held sway for 65 deliveries in the first men’s T20I at Sabina Park on Thursday. But canny bowling by South Africa reeled in West Indies’ 115/1 after those 10.5 overs and limited them to a total of 175/8.
Somehow that was enough to hold the visitors, who dithered, dallied and dwindled to defeat by 28 runs — the Windies’ biggest win in terms of runs among the nine successes they have achieved in their 20 games in the format against these opponents. And that despite Reeza Hendricks’ defiant career-best 87 off 51 balls.
Andile Phehlukwayo started rerouting the home side’s innings with a slower ball that claimed the important wicket of Brandon King, courtesy of Rassie van der Dussen hanging onto a steepling catch in the covers. King’s bruising 45-ball 79 — he scored more than three-quarters of his runs in fours and sixes — was the epitome of the West Indian way.
King owned 28 of the first 34 runs in the match that came off the bat. He scored 29 in an opening stand of 36 off 22 with Johnson Charles, and 50 of the 79 that flowed off 44 for the second wicket with Kyle Mayers.
At the point of King’s dismissal West Indies’ strike rate was 176.92. For the rest of the innings it was 98.36. The nerveless Phehlukwayo did more than his bit to make that happen by bowling Andre Fletcher with an inswinger and trapping Fabian Allen in front in the space of four deliveries in his fourth over. Debutant Ottneil Baartman did much of the rest, overcoming a second over that went for 11 runs to take 3/26.
Phehlukwayo and Baartman bowled with aplomb — their slower balls in particular — to inflict most of the damage as the Windies lost seven wickets for 60 runs in not much more than the second half of their innings.
Van der Dussen was also instrumental in the recovery, consulting with his bowlers at every opportunity and projecting an impression of cool, calm control. He looked like someone who was playing his 124th international across the formats. He didn’t look like someone who was captaining at this level for the first time. He also didn’t seem bothered that he had been left out of South Africa’s squad for the T20 World Cup, which starts in Nassau County, near New York, next Sunday.
“I don’t feel like I need to prove anything,” Van der Dussen had told a press conference on Wednesday. “I think it’s pretty standard what I’m about as a cricketer. Yes, the coach [Rob Walter] has to pick a World Cup squad and there’s only 15 guys who can go. He has to come up with combinations that he feels gives us the best chance. And as a greater squad and as a country, that’s what it’s all about.
“I’m not in a situation where I haven’t played a lot of cricket or even international T20s. As a captain, yes, that’s a new challenge for me. So I’ll try and instill what I think is important, what I think can help the guys go to the World Cup and put in a performance there. We’re all fighting towards the same goal, and I think the important thing is for everyone to give their input and then trust the guys we’ve trusted to do the job for us.”
Trust is a big word in South African sport. The Springboks, South Africa’s men’s rugby union team, who have won a record four World Cups, exude this precious quality in spades. Their cricket counterparts, who have yet to reach a senior men’s World Cup final in either white-ball format, not so much. So there was an ominous familiarity about the South Africans crashing to 107/7 in 15 overs on their way to being bowled out for 147 in 19.5.
They lost Quinton de Kock, Ryan Rickelton and Matthew Breetzke inside five overs with only 35 runs scored. Then Gudakesh Motie and his impressive composure gutted the middle order, removing Van der Dussen and Wiaan Mulder in his second over and Bjorn Fortuin in his fourth.
Hendricks, often unfairly denied his place in the XI in the past, might have pulled off a miracle had his support been more sturdy. It wasn’t, and he holed out trying to Matthew Forde with the penultimate ball of the match. The next, with which Forde cleanbowled Baartman, completed a slide of 7/70 in 54 deliveries.
There is a South African way to lose cricket matches. This was a prime example. They have two chances to sort themselves out, against the same opposition and at the same venue on Saturday and Sunday, before it matters.
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