“International cricket kind of controls you, whereas I’m in control of my own destiny now.” – Colin Ingram, lusty left-hander for hire, on not having to put up with representation red tape.
TELFORD VICE | Cape Town
LUNGI Ngidi claimed three wickets in nine deliveries to derail Mumbai’s ambitions of posting a towering total, setting the scene for Faf du Plessis to nudge CSK home with an unbeaten 58. Kagiso Rabada took 2/28 to help stymie KXIP’s bid to reel in a modest target, then seized two more wickets and conceded only two runs in the super over to snatch victory for Delhi. AB de Villiers made 51, for many the key factor in RCB’s win over Hyderabad.
Three matches into the 2020 edition of the IPL, you can’t keep the South Africans out of the game. That is conveniently selective, of course. In the fourth match David Miller was run out without facing a ball on his Rajasthan debut. Jofra Archer launched sixes off four consecutive deliveries from Ngidi, two of them no-balls. Du Plessis hit seven sixes in his 37-ball 72 but took the first 19 of those balls to pass 20, probably because he was more focused on net runrate than winning.
Even so it remains true that players from the sharp tip of Africa are punching significantly above their country’s weight: only 11 of them are at the tournament this year. That’s not how it used to be. The high mark was 2012, when there were 18, or one more than the year before. In 2009 and 2015 they numbered 16, and 15 in 2010 and 2016. In the first dozen stagings of the cricket world’s most glittering jewel, South Africa averaged 13.42 players a tournament. So the size of their 2020 intake seems about right. But only in 2008, 2017 and 2018 have fewer of their players been at the IPL. There were also 11 last year.
The trend, then, is downward. Why? “Maybe it’s just perception, but I think there are more and more Australasians on the coaching staffs,” player agent Francois Brink said. “That might be why there is a bias towards players from Australia and New Zealand. We’ve also picked up from the South African coaches and some of the international coaches that the South African players don’t get into the tournament as much as those from other countries. Apparently they don’t get involved as much with team marketing activities and they don’t mix with the other guys as much.”
The latter is difficult to substantiate. How does nationality determine which players are more keen on a beer with the boys between games? But the notion that some of the South Africans may be held back by cultural considerations could be valid. The handbrake of conservatism runs deep and wide in our society.
Brink’s first assertion would seem simpler to prove. There are 17 Australian and New Zealand head or skills coaches on the eight teams’ staffs this year, compared to three South Africans. Maybe that helps explain why 19 Aussie and six Kiwi players, more than double South Africa’s ranks, are on the books in 2020. Thirteen of those Australasian coaches have been appointed since last July, compared to one South African — Jonty Rhodes, Punjab’s fielding coach. Over the same period Jacques Kallis, Gary Kirsten and Paddy Upton have all parted ways with franchises as head coaches.
In 2012, when more South Africans than ever played in the IPL, they also counted three compatriots among the coaches. But only seven of the tracksuits were from Australasia. Then again, all of 26 Australians played that year. New Zealanders? Six, just like this year. So, go figure. Just to muddy matters more, only three of the IPL coaches in 2020 are English or West Indian. But there are 12 West Indians and 10 English players involved. Maybe the greater truth is that the IPL reaches beyond irrelevant factors like nationality and gives cricket an idea of what it could be if it puts itself in the right place at the right time.
“Cricket was crying out for that sort of entertainment,” Colin Ingram said of the advent of the IPL. “It’s gone a long way to putting the game into the entertainment industry, which is where we compete these days. We’re hoping someone spends money on us instead of going to a movie. It’s created a massive increase in cricket’s following.”
Did the tournament’s explosion into the game serve as a wake-up call for national boards about how they dealt with players? “In a small sport like cricket — if you’re comparing it to soccer — the international stage is still the most highly regarded,” Ingram said. “But to have some sort of competition pushing up standards and the entertainment value can only be a good thing. There’s definitely space for both.”
Ingram played 40 white-ball internationals between October 2010 and November 2013. He was the first player to score a century for South Africa on ODI debut, making 124 against Zimbabwe. To say the lusty left-hander batted like the farmer’s son he is is no insult: he saw past, through and around complications and found simpler, more elegant ways to crash the ball beyond fielders. Two more tons and a couple of half-centuries in his next 20 completed innings heralded big things. But the runs stopped flowing in 2013 when, having achieved all of his success at No. 3 and 4, he was promoted to the top of the order. He made 103 runs — 73 in one innings — in seven trips to the crease.
Ingram faded from that level and joined the Kolpak crusade and T20’s travelling circus. He has proved himself of exemplary service to 11 T20 franchises in seven countries outside the land of his birth. Only 22 players worldwide have scored more runs in the format, and only three of them have had fewer innings than him. For Ingram, T20 leagues have been the difference between playing cricket for a living and having to find a proper job.
“I couldn’t have envisaged how cricket would change from when I started playing to now. When I started everything was based around Test cricket. There’s another option now, and it’s worked out really well for me. After playing a couple of county seasons and taking the best option in front of me at the time, I didn’t want to sit at home through a winter or be in and out of cricket. Without international cricket, it was a good experience for me to go and play in other countries. It provided a great option in terms of cricket and experience, and financially it helps.”
Did having that choice take the edge off his desire to play for South Africa? “International cricket kind of controls you, whereas I’m in control of my own destiny now. When it got to the point where I realised I wasn’t going to come back and play international cricket, I embraced that fully. So I wouldn’t say [playing in T20 leagues] affected my hunger for international cricket. But it did drive me on. Without that, and with no international cricket, it would have been difficult to just grind it out, season in and season out.”
At 35, Ingram is in the autumn of a career he is keen to complete at Glamorgan. “I’m busy with contract negotiations at the moment as an overseas player, due to the Kolpak ruling falling away. Cricket’s meant a lot to me and I don’t like just playing for a pay cheque. I like the fact that there’s only one county from Wales, so you feel like you’re representing something more. I’ve found a really nice home among those people. If you wake up early enough, you could see me fishing in the river before nets.”
That river would be the Taff, which hugs Sophia Gardens’ northern boundary and makes the walk to Cardiff’s ground, through Bute Park, perhaps the most beautiful in all of cricket. A scene so idyllic wouldn’t appear to have much to do with the breathless excitement generated by the IPL. And Ingram isn’t trying to curry favour with the tournament or its teams. He has played only 15 IPL games — in 2011 and 2019, for both versions of the Delhi franchise — and did not reach 50. But it is just as true that Ingram wouldn’t have been able to walk his chosen path without the roaring triumph of the IPL and the slew of facsimiles it has spawned.
There would have been, for him, less fishing and more farming. So, before we blame the IPL for taking players out of the rest of the game, let’s consider how many it has kept on the field.
Would figures like Ngidi, Du Plessis, Rabada and De Villiers still grace cricket, and our consciousness, if they didn’t have the opportunity, for a few weeks a year, to earn proper money and feel the sheer joy of competing rather than have to kowtow to invented nationalist nonsense?
You can take South Africans out of the IPL, but you cannot take the promise of the IPL out of South Africa’s players. Do so and see the game itself disappear from these shores.
First published by Cricbuzz.
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