“I’m going to ask if I can get a new one … if I play.” – Duanne Oliver needs a Test cap.
Telford Vice | Cape Town
IN case of emergency, break glass. So best Duanne Olivier keeps a hammer handy. The crisis is set to arrive on Sunday, when he is likely to be named in South Africa’s XI for the first Test against India in Centurion.
That would be good news for a team denied their ace, Anrich Nortjé, by a hip injury. As well as for Dean Elgar, who will take charge of a home rubber for the first time. And for the cricketminded South Africans who are not indulging in petty politics by obsessing over Olivier’s former Kolpak status. But for Olivier himself selection would present a problem.
His one and only Test cap — which he was given when he made his debut against Sri Lanka at the Wanderers in January 2017 — should have been in the luggage he packed to join the squad on Saturday. Instead it’s behind glass in a frame.
And why not. When Olivier’s three-year deal with Yorkshire was announced in February 2019, after he had taken 48 wickets at 19.25 in 10 Tests, he would have had good reason to think he had no further use for his cap. That he had it framed is the best answer to the social media miseries whining that he did not cherish playing for the national team. Clearly, he did — enough to proudly display his prize on a wall.
Almost three years on, during which the Kolpak era has ended and Olivier has returned to the fold, his carefully curated pride could put him in a predicament. Part of the lore of Test cricket is that players are presented with one one cap, which is why those who have long careers end up wearing ragged relics. Caps are not meant to last a hundred or more matches, as all could see from the dilapidated specimen that Steve Waugh sported long before he played the last of his 168 Tests.
What to do? Olivier wouldn’t be allowed to leave the bubble, do the needful, clean up the mess, and return in time for Sunday’s start. Maybe someone in his household could do the smashing and grabbing for him and deliver the goods? There has to be a simpler, better, faster solution …
“I’m going to ask if I can get a new one,” he said in media material released by CSA on Friday. Traditionalists, of which cricket is cursed with far too many, would balk at that. Who did the man think he was demanding a new cap?! Not for the first time, the joke would be on them.
The one player, one cap philosophy isn’t at all venerable. It started as recently as the 1990s, when it was promoted by Mark Taylor to forge unity. Waugh succeeded Taylor as Australia’s captain, and took the notion to new heights. Or depths, depending on your sartorial sensibilities.
The truth is players used to be suppled with a new cap for every series. For all their mythologising about the Baggy Green, Australians haven’t always treated it like a holy artefact. Bill Ponsford would paint his garden fence in a Test cap, all the better to keep his hair clean. For the same reason, Bill Lawry, cricket’s most famous pigeon fancier, wore it when he cleaned his birds’ enclosures. Theoretically, Ian Chappell should have 19 Baggy Greens. That’s how many Test series he played in. In fact, he has none: he didn’t keep a single one.
You would go a long way to find people more proud to have played for Australia than Ponsford, Lawry and Chappell. But they weren’t hung up on the actual cap. Perhaps they should have been — in January last year Shane Warne’s was auctioned for AUD1,007,500, which was paid to bushfire emergency services in recognition of the sterling service they rendered during the “Black Summer” of 2019/20.
South African cricket has a tendency to copy what happens in Australia, so the one and only cap concept has taken hold here, too. But there have been exceptions. Quinton de Kock has had his replaced after losing the original. And if you’ve noticed Elgar looking sharper in recent series, this could be why. His old cap was more like Waugh’s than anything anyone could wear without having to resort to industrial strength shampoo afterwards. So he was given a new one.
To his line above about his cap conundrum, Olivier added, “ … If I’m playing.” Of course, if he isn’t picked he has no need for new headgear. But even the traditionalists would concede that is about as likely as Warne turning down an opportunity to bowl to Daryll Cullinan.
Olivier has been the class act in South Africa’s first-class competition this season, taking 28 wickets at 11.10 in four matches for the Lions. Regardless of Nortjé’s fitness, there should never have been a debate about him playing. What some have called a controversy was entirely manufactured, as poorly as it was transparently so. He is eligible and he is performing. What else matters? Those smallminded South Africans who have a problem with Olivier’s presence because of their wrongheaded thoughts on patriotism need to get over themselves.
“I’m very happy to be back in the squad and, yes, I know people will have mixed feelings about it,” Olivier said.” But, at the end of the day, it’s okay. You handle that and you deal with those pressures or the criticism that comes with that. But you know, when I came back, I felt very welcome with everyone.”
That didn’t mean he expected to pick up where he left off: “I’m a nervous person when it comes to playing, and if it’s my first over I’m very nervous. Maybe it might be similar to a debut because I haven’t played [for South Africa] for three years. It will be interesting to see what the nerves will be like. But I’m sure, if I am selected to play, my nerves will be shot through the roof.”
Elgar spoke on Monday about the growth he had seen in Olivier’s game since he went to England. Previously, he had been a galumphing thumper of a fast bowler who relied mainly on pace and the pitch. It seems the rigours and requirements of county cricket have added arrows to his quiver.
“I feel like I am a different player,” Olivier said. “Firstly, I’m more mature. From a cricketing point of view, I genuinely believe I’m different. The UK has helped me a lot; just perfecting that fuller length that every bowler wants to bowl. For me, it was quite difficult because it can come across floaty and I wasn’t that consistent. I’m still working on it: I’m not going to get it right every time.
“People thought I only bowl short, and fair enough: I did. But now I feel like I have a different element to my game. It might not work every time but I believe in my process, I believe in my strengths, and I believe that’s the best way I can help the team.”
India come to South Africa as the top-ranked Test side. They are led by Virat Kohli, who has accomplished almost everything there is to accomplish in the game. Except win a Test series in South Africa, which the Indians never have. South Africa go into the rubber under a range of extraneous pressures, not least those fuelled by a public divided over Mark Boucher’s suitability for his role as head coach. Boucher, who has only a level two coaching certificate, has been attacked since his appointment in December 2019. The noise reached a crescendo in July when Paul Adams said Boucher had been among the players who had described him as “brown shit” in a dressing room song. Boucher’s apology has been drowned out and dismissed by anger.
“There will be a lot of pressure but if we can, as a team, stick to our plans and not get drawn in by outside news or whatever emotionally, we will be in a good position,” Olivier said. “You’re playing against world-class players, but at the same time it’s an exciting challenge. I would need to bowl to Kohli. It will be tough but it’s exciting. You’re bowling to probably the top four batters in the world. It’s like making a statement to them: we are here to compete, we are not just going to roll over.”
“It’s not about focusing on everything happening outside. It’s about focusing on ourselves as a team and investing in our environment and the way we are going to go about things. That is very important because when things are tough, you are going to have to rely on your teammates. When you are up against a wall, that’s when you are going to need everyone together. And we are. The beauty of this bubble thing is that you get to spend time with people. It’s good. You adapt.”
And you break glass if you must. Or have a word with the team manager.
First published by Cricbuzz.
Bulletproof Truth 