“I wasn’t expecting that type of onslaught from … the batter. I’ve forgotten his name.” – Temba Bavuma in the immediate aftermath of Fakhar Zaman’s 193.
Telford Vice | Cape Town
YOU can take Quinton de Kock, David Miller, Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi and Anrich Nortjé out of South Africa, but can you take the hope that South Africa’s team will win their ODI series against Pakistan out of the public consciousness? It’s an odd question but these are odd times, what with those players about to leave the side that has borrowed their country’s name in order to join their Indian Premier League (IPL) franchises.
For some, this is the moment when the IPL tail is confirmed to be wagging the dog of international cricket. For others, it is proof that T20 leagues — the IPL in particular — are the game’s best and brightest future, and that the notion that teams like South Africa represent the highest level is as outdated as grand amateurism.
For still others, the famous five leaving behind unfinished business to go off to the far pavilions of a domestic tournament in India reflects the fragility and failings of South Africa’s wider society. Would this happen in places where players are paid better, have more faith in the systems that govern them, and are afforded administrators worthy of respect? Or is this what privilege looks like? You can opt out of a reality — albeit for a few weeks, but a massively lucrative few weeks — that many of your compatriots are stuck with forever. So you do. But who among us wouldn’t do the same?
There is anger in South Africa that these players are leaving early, but not within cricket and its immediate environs. In official circles CSA’s agreement with the BCCI to release its players for the tournament has been raised, and Covid-19 blamed for the skewed schedule. Here in the press, variations on that theme are aired. But ask people who have been sold, and have bought, the myth that they are represented by a cricket team and you will find seething unhappiness. We should understand why, but we should also feel sorry for these unfortunates. They think people like De Kock, Miller, Rabada, Ngidi and Nortjé are playing for them when the truth is they are playing for money. They’re professionals. Not patriots. Nobody lawyers, accounts, doctors, plumbs, engineers, codes or reports for their country. They do so to exploit aptitudes and, if they’re lucky, to follow passions. And in so doing to pay their bills and bank some wealth. Cricketers are no different.
It doesn’t help ease the vexation that the five stars — and they are all bona fide stars — are fading from view just as South Africa are playing decent cricket again. They recovered from going down off the last ball in the first ODI at Centurion on Friday to win at the Wanderers on Sunday, setting up a decider back down the highway at Centurion on Wednesday. The fact that enough of the imminent absentees have been prominent will stoke the outrage.
De Kock looked locked and loaded for a century on Sunday before playing on when he was 80. Miller boomed an unbeaten 50 off 27 balls. Nortjé, who took 4/6 in 18 deliveries on Friday, bowled with the same brand of brimstone to claim 3/6 across 15 balls two days later. South Africa’s 341/6 on Sunday was their highest innings batting first in their last 13 completed ODIs, and only the fourth time in those games that they have passed 300. Asked to achieve their highest successful chase, Pakistan fell 17 runs short.
Going into the game Fakhar Zaman already owned Pakistan’s highest score in the format, an undefeated 210 against Zimbabwe in Bulawayo in July 2018. But he looked like improving on that feat for much of his innings on Sunday, a performance equal parts power, poise and purpose. Fakhar’s 193 is the best effort by a Pakistani against South Africa, and only the 10th score of 150 or more they have conceded in their 627 ODIs. He was helped by the South Africans taking their foot off the gas after the visitors shambled to 85/4 in 15 overs, with Babar Azam among the fallen. But Fakhar never gave up the fight, and he was still there when Pakistan required 31 off the last over to win. It needed something special to undo him, and it came with the first of those final six balls. Fakhar hammered Ngidi down the ground, and set off determined to take two. Aiden Markram fielded on the long-off boundary, and threw for all his worth. Running back to the striker’s end, Fakhar could see De Kock holding an arm bolt upright — as if calling for the ball. It was indeed coming his way. But with the batter still halfway down the pitch De Kock suddenly pointed at the non-striker’s end, as if the ball was headed there. Fakhar should have kept running hard regardless, but he slowed and turned around. He was well out of his ground when Markram’s throw crashed directly into the stumps. “I was thinking [Haris Rauf, his partner] got run out, but to be honest it was my own fault,” Fakhar told an online press conference afterwards. It said a lot that the first person to offer his personal congratulations was Mark Boucher, who came out of South Africa’s dressingroom to do so as the Pakistani passed.
“If we won this game I would have said this is my best innings,” Fakhar said in his television interview on the field. “But we didn’t win, so I can’t say that.” In his interview, relayed in English through a translator, Babar concurred: “It’s one of the best innings I have seen in my life. If Fakhar had kept batting we would have won the match.” Bavuma was still in the hurly burly of it all when he told the broadcaster, “I wasn’t expecting that type of onslaught from … the batter. I’ve forgotten his name.” A few calming minutes later, in his press conference, Bavuma said: “He played an incredible innings. I think it’s the best I’ve ever seen.”
Little wonder Bavuma’s usually reliable equilibrium was a touch off kilter. His first two games as South Africa’s captain have been crammed with more plot twists than a bad road movie. “I wasn’t expecting that type of onslaught from … the batter. I’ve forgotten his name.” He scored an immaculate 92 on Sunday, but was he managing to keep his cool in the field? “I try to be calm and as clear as I can be,” he said. “When things are happening the way they are with a guy batting like that, things can tend to get away from you. But it’s important that you try to take a step back and get a grip on what is happening in the moment. As long as we’re clear in what we’re trying to do, if a batter bats well, he bats well. There’s not much we can do. They’re also allowed to play well. The two games have gone down to the wire. It’s been an incredible experience. It would have been nice to finish the game more clinically today, but it gives us an opportunity and a learning curve to always believe the game is never over. It can always turn against you.”
For his next trick, and with the series on the line, Bavuma will need to find ways to stop the game turning against his team despite his weakened squad. If he does, he will be feted as a leader whose time has come. If he doesn’t, he will be held up as the reason for the loss, and the names of De Kock, Miller, Rabada, Ngidi and Nortjé will not be spoken. Welcome to it, skipper.
First published by Cricbuzz.
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