“It doesn’t happen a lot that matches go five days, but it’s still special when you’ve got Ben Stokes running in and he’s absolutely shattered from long spells of bowling and we’re just trying to survive. That’s what makes that extra day so special.” – Faf du Plessis goes to bat for keeping proper cricket proper.
TELFORD VICE at Newlands
WITH all the timing of someone’s trousers splitting as they go on bended knee to propose marriage, Cricket South Africa (CSA) managed to deflect attention from the positive spectacularly on Tuesday. The fifth day of the second men’s Test between at Newlands was exquisitely poised: South Africa needed 312 more runs to conquer what would have been a world record chase of 438; England needed eight wickets. The pitch was still sound for batting, with enough rough to keep the bowlers interested. Victory for South Africa was a long shot, but a draw was there for the grafting. What to do except sit back and enjoy the unfolding spectacle?
So it was stone tone deaf that, 15 minutes before the start of play, CSA saw fit to send this release fluttering into inboxes: “In view of an unsourced and misleading report in the media this morning please be advised that it is [CSA] official policy to support four-day Test match cricket. We, in fact, hosted the first official four-day Test match between ourselves and Zimbabwe [in a day/night match at St George’s Park in January 2017].”
That was in response to a Daily Mail story that claimed CSA would oppose their England and Australia counterparts “if they formally endorse an ICC proposal to make four-day Tests mandatory from 2023”. The article was unsourced and unattributed, and in responding to previous instances of that level of reporting CSA have said they do not comment on speculation. That they would choose to do so in this instance was evidence of shocking tone deafness.
The suits didn’t get much love from Faf du Plessis: “I’m a fan of Test cricket going five days. The great draws of the game always go to five days. I understand a lot of money is being burned on day five because a lot of Tests aren’t going five days. [But] I’ve been part of some great draws that have gone five days. It doesn’t happen a lot that matches go five days, but it’s still special when you’ve got Ben Stokes running in and he’s absolutely shattered from long spells of bowling and we’re just trying to survive. That’s what makes that extra day so special.”
Du Plessis spoke in the wake of his team losing five wickets for 11 runs in 17 overs after tea as England won by 189 runs to level the series at 1-1 with two matches left to play. Stokes took 3/1 in the space of 14 deliveries to power England to a rousing win. Still, Du Plessis wasn’t disheartened: “I’m extremely proud of how we fought. You never want to lose Test matches, but the challenge that we put to our group last night and this morning is that we will fight with everything we’ve got in us to try and make England do anything and everything to beat us. And they did. They threw the kitchen sink at us. It’s been a fantastic five days of Test cricket.”
The series is South Africa’s first since they suffered a 3-0 drubbing in India in October, when they succumbed to consecutive innings defeats for the first time since 1935. “From where we were two months ago, where we were very weak mentally, in India where we exploded pretty quickly, today and last night was an opportunity for us to go mentally in a similar direction — and we didn’t,” Du Plessis said. “Sometimes you’ll still lose by improving. There’s still a lot of room for improvement, but I do think we’re improving.”
The way they played in that rubber, Du Plessis said, gave the South Africans pause for thought: “We all took a long look at ourselves and said we needed to be stronger, we needed to be better, and we weren’t going to be average. We wanted to try and get back to be where we needed to be as a Test team. Today was a huge step for this team. It’s important for the South African cricket team to show fight. I don’t think people will ever point the finger if we lose and we lose in a fighting spirit. It when we give up too easily and it happens like it happened in India, then we’re very disappointed as a team and rightly so are our fans.”
Those fans are waiting for the third Test at St George’s Park, which starts on January 16.
First published by Cricbuzz.
Bulletproof Truth 