How to drive the fans to drink

“The game was on the edge. Who was going to crack first? We cracked first.” – Mark Boucher

TELFORD VICE at Newlands

LIFELONG teetotallers might be interested to know what a hangover feels like. If they’re cricket fans, watching Sunday’s play at Newlands is their answer. Except that the headache, the rough voice, the body ache, the unsteady hands and the dodgy balance didn’t disappear somewhere around lunchtime.

England batted grittily all day, none more than Dom Sibley. South Africa bowled grimly all day, although a fired up Anrich Nortjé might want to debate the point over a beer. But there’s no doubting that, for the most part, the cricket was as grey as the skies above.

Not that you could blame the English for making it so. On Saturday the South Africans batted under the influence of poorly executed bad ideas — and some fine bowling — and handed their opponents the advantage. As Mark Boucher said after stumps on Sunday, “The game was on the edge. Who was going to crack first? We cracked first.” Then England put a stopper in the bottle to trap their prey, grinding their lead to 264 while losing only four wickets. Sometime on Monday their bowlers will uncork a vintage that should prove good enough to level the series.

South Africa’s last chance saloon would be a sudden glug of wickets on Monday morning. On Sunday’s evidence, that is unlikely. And that without considering when the pitch will call final rounds on reliable bounce for batters in the fourth innings.

It’s difficult to blame the bowlers for the mess the batters made, but South Africa’s attack took to their task with more determination than delight on a pitch that had lost much of its original fizz.

“After the first two days I would have said we wouldn’t want to chase any more than 250, but it has flattened out,” Boucher said. “We believe we can get quick wickets, and if we’re chasing 330 or 340 …”

Nortjé, who did everyone a favour by ending Joe Denly’s unlovely 111-ball 31 before tea and ended the day’s play by dismissing nightwatch Dom Bess with a brush of his glove, would seem South Africa’s best chance of staying in the game.

“You’ve got to have a guy who’s keen to do it with the ball in his hand,” Boucher said of Nortjé, who proved his willingness on Friday, when a rearing delivery crashed into a glove at shoulder height on its way into Quinton de Kock’s gloves. A rattled Root didn’t wait for the umpire to confirm his fate.

In the unlikelihood of Root having forgotten how he had been removed, Nortjé was only too ready to remind him on Sunday. Immediately after England’s captain took guard again, Nortjé produced a short, sharp delivery. Root was forced to yank himself out of its path. But his composure was not for the taking this time, and he fast forwarded the game with a half-century worthy of his talent and skill.

Keshav Maharaj endured a day of near misses, his deliveries often squirting off the edge and in the air — and just out of reach of despairing hands. Dwaine Pretorius give it everything, and earned the prize scalp of Root nine balls before the close. But South Africa didn’t get the best out of Kagiso Rabada and Vernon Philander. Rabada toiled listlessly, and was reduced to roaring in frustration rather than happiness when he had Zak Crawley taken behind. Philander struggled to beat the bat anything like as frequently as in the first innings.  

And all the while Sibley laboured on, like a lone, hard-grafting bartender late at night in a crowded drinking den. Not all centuries are works of art, but that shouldn’t diminish them. Sibley has already earned his respect from the South Africans, which will only increase should he add the 15 runs he needs to score his first hundred.

How many in the crowd would have appreciated his effort is open to question. Before lunch one spectator was flopped in his seat, head lolling back in a deep sleep. Later, another fan was significantly more deeply engrossed in a book than the cricket. Before the close, the Barmy Army took to entertaining themselves with the help of their very own Charlie Chaplin impersonator.

It was that kind of day for many of the 14,659 in the ground on Sunday, not counting assorted extras like the press. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we could use a drink.

First published by Cricbuzz.