2nd ODI preview: Off to Kingsmead? Take an umbrella

South Africa have gone 10 games without consecutive wins.

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

THE last time the weather didn’t kibosh an ODI involving England at Kingsmead, Nasser Hussain was their captain and Javagal Srinath suffered the last of his 11 first-ball dismissals in a blue India shirt. It was February 2003 and India won that World Cup clash by 82 runs. Since then both of England’s games in the format against South Africa in Durban have been washed out.

And, wouldn’t you know it, a 90% chance of rain has been forecast for Friday’s second ODI. That will hardly be news to South Africa. They’ve suffered no more than one washout at any of their other home venues, but four of the 38 ODIs they have played at Kingsmead have ended inconclusively because of the elements. When nature stays out of the way in Durban, South Africa are twice as likely to win: they’ve been victorious in 11 and lost 22 ODIs there.

On the evidence of the first game of the series, at Newlands on Tuesday, rain may be good news for the visitors. They were as flat as Table Mountain itself in all departments, blowing the advantage of an opening stand of 51 between Jason Roy and Jonny Bairstow as well as a recovery partnership of 91 shared by Joe Denly and Chris Woakes to finish with a mediocre 258/8. And then failing utterly to put a dent in South Africa’s reply, which reached its target with only three wickets down and 14 balls remaining.

So the South Africans won’t be best pleased if Friday’s game doesn’t go the distance. Having crashed to a hattrick of defeats in the Test series against England, Tuesday’s win was welcomed as a sign of better things to come. It was Quinton de Kock’s first match as South Africa’s appointed captain, and he responded to that challenge by scoring 107. With him in a stand of 170 was Temba Bavuma, who uncorked a hitherto hidden gift for white-ball batting at international level with a scintillating 98. That followed Tabraiz Shamsi returning from proving his fitness at a conditioning camp to take 3/38.

It’s only one game and it’s only an ODI at that, but considering what went before it’s not difficult to understand why South Africans want to consider Tuesday’s triumph a turning point. They won’t be keen to remember that their team also won the first Test before their form plummetted, but that only means they will be even more intent on seeing how De Kock’s side go in Durban on Friday. Consecutive victories? Imagine that.

South Africa have gone 10 games without winning two in a row, a streak of inconsistency that started after they beat Sri Lanka and Australia at last year’s World Cup — by which time they had already been eliminated from the running for the knockout rounds.

So South Africa will want to keep doing what they did in Cape Town, which would earn them series honours. England will be bent on putting that game behind them. But if the weather has its way, all hopes will be on hold util the last match of the rubber at the Wanderers on Sunday. 

When: Friday February 7, 2020. 1pm Local Time  

Where: Kingsmead, Durban

What to expect: This is one of South Africa’s slowest pitches, but all four five-wicket hauls in ODIs have been claimed by seamers. Runs flow faster — 4.85 an over — than at Newlands — 4.70 — although not as fluidly as at the Wanderers — 5.16, not least because Kingsmead’s outfield isn’t the fastest. Teams have put up 300 or more than 300 six times in Durban, but only once in the second innings. In the 46 ODIs played here, teams have been dismissed 27 times.   

Team news

South Africa

Why fix what ain’t broke? But, having handed Jon-Jon Smuts and Lutho Sipamla ODI debuts in Cape Town, South Africa might be tempted to blood one or more of left-arm spinner Bjorn Fortuin, opening batter Janneman Malan and altogether uncapped wicketkeeper-batter Kyle Verreynne. Malan, in particular, looks like cracking the nod after Reeza Hendricks’ lacklustre showing — caught behind for six off 14 balls — at Newlands.    

Possible XI: Quinton de Kock, Janneman Malan, Temba Bavuma, Rassie van der Dussen, Jon-Jon Smuts, David Miller, Andile Phehlukwayo, Beuran Hendricks, Lungi Ngidi, Lutho Sipamla, Tabraiz Shamsi.   

England

Opener Dawid Malan’s exclusion at Newlands didn’t make much sense, so he should win what would be his second cap in the format. Fast bowler Saqib Mahmood could make an ODI debut. Truth be told, England looked so out if it in Cape Town that coach Chris Silverwood would be forgiven for emptying his bench.

Possible XI: Dawid Malan, Jason Roy, Joe Root, Eoin Morgan, Tom Banton, Moeen Ali, Tom Curran, Chris Woakes, Adil Rashid, Matt Parkinson, Saqib Mahmood.

“It looks a little bit dry, but Kingsmead always has that extra bounce and I enjoy that. I don’t feel like I need the ball to spin. Most spinner enjoy the extra bounce.” – Tabraiz Shamsi on the Durban pitch.

“We’ve lost games of cricket before and come back to win the series, so I don’t think it’s a massive confidence knock. The boys are going to be training hard trying to level the series tomorrow.” – Tom Curran talks a good practice session.  

First published by Cricbuzz.  

MSL whimpers to life, but Smith stands up to be counted

Graeme Smith reshaped the national team in his own tough, competitive image to win 163 of his 284 matches as captain.

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

FOR Graeme Smith’s first trick as director of cricket, he needs to get more bums on seats at Mzansi Super League (MSL) games.

Only 4 840 turned at the 34 000-capacity Wanderers on Friday for the tournament opener between the Jozi Stars and the Cape Town Blitz.

Multiples of the missing 29 160 had better things to do than watch too much flaccid bowling and not enough of the kind of batting that earned Janneman Malan a 59-ball 99.

Neither will this lacklustre spectacle stop us from changing the channel, even on free-to-air television.

Smith’s next challenge will be to do something about Durban, where the competition’s second game was washed out on Saturday — a fate suffered by so many matches at Kingsmead.

Then he could get on with returning the SA men’s team to a reasonable facsimile of what they were for much of his tenure as captain.

Of course, Smith first needs to land the job. Along with Corrie van Zyl and Hussein Manack, he was interviewed on Friday by Cricket SA (CSA) chief executive Thabang Moroe and four board members. At stake is the newly created position of director of cricket.

Van Zyl — suspended last month in an apparent stitch up — has been CSA’s general manager since 2009. Hussain was a national selector from 2012 until the panel was disbanded in the wake of South Africa’s awful 2019 World Cup.

None of which competes with Smith reshaping the national team in his own tough, competitive image to win 163 of his 284 matches as captain.

He was appointed, at 22, after another shambolic World Cup, in 2003. He retired in March 2014 as captain of the No. 1 Test team.

SA cricket needs a winner. Smith wins. 

First published by the Sunday Times.

Leading Edge: Why no-one should play against Zimbabwe, and why everybody will

Zimbabwe’s team represent the triumph of oppression over the dreams of millions who dared harbour hopes for nothing more nor less than a decent life. They fly the flag of fascism.

Sunday Times

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

A cricket team wearing the crest of a country where the henchman of a deposed tyrant has recently, and allegedly, been elected president enters another country.

Should they be detained as co-conspirators in crimes against their compatriots, turned away at the border, or asked what the hell they think they’re doing trying to pretend all’s well enough where they come from to indulge in a spot of mere cricket?

What should not happen, under any circumstances, is that they are let in to smear the second country with their lie of normality.

Such an act would be a dereliction of the duty all of us have to the natural law of standing up for right in the face of wrong. It would be unconscionable.

But when Zimbabwe touch down at O. R. Tambo International late next month to play South Africa in three games in each of the white-ball formats, not only will they be let in, no questions asked, they will be treated as if they are just another cricket team from just another country.

They aren’t. They represent the triumph of oppression over the dreams of millions who dared harbour hopes for nothing more nor less than a decent life. They fly the flag of fascism.

You have to wonder what Oliver Reginald Tambo, who lived in a world where people and principles mattered more than politics, and before leaders sold out to affluence only to resurrect identity politics when it suits them, might have made of that.

“The land on which the cattle grazed was communal property. It was owned by no-one. It was nobody’s private farm. It was the common property of the people, shared by the people. So the practice of sharing was central to the concept of ownership of property.”

That’s Tambo. Try telling the ANC, the EFF, and the DA that everybody already owns the land and that, accordingly, selfishness should be a criminal offence.

Try telling those who only give a damn that Zimbabwe will be here so they can gauge how far South Africa are from a realistic shot at winning the World Cup that they should be on picket lines protesting the Zimbabweans’ presence.

Try telling South Africa’s players that they should refuse to take the field.

Try telling the suits that they should demand Zimbabwe’s expulsion from the International Cricket Council.

All of the above should happen. It won’t because too many people no longer think; neither about principles nor politics nor indeed what’s right and wrong about how other people are treated.

We used to think: Andy Flower and Henry Olonga shattered the lie of normality by wearing black armbands to “mourn the death of democracy in our beloved Zimbabwe” in the full glare of the publicity lavished on the 2003 World Cup. They did so in Harare and across the road from Robert Mugabe’s house.

Is it too cynical to wonder if, 15 years on, players would ask their agents how much they would be paid for wearing the armbands?

Maybe. So here’s an uncynical challenge to the Zimbabweans who will, unfortunately, be allowed into South Africa next month to play mere cricket even as their country cowers in anticipation of what the newly installed tyrant will do.

Before you pack your bats, boots, helmets, gloves and pads, before you check if you have enough chewing gum and sunblock, put a roll of insulation tape into your bag.

Make sure it’s black.