2021 ICC men's T20 World Cup – Bulletproof Truth

Quinton de Kock calls time on reality

“Even though my body tells me I am 40 my ID says I am 31. But mentally I try and think I am 20 all the time.” – Quinton de Kock

Telford Vice / Cape Town

SOMETHING like the real Quinton de Kock stood up in a television interview broadcast before the fifth ODI between South Africa and Australia at the Wanderers on Sunday — his last match in the format on home soil. Often among the most unforthcoming of press conference victims, De Kock spoke with candour.

Why was he, at 30, calling time on his involvement in the 50-over game? “It was a feeling I was getting,” De Kock said. “I remember at the end of my Test career, I was fighting [against] playing Test matches. I spoke to the people who I trust in my life and they said if you want to, there’s no shame in it. Retire so you can focus on other forms.”

Does the buffet of T20 leagues available to players of his calibre tilt the balance? “I am not going to sit here and deny that it doesn’t. It helps with my decision. I’ve been around for 10, 11 years and I’ve tried to keep my loyalty to the team, which I think I’ve done really well. I think I have represented the Proteas badge very well over my career.

“T20 events; I am not going to deny that there is a lot of money. Coming to the end of your career guys want to get their final top-up. Any normal person would do it. If I was really not that loyal I would have [retired] five years ago when [T20 leagues] really took off. Now I am older and with me coming to the down slope of my career, it’s time.”

This being the softball world of television, where pertinent questions tend to remain unasked, De Kock’s assertion about loyalty went unchallenged despite his history of disrupting the dressingroom.

In October 2021 he refused to play in a T20 World Cup match rather than take a knee in support of the fight for social justice, as the players had been told to do by CSA’s board. He revealed his decision to his then captain, Temba Bavuma, on the bus as the South Africans were driven to the ground to play West Indies in Dubai. In December 2021 De Kock retired from Tests in the middle of a home series against India. Bavuma, now South Africa’s ODI captain, said he had also been kept in the dark about De Kock walking away from that format. All of which, from outside the dressingroom, smacks of selfishness.

On the field, De Kock has had one of South African cricket’s great careers. He is their leading run-scorer in T20Is, seventh in ODIs and 15th in Tests. Only Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan and Joe Root have scored more runs in ODIs from De Kock’s debut in January 2013. De Kock has batted with emphatic authority to, more often than not, deliver the goods: South Africa have lost only two of the 17 ODIs in which he has scored a century.

As a wicketkeeper De Kock has shown thinking as sharp as his skills. The runout of Fakhar Zaman he engineered in an ODI at the Wanderers in April 2021 by pointing at the other end of the pitch as the Pakistani ran towards him — thus causing Zaman to look over his shoulder and slow down enough for De Kock to take the throw and break the wicket before he had made his ground — was a thing of genius, albeit ethically questionable. De Kock’s stumping of Marcus Stoinis in Potchefstroom on Tuesday was breathtakingly brilliant — the bails were lit at the precise moment Stoinis’ foot left the ground for a nanosecond.

De Kock will play his last ODIs at the World Cup in India in October and November, and he remains available for T20Is. But the end of his time in any kind of South Africa shirt is approaching. What inner souvenirs would he take with him when that day comes?

“There’s a lot of memories. I’ve spent almost 11 years with this team. I’m glad people think I am young. Even though my body tells me I am 40 my ID says I am 31. But mentally I try and think I am 20 all the time. I like to live life like that. We’ve had a lot of good memories along the way, things you can’t just forget. The guys know I am an elephant, I don’t forget. I remember every last bit of detail about everything. It’s some skill I have just developed.”

What might he miss? Rest, it seems, from taking care of his daughter, Kiara, who will turn two in January. “The little one is always keeping me busy and on my toes. There’s a lack of sleep and free time when I am home. So I come on tour to pack my pyjamas and get some extra sleep.”

What will he do when he has taken off his pads and gloves for the last time? “I will take a gap year for sure and then reassess and just go back into society and just be a normal person.”

De Kock’s Sunday at the Wanderers was anything but normal. He might have been trapped in front for nought by the third delivery of the match had Michael Neser not pitched the ball outside leg. Having reached 27 he slashed a drive off Nathan Ellis to slip. A throaty crowd rose in loud salute and De Kock had the good manners to remove his helmet and raise his bat as he walked off. He was met near the boundary by the incoming Aiden Markram, who hugged him.

A teenaged girl in the crowd on the grass bank beyond the western boundary held up a handwritten sign: “Quinny if you give me your gloves I promise I’ll never drop a catch.” She bolted closer to De Kock as he made his way to the entrance of the tunnel leading from the boundary to the dressingroom. De Kock did not appear to see her or her sign.

Halfway up the stairs, alone with his thoughts in something like private, he slammed the toe of his bat into the concrete. Sometimes it has been difficult to believe it, but it’s true: Quinton de Kock is real.

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QdK: uncorked, unbeaten

Is it unfair to posit that De Kock’s unfinished symphonies in this year’s IPL wasn’t all he needed to get off his chest?

Telford Vice | Cape Town

QUINTON de Kock and his emotions could be likened to a bad marriage: they aren’t often seen together in a public place.

So the crowd at the DY Patil Stadium in Mumbai on Wednesday, and the exponentially bigger television audience watching Lucknow Super Giants’ game against Kolkata Knight Riders, should consider themselves blessed.

Once his cut off André Russell had sped across the boundary, taking him to his second IPL ton off 59 deliveries on his way to a 70-ball 140 not out, De Kock sank to both knees. His helmeted head kept descending, and came to earth with a bump. He punched the turf as he knelt. Then he rose and punched his bat, earning new respect for batting gloves everywhere. With his eyes and mouth and everything else about him wide open to the world, he launched a primal yawp into the night that is no doubt fluttering butterfly wings in the Amazon jungle as we speak.

De Kock has scored six Test and 17 ODI centuries. Another 14 first-class, list A or T20 hundreds had boomed off his bat before Wednesday. None, surely, has he celebrated in this fashion. He has tended to raise his bat neither with discernible pride nor passion and aim a smile-less, sleepy schoolboy look at his applauders. He does this because he knows it is expected of him. He gets it over with. He doesn’t revel in the moment. As soon as could be deemed polite, he’s back in his stance and ready to crack on.

Wednesday was different. In the moments after he reached his century, De Kock was the entire contents of a brand new tube of toothpaste sent arching out of the bathroom window with one mighty squeeze of both hands. He was a penguin loosed from ponderously plodding the ice and flying free and fancy through the water. He was a teenager let out of the house after dark for the first time. And he ain’t comin’ back. He was a jolt of raw emotion.

Cricket, for people like De Kock, is not about ceremony or gesture. It’s about action, about getting stuff done, and only about what’s needed to make that happen. When that changes, he doesn’t take it well. Infamously, he refused to play in South Africa’s T20 World Cup game against West Indies in Dubai in October rather than take a knee before the match, as the team had been directed to do by CSA’s board. What about, the whatabouterers will whine, the hand signal De Kock made in June while scoring an undefeated 141 in a Test against West Indies in St Lucia? He said he was paying tribute to a friend who had had a finger “shot off” in Afghanistan. Maybe, if the ceremony or gesture is personal — not about some bigger ideal — he’s OK with it. Wednesday’s performance was as personal as anyone could safely deliver without hurting themselves.

“It was just a bit of frustration that came out,” De Kock told a television interviewer afterwards. “The last couple of games, just the way I’ve been getting out … I’ve been feeling very good and nothing has been coming of it. So it was nice to come out … and the feeling of actually having done it; just a bit of a release. I was trying to keep it in but when I let go it just happened.”

Before Wednesday, De Kock had passed 50 three times in 13 innings in this year’s IPL. Each time his strike rate has leapt upward — from 135.56 to 153.85 to 172.41 to a round 200 in his latest assault. Think of that progression as the shaking of a bottle of champagne, sending an ever stronger stream of bubbles racing towards the cork and willing it to burst open with aplomb. There’s no suppressing that.

Thus uncorked, De Kock finished with a flourish in the last over of the innings, making no less than Tim Southee look like little more than a bowling machine as he reeled off a hattrick of more or less straight sixes. He seemed less a batter facing one of the game’s better fast bowlers on cricket’s biggest stage than a business executive interrupting his journey home from a difficult day at the office to tee off his vexation on the driving range.

It’s already part of IPL lore than De Kock’s innings is the highest yet made this year — his 10 sixes are another milestone for 2022 — and behind only Chris Gayle’s undefeated 175 and Brendon McCullum’s 158 not out in the tournament’s 15 editions. Neither Gayle nor McCullum had to bother with keeping wicket. So De Kock’s effort is the highest by an IPL stumper. Only 10 of the 73 centuries seen in the IPL have been scored by the designated wicketkeeper.

No-one has made more runs in the last five overs of a completed IPL innings than the 71 De Kock hammered off 22 deliveries on Wednesday, and the unbroken stand of 210 he shared with KL Rahul is the IPL’s record partnership for the first wicket. That’s the only time a pair of openers have batted through all 20 overs in the history of the competition.

Is it unfair to posit that De Kock’s unfinished symphonies in this year’s IPL wasn’t all he needed to get off his chest? Little more than a year ago he was South Africa’s all-format captain, albeit not permanently in Test cricket. He was stung by having the white-ball leadership, which he was appointed to in February 2020, taken away in March 2021 in the wake of his team winning only six of 11 games and just one of five series. The truth was that he made at best an aloof and at worst an out-of-touch captain liable, for instance, to leave floundering bowlers to their own devices without so much as putting an arm around their shoulders. A confirmed creature of the outdoors, De Kock struggled with bubble life enough to be granted a mental health break by CSA. His refusal to kneel made many South Africans consider him a racist hiding in plain view. As unhappily, others championed him as a standard-bearer for toxic whiteness. No-one, not even sleepy schoolboys who don’t have to interact with the world outside their door beyond playing cricket better than almost anyone else on the planet, would hold up under all that. So in December, in the throes of an intense Test series against India, he announced his immediate retirement from the format as a player.

Thus De Kock reaping Wednesday’s whirlwind in the way he did will be seen, rightly or not, as proof that he has come through more and greater tests than he would have expected to encounter on his journey through cricket pretty much in one piece. Or as a reconstructed version of himself. Or as someone who has learnt the value of letting go and just letting it happen. Whatever you think of any aspect of the De Kock phenomenon, that’s good. Maybe that marriage isn’t so bad after all.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Goliath meets David. Again.

“I think his ODI record is equal to or even in front of Virat Kohli’s.” – Ryan Campbell on Ryan ten Doeschate.

Telford Vice | Cape Town

SOUTH Africans who think their team won’t raise a sweat beating the Netherlands in their men’s ODI series, which starts in Centurion on Friday, would do well to remember what happened the last time these sides faced common opponents in the format.

In June, the Dutch earned a 2-1 series win over Ireland in Utrecht. In July, South Africa couldn’t do better than a 1-1 draw in their rubber against the Irish in Dublin. A washed out match was no doubt a major element in the latter’s outcome, but the fact that Ireland took a game off their heavily favoured visitors should be an alarm.

Unlike the South Africans in Ireland, Goliath didn’t have a chance to avenge his defeat by David. If he had been given that opportunity, would the result be different? What if he wasn’t up against the same David in the rematch?

That said, the Netherlands are vulnerable. They let themselves down at the T20 World Cup in the UAE last month, when they lost to Ireland, Namibia and Sri Lanka and thus shambled home after the first round. They probably didn’t entertain serious hopes of reaching the second stage of the tournament, but they also wouldn’t have expected to be pegged with Papua New Guinea as the only teams to lose all their first-round matches.

Although South Africa didn’t make it to the knockout stage, they performed better than expected. They won four of their five matches and missed out on a place in the semifinals on net runrate. So the smart as well as the not so smart money will be on them to have the better of the Dutch.

Both camps are making do in the face of significant absentees. South Africa have rested Temba Bavuma, Quinton de Kock, Aiden Markram, Rassie van der Dussen, Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortjé, Heinrich Klaasen, Wiaan Mulder and Bjorn Fortuin, while Lungi Ngidi and Lizaad Williams have been withdrawn through illness and injury. Ben Cooper, Paul van Meekeren and Tobias Visee pulled out of the Netherlands mix, and Ryan ten Doeschate ended his stellar career at the T20 World Cup.

Happily, ‘Tendo’ has stayed on board as a mentor. The Port Elizabeth-born allrounder was an established figure in South African club and English county cricket long before he appeared for the Netherlands for the first time in an ODI against Sri Lanka at Amstelveen Amsterdam in July 2006 — he made his first-class, list A and T20 debuts for Essex in 2003.

With Bavuma not around, the series offers Keshav Maharaj another chance to burnish the captaincy credentials he unveiled in Sri Lanka in September — where South Africa lost the ODIs 2-1, but swept to a 3-0 victory in the T20Is.

Maharaj won’t want for motivation to get the best out of his players, but it doesn’t hurt that the rubber comes preloaded with World Cup Super League points. South Africa are currently ninth in the standings, so as matters stand not among the sides who will qualify directly for the 2023 World Cup. But a 3-0 win over the Netherlands would catapult them to third place.

When: South Africa v Netherlands, World Cup Super League, 10:00 Local Time.

Where: Centurion (Friday, Sunday); the Wanderers, Johannesburg (Wednesday).

What to expect: No major white-ball cricket has been played at the Highveld’s premier venues this season, but the events of previous summers tell us the pitches will be willing and the outfields fast. Also, the Wanderers outfield is on the small side.

Team news:

South Africa: With Lungi Ngidi out because of Covid-19 and Lizaad Williams removed from the equation by an intercostal muscle strain — and Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortjé rested — the home side’s seam bowling resources are depleted. The recalled Wayne Parnell, the inexperienced Sisanda Magala and Daryn Dupavillon, and the recently drafted Junior Dala will have to carry that load, with help from Andile Phehlukwayo.

Possible XI: Janneman Malan, Ryan Rickelton, Zubayr Hamza, Reeza Hendricks, David Miller, Kyle Verreynne, Dwaine Pretorius, Wayne Parnell, Andile Phehlukwayo, Keshav Maharaj, Sisanda Magala.

Netherlands: The bad news is that Ben Cooper, Paul van Meekeren and Tobias Visee made themselves unavailable for the tour for undisclosed personal reasons. The good news is that, among them, only Cooper was in the XI that clinched the series in Ireland in June, the last time the Dutch played ODIs.

Possible XI: Stephan Myburgh, Max O’Dowd, Scott Edwards, Musa Ahmed, Bas de Leede, Pieter Seelaar, Colin Ackermann, Roelof van der Merwe, Timm van der Gugten, Fred Klaassen, Vivian Kingma.

What they said:

“The main thing is to get some gametime and put some performances in, but also to use it as a platform to show what I’m about. It’s also a good opportunity to try and cement my place, if not in the starting XI then as a permanent squad player for the next couple of series.” — Kyle Verreynne hopes to make his mark.

“One of the words that gets thrown around way too much in sport is the world great. But Ryan ten Doeschate will go down as probably the greatest associate cricketer ever to play the game. His numbers for the Dutch stack up against the world’s best. I think his ODI record is equal to or even in front of Virat Kohli’s.” — Ryan Campbell talks up his team’s mentor.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Why teams, not countries, play cricket

“Imagine there’s no countries. It isn’t hard to do.” – John Lennon

Telford Vice | Cape Town

A Tongan, a Hongkonger and 11 Pakistanis walk into three different dressing rooms. Which teams do they play for? A clue: neither Tonga, Hong Kong nor Pakistan.

To that list of nationalities add 17 South Africans, eight Indians, seven Englishmen, two each from New Zealand and Australia, one from West Indies and another from Ireland. These are players who were born in countries other than those they were picked to turn out for at the men’s T20 World Cup. They add up to 51 of the 240 — not counting the reserves — who started the tournament on October 17. That’s 21.25%: more than a fifth of the total playing personnel and not far from a quarter.

Some teams are more prone to this phenomenon than others. A dozen of the Netherlands’ 15 are not from there. They include Scott Edwards, a Tongan. Sufyan Mehmood, from Muscat, is Oman’s only homegrown player. The rest of their squad consists of nine Pakistanis and five Indians.

Of the 12 sides who reached the second round, only Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, South Africa, Sri Lanka and West Indies did so using solely home-born players. So half of the Super 12 squads featured players from elsewhere, including all four who made it to the semi-finals.

Australia’s Josh Inglis drew his first breath in Leeds. England captain Eoin Morgan is a Dubliner, Tom Curran a Capetonian, Chris Jordan a Bajan from Christ Church, and Jason Roy a Durbanite. At least, they used to call those places home. New Zealand harbour two South Africans — Devon Conway of Johannesburg and Glenn Phillips, an East Londoner — Hong Kong-born Mark Chapman, and an Indian, Ish Sodhi, a native of Ludhiana in Punjab. Pakistan? Imad Wasim hails from Swansea in Wales.

Something similar is true of the backrooms. Ten of the original 16 sides have foreign-born head coaches, including all four of those who didn’t make it to the Super 12. Seven South Africans started the tournament in this capacity. Six of them survived the opening round — Ireland’s Graham Ford was the exception.

This will no doubt come as a blow to those who want cricket to function as a blunt instrument of nationalism; war minus the shooting, in George Orwell’s enduring phrase. The other side of this coin is to wonder whether failure to reach the final four has something to do with a lack of diversity: none of the six purebred sides in the Super 12 stage made it to the semis. Or to think about whether, unlike what the nationalists and the marketing people want us to believe, cricketers play for nothing and no-one except their paycheques, the lure of winning, themselves, and each other. In the words of John Lennon, “Imagine there’s no countries. It isn’t hard to do.” The social media abuse meted out to Mohammed Shami during the T20 World Cup makes another of Lennon’s lines pertinent: “And no religion, too.”

In South Africa we know all about people trying to claim cricket for whites. Or for English-speaking whites, as opposed to white Afrikaners. Or to consign football to blacks and rugby to white Afrikaners. Brown South Africans — many of whom’s first language is Afrikaans — are accepted, sometimes grudgingly, as sport’s supreme allrounders. Except that all of the above play all of the above, and have done for centuries.

Cricket in England is currently trying to confront racism, as the game continues to do in South Africa. Doubtless all societies where cricket is prominent need this kind of catharsis. Where the dividing line is not race it could be religion, class, culture or caste. This shouldn’t be taken to mean the game is a particularly poisoned island of inequality in an otherwise just world. We know the world isn’t just, and that injustice has infected cricket as much as it has everything else.

When you watch the T20 World Cup final in Dubai on Sunday, know that you aren’t watching Australia play New Zealand. That’s too simplistic, and an insult to all involved and the planning and work that has taken them this far. What you will see is 22 fine cricketers drawn from squads that include players from five countries split into two teams who have managed to survive until now. That’s the best reason there can be to call the tournament a World Cup — it is more than the sum of its mapped parts.

Neither the Aussies nor the Kiwis can nationalise that truth, and many won’t try. Because we shouldn’t stoop so low as to conflate cricket with patriotism. What we want is a decent contest. Nothing else matters.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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From Bavuma to Boucher, and back to South Africa’s old enemy

“In terms of the trust, of the backing of each other and the confidence in each other, that’s definitely grown. We are in a better space.” – Temba Bavuma

Telford Vice | Cape Town

WHEN people told Temba Bavuma to “go and enjoy the experience” of captaining South Africa at the T20 World Cup, they were trying to be nice about a team they thought were on a hiding to nothing. And so he shouldn’t entertain serious thoughts of coming home with his stature enhanced.

Except that he has. Bavuma was behind only Rassie van der Dussen and Aiden Markram in terms of runs, highest score and balls faced. He opened the batting without significant success in his first two innings, but was a stabilising influence in a fractious line-up when he moved to the middle order for his last two knocks.

But all statistics pale into insignificance in light of Bavuma’s performance in the aftermath of Quinton de Kock’s refusal — because CSA’s board had instructed the team to take a knee — to play against West Indies in Dubai on October 26. Not only did Bavuma guide his clearly rattled players to a sound win, he took on the responsibility for explaining De Kock’s decision at the press conference that followed.

To do so would have meant, at some level, putting aside his own feelings on the issue: Bavuma has had no trouble taking a knee, the globally accepted gesture to indicate support for the fight for social justice. Consider the implications of a black citizen of a country that, until relatively recently, criminalised blackness and remains in the grip of white supremacy, opting to serve as a human shield for a white compatriot who has done something that has enraged millions — and that could in itself be considered racist. Yes, it is that complicated.

And it seems it was, for someone as clear-headed as Bavuma, obvious what needed to be done. “Everything happened quite quickly; there was no real time to consult with anyone from my side,” he told an online press conference on Tuesday. “I found myself having to weigh up both sides of the story and to then be able to express my opinion. Sometimes that’s the best way to go about something, when you don’t really have a lot of time to think about it. You can speak to the merits of what is at hand. It doesn’t have to be premeditated or scripted and fake.”

All South Africans should be proud and humbled to share a nationality with someone who, in extreme circumstances, found the skill, maturity and empathy required to deal with a situation that he couldn’t have imagined would be thrust upon him, and that would have sunk a lesser captain and his team without trace.

Bavuma went to the tournament with a lack of belief in his ability as a T20I player — nevermind as captain of the national team — ringing in his ears. Some of it was justified: his career strike rate of 123.09, which was 126.93 before the World Cup, is too low in a format where the benchmark is 140. Some of it was racist: of South Africa’s current players only Markram and Heinrich Klaasen bat at or above 140 at international level. De Kock doesn’t, and neither did AB de Villiers. Yet De Kock and De Villiers, who are white, don’t attract the kind of criticism routinely levelled at Bavuma.

“If I look at my Proteas career, there’s always been some type of pressure around me,” he said. “And rightfully so. As an international cricketer that’s the environment that you operate in. Over the years I’ve learnt ways to deal with that pressure, to try put aside the emotions and deal with the issue at hand.”

The parameters of that conversation have been redrawn in the wake of the De Kock moment. No doubt Bavuma knew he had it in him to do what he did. Now everybody does. He left for the T20 World Cup as a cricketer. He has returned a leader.

The contrast is profound, and Bavuma said he had noticed its effects: “There’s been a bit of a shift; a different type of energy. That’s quite warming. Interacting with the media through these types of forums gives me that sense in that the backing and support is there. Me coming in as the captain, the responsibility was always going to be big. There was always going to be pressure and expectation from all angles.”

Forty-five hours after De Kock walked out, he issued a statement in which he apologised and committed himself to taking a knee. He also wrote: “There always seems to be a drama when we go to World Cups. That isn’t fair.” It isn’t, because it leaves those who have not created the drama to clean up the resultant mess. Happily, unlike in the past, that was done effectively.

“There were matters that happened off the field that put us under pressure, and they were challenging times as a team,” Bavuma said. “I believe that we were able to get through those moments. They could have broken us or brought us together, and I think it was more the latter.

“I was put in situations that are very hard to prepare for. I am grateful that I was able to get out of those situations. In terms of the trust, of the backing of each other and the confidence in each other, that’s definitely grown. We are in a better space.”

Despite losing only one of their five group games, South Africa didn’t qualify for the semi-finals. They finished with eight points, along with Group 1 leaders England and Australia — who claimed the second semi spot because their net runrate was 0.477 higher than South Africa’s. Even so, Bavuma’s team had punched above their weight.

“Before the World Cup not a lot of people had much faith in us,” he said. “Those were people within my own circles as well. The type of messages I got were along the lines of, ‘Go and enjoy the experience’. There wasn’t much about setting our sights on winning the World Cup.

“As the tournament unfolded, the sentiments changed. Us qualifying [for the semi-finals] became a bit more of a realistic goal until Australia beat Bangladesh the way they did.” Against Bangladesh, the Aussies chased down their target of 73 in 6.2 overs to boost their net runrate from -0.627 to +1.031.

CSA’s directive to the team on October 26 was that they should kneel for the rest of their games in the T20 World Cup. They have a full season coming up, centered on an all-format tour by India in December and January. What will happen now?

“A guy like [Test captain] Dean Elgar will have to be part of the conversation to see how we are going to do things going forward,” Bavuma said. “I would assume all decision-makers, all role-players, will be involved in that decision. You will find a situation where it’s the team, the board, probably [director of cricket] Graeme Smith as well, and then a decision will be made.”

Beyond the boundary, being black in South Africa — and much of the rest of the world — means being regarded and treated as second, third or even fourth-class. There is much work to be done to change that. “The important bit is how does this all translate into our everyday life,” Bavuma said. “We can all go out there, raise our fists, go onto the knee. But if deep down in the heart, you’re not really for the cause and what it stands for, and it doesn’t show in your everyday behaviour, then I guess it brings into question the authenticity of it all.”

The board issued their decree for the players to kneel after months of unhappiness with their three-pronged approach: some took a knee, others stood and raised a fist or simply stood. All the black and brown players kneeled. All the players who stood were white. The seeming division was a sore sight.

“Going forward, the decision is going to have to be collective; that’s important,” Bavuma said. “We want to avoid a situation where things are being dictated or instructed to players. Importantly, how does it show in our everyday behaviour? Not just in our Proteas team, but within the country as a whole. Our country has big, big, big problems and that’s where the energy, in my opinion, should really be spent.”

Unlike Bavuma, Mark Boucher has come back to a cooler welcome. South Africa have won 17 of their last 23 games across the formats, claimed four of their last six bilateral series with another drawn, and performed better than expected at the T20 World Cup. Yet, in accordance with a narrative of negativity that has been afoot since his appointment in December 2019 — long before he acknowledged and apologised for racist elements of the culture of South Africa teams in which he played — Boucher isn’t given his share of the credit. How testing had his time in the job been, and did he feel supported?

“It’s a tough question because whatever I say people will try and write it in a different way,” Boucher said. “To say it hasn’t been tough would be lying. It was tough on me as an individual and also on the team. We addressed the issue [of previous teams singing racist songs], and I’d like to believe I had their backing after the honest chats that we had.

“I know there’s a lot of media who probably don’t want me in this position. My agenda has always been to get the best out of this group of players and get South African cricket to where I believe we should be, and that’s near the top again. Until anything else happens I will continue to try and do that to the best of my ability. There are times where I might feel backed, there are times where I might feel not backed. My focus is on the players, quite simply. And it will continue to be as long as I’m in this position.”

Two people give of their best in the same cause. Opposing factions celebrate only one of them. The other is vilified. Welcome to South Africa.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Almost, but not quite as SA bow out

“Unfortunately ifs and buts, they don’t count now.” – Mark Boucher

Telford Vice | Cape Town

WIN by 61 runs or chase down your target inside 13 overs. That’s not easy at the best of times, but especially when you haven’t won a T20I by that many runs since January 2015, or prevailed in an unshortened match that quickly since December 2012.

And also not when you’re up against opponents who haven’t put a foot wrong at the T20 World Cup and have beaten you five straight times in the format. On top of that, you’re not playing the most solid cricket yourself, scrambling rather than surging to victory.

South Africa were at the bottom of a hole looking up at that equation before they took on England in Sharjah on Saturday. To nail down second place in Group 1 and reach the T20 World Cup semi-finals they needed not only to win, but to win emphatically. Against an England team, mind, that hadn’t come close to losing in their first four games.

The South Africans’ order to beat England was tall enough. But it morphed into a tower of trouble because second-placed Australia’s net runrate had ballooned. It went from -0.627 to +1.031 after they thrashed Bangladesh in Dubai on Thursday to +1.226 thanks to their thumping of West Indies in Abu Dhabi earlier on Saturday.

“South Africa on their way; first run of 200,” Dale Steyn quipped on commentary when Reeza Hendricks bunted the second ball of the match, bowled by Moeen Ali, to long-on. The South Africans reached 50 off 43 balls and 100 off 78 — both their fastest of the tournament, and the latter the quickest three figures has been reached against England at the event. Halfway through their innings South Africa were 73/1 — their best position, in terms of runs scored as well as wickets lost, after 10 overs in all five of their games.

Quinton de Kock looked intent on making up for the scores of seven, 12 and 16 in his other innings. But, having made 34 off 27, he mistimed a lofted drive off Adil Rashid and was caught on the ropes down the ground. That ended a stand of 71 off 52 he shared with Rassie van der Dussen — who 10 balls later hooked an express delivery from Mark Wood 82 metres into the stands to bring up the 100.

Aiden Markram’s entrance made for the silkiest of gear changes. He and Van der Dussen plundered 103 off 53, South Africa’s biggest partnership of the tournament, to take the total to 189/2 — their highest here, the highest made against England, and the third highest of the World Cup. Van der Dussen’s 60-ball undefeated 94 and Markram’s 52 not out off 25 were their team’s best scores of an event in which they posted only one other half-century.

The second strip from one edge of the table was used for the pitch, which skewed the dimensions of the ground for all involved. One boundary was only 52 metres away and another 57 metres, but the fences opposite were 76 and 73 metres in the distance.

That wasn’t the only significant oddity on Saturday. Another was the mystery of why South Africa hadn’t batted like this earlier in the tournament. The surface was one of the more willing in the tournament and the unusual boundaries gave the bowlers a headache, but the ball still needed to be hit well and with power and creativity. And South Africa hit it better, harder and with more innovation than they have done in too long. Where had this kind of batting been earlier? Against Australia, for instance, when the South Africans limped to 118/9? Or against Bangladesh, when they took 13.3 overs to reel in a minnow target of 85?

“We always go out with a plan to put pressure on bowling attacks, [but] the conditions have been tough,” Mark Boucher told a press conference. “We haven’t really got off to a start like that, at least at the World Cup. We’ve always been losing wickets in the powerplay. We set targets we want to achieve and we’re quite adaptable in these conditions. Two guys managed to stay at the crease and get a good partnership, which is something we always try and do. We were able to bat ourselves into a position where we could really put England under pressure, and it paid off.”

So much so that a few floors were lopped off that tower of trouble: win by at least 58 runs or restrict England to 131, or fewer, and the door to a semi-final would swing wide open. It was kept securely locked by Jason Roy and Jos Buttler, but with 38 rattled up off 25 Roy had to be helped off the field with a calf injury he sustained as he set off from the non-striker’s end. Not that that stopped the flow of runs, with Buttler and Moeen clipping 20 off nine before Buttler — still this World Cup’s only centurion — drove Anrich Nortjé into Temba Bavuma’s hands at mid-off.

Moeen and Dawid Malan took England to 81/2 in 10 overs, which meant South Africa had only 50 to defend off the last half of the innings if they were to make it to the semis. That would have been tough even if their bowlers didn’t have their only off day of the tournament, conceding 17 fours and leaking runs at 8.94 to the over — both tournament highs for the South Africans.

Tabraiz Shamsi had Moeen caught on the long-on fence the ball after he had clattered a six over the same boundary. But England were undeterred, screaming past 131 with the second of four consecutive sixes launched by Malan and Livingstone off Dwaine Pretorius and Kagiso Rabada in the 15th and 16th overs. With that another thought, unthunk since South Africa’s innings, popped up: were England tilting towards victory?

They were, and that would have been merciful. To win and be eliminated regardless would be bad enough for South Africa. But for that victory not to stop the Australians — of all people — from stealing their place in the final four would be too much. Thus there would have been more than a few South Africans shouting for England as the end loomed.

But their fears were realised when Rabada, defending 14 off the last with the English heaving for sixes, had Chris Woakes, Eoin Morgan and Chris Jordan hole out to his first three deliveries. Rabada managed a smile after Jordan was dismissed, but it was still the most underwhelming hattrick imaginable. That all but sealed South Africa’s win, by 10 runs, and their fate.

“We played some good cricket throughout the campaign, under a lot of pressure as well after having lost our first game [to those darned Aussies],” Boucher said. “Tonight we beat the in-form side in white-ball cricket for a while now, so it’s a tough one for the guys in the changeroom. We did the job today, but it’s quite bitter. Unfortunately ifs and buts, they don’t count now.”

Unlike some of the South Africa teams Boucher played in, this side didn’t melt when the heat was on. They lost — once — when it mattered and, on Saturday, won when it didn’t. No ifs, no buts, and no semi-final. But no disgrace.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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The human behind the Anrich Nortjé machine

“There have been times when I’ve gone to the hardware store or the supermarket, just to get out.” – Anrich Nortjé

Telford Vice | Cape Town

IN the heat of the second IPL qualifier in Sharjah last month, Rishabh Pant was having a word with his bowler as he walked back to his mark, making for a sweetly comic scene: the Delhi Capitals’ captain is 15 centimetres shorter than the man he had buttonholed. Then again, most people aren’t as tall as Anrich Nortjé.

Their discussion ended wordlessly, but not without communication. To signal that he had caught the skipper’s drift, Nortjé, his eyes closed, his expression accepting, nodded his head sidewards. It was a gentle moment of truth from a secret life, a glimpse into the human behind the machine.

We’re used to seeing Nortjé steam towards the crease, pale and grim as the reaper himself. We marvel at the smoothness with which this totem pole on the hoof unfurls his long arms and legs. We’re relieved we are not at the other end of the pitch, fated to deal with a ball — delivered near, at or upwards of 150 kilometres an hour — that could smash our toes or take our heads off before dismissing us. His gesture to Pant made him real in a context that wasn’t about broken bones or soaring appeals.

It suggested there’s more to Nortjé than fast bowling, and there is. For a start, he is impressively over-qualified for a cricketer with a Bachelor of Commerce degree and a post-graduate diploma in financial planning.

We might have had a different idea of Nortjé’s talents had a broken collarbone in his second-last year at high school not ended his rugby career. He used to patrol at fullback or direct operations from flyhalf. He also captained the first XI, batted at No. 3 and, in the words of his coach at Brandwag High, Francois Anker, “bowled plenty of stumps physically broken”.

Nortjé was last near the scene of those crimes when his home town had another name. Or, as he told Cricbuzz, so he thinks: “I can’t remember when I was there … the end or middle of August? I don’t know … probably just after we came back from Ireland, to visit my parents.” That was in July. Uitenhage, where Nortjé was raised, was renamed Kariega on February 23 — the same day Port Elizabeth, which is less than 40 kilometres away and where he now lives, became Gqeberha.

If you live in Gqeberha and you see someone who looks like Nortjé hanging around the local shops, apparently aimlessly, it could be him. “Life goes back to normal when you go home,” he said. “It’s about trying to get used to that normal life again. It takes a few days to settle in and get used to being in your own bed. There have been times when I’ve gone to the hardware store or the supermarket, just to get out. My wife was at work, everyone was at work. So you couldn’t go and see anyone.”

He spoke not gloomily but with a smile that gleamed through the fuzziness of a Zoom call. Behind him was the familiar sight of the inside of a player’s hotel room. Before the pandemic, our interview would have been conducted facelessly on the phone. Now we could see each other, adding levels of connection, recognition and reaction — exactly what has been taken from the masked masses on the street.

Covid-19 has changed everything, and not in welcome ways. When we turn on our televisions to watch cricket, we’re looking for signs that not all we thought we knew about the world has been irrevocably altered. The players pay a high price to provide us with that reassurance. Is it too high?

“To be playing cricket is really nice. For that day or those few hours on the field, things are sort of back to normal. You’re in an environment where you can compete and actually do some work. But then, when you get back to the hotel, you’re back in a bubble. You can’t go out. You can’t do anything.

“So things get tough, especially outside of tournaments — where the focus is on the actual event and there’s a lot happening. But in a series things can get long and dragged out. Most of the time you won’t have your family with you. You feel privileged now to be able to walk outside. There are definitely a lot of struggles with this.”

One of those battles is with the expectation that players should perform at the same levels of skill and intensity as before their reality off the field was turned upside down. Wasn’t that unfair?

“It affects everyone differently and at different stages. Sometimes you’ll find a player who’s completely out of it, and at other times they’re in a good space. Some players handle it better than others. Some guys are able to cut out everything, all the background noise, when they step over the boundary. That’s probably what you want. It’s different for everyone and it is difficult, but we’re lucky that we can still play cricket and hopefully we don’t have to be in environments like this for too much longer.”

Being able to play in front of real, live humans again has been a blessing: “It’s nice to have people at a game making some noise, even if they’re supporting the opposition. When I’m facing a ball or bowling a ball, whether they’re making a noise or not doesn’t really affect me. But it’s different when you’re warming up or after a game, when you can’t help but notice how quiet everything is without crowds.”

Having fans in attendance wasn’t all he enjoyed about the IPL: “It was good to get back to these conditions, and a nice challenge. I was able to change a few things, which helped me; one or two technical things, especially with the newer ball.” But it wasn’t all work: “I had my wife with me for the whole time. So while I watched quite a bit of the cricket to start with, I slowly moved away from doing that and just relaxed where I could.”

Could he put on his B Com mortar board and tell us whether the behemoth that is the IPL was going to dominate the world game? “There’s definitely still space for all of the formats. Red-ball cricket, as everyone knows and says, is the toughest challenge. It’s the main format. But, as we can see in a lot of places, almost every country is trying to get in on the T20 action. There’s going to be more and more of it. But there’s still place for everything else.”

Maybe not in places like South Africa, where the game is at the mercy of bigger, brighter markets. Surely the best players will follow the money?

“That’s difficult to say. What South Africa have done by going back to a provincial set-up [featuring 15 teams rather than the previous six franchises] is probably a step in the right direction — having more teams, more players, more eyes. That’s what you want. You try and add experience in those teams and grow everyone. What we saw with the MSL is that you had a few guys coming through to make their debuts for South Africa.” Indeed, a dozen players, Nortjé among them, have cracked the T20I nod after featuring in the MSL.

He was picked for the 2019 World Cup but had to pull out just more than three weeks before the start of the tournament after breaking his thumb in the nets. He dodged a bullet — South Africa suffered their worst performance on that stage, losing five of their eight completed games. They’ve done better this time, winning three of four group matches. A crunch clash looms against high-flying England in Sharjah on Saturday with a place in the semifinals likely on the line.

“I don’t think we’ve played our best game yet, where everyone performs. But you’re probably never going to have that. It’s about getting as close to that as you can. As long as we keep working towards our next opportunity, working towards the next ball … If you bowl a wide, for your next delivery try and bowl your best ball. It’s about focusing on the now, not the past or the future.”

The value of that statement is in the fact that Nortjé made it, like everything else he said in this interview, before he became South Africa’s best bowler at the T20 World Cup in terms of wickets, average and economy rate, and one of the best at the tournament. He is putting his bowling where his wide open eyes are.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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SA’s push comes to England’s shove

“We’ve always spoken about being flexible, and looking at the players that we have in the team, I felt that I could do a role up front but I could also do a role in the middle order.” – Temba Bavuma

Telford Vice | Cape Town

LOSING is unlikely to stop England from finishing at the top of the Group 1 standings. Winning may not be enough to earn South Africa a place in the semi-finals. The contrasts between these teams, who clash in the last of their T20 World Cup group games in Sharjah on Saturday, don’t end there.

Unbeaten England have been a juggernaut, dismissing West Indies for 55 and Australia for 125, and never losing more than four wickets. South Africa, beaten by the Aussies with two balls remaining, scraped home with a delivery to spare against Sri Lanka.

Going into Friday’s games, Jos Buttler’s 67-ball 101 not out against Sri Lanka in Sharjah on Monday was the tournament’s only century. Aiden Markram’s 51 not out against the Windies in Dubai last Tuesday is not just the South Africans’ top score but their only half-century at an event where 35 other efforts of 50 or more have been recorded.

South Africa’s bowlers, particularly Anrich Nortjé and Dwaine Pretorius, have kept their team’s play-off hopes alive with their respective returns of eight wickets at an economy rate of 4.56 and seven at 6.08. England don’t have a bowler among the top 10 wicket-takers, but Moeen Ali, Adil Rashid, Chris Jordan, Chris Woakes and Liam Livingstone are all operating at less than a run-a-ball.

Expect the key contest to be between England’s batters and South Africa’s bowlers, although the absence through a thigh injury of Tymal Mills, the most successful seamer in the English squad, should even those odds a touch.

The English have roared off into the brave new world of white-ball cricket, swinging their bats innovatively and their bowling arms cannily. South Africa, particularly at the batting crease, have looked like an ODI side from the mid-1990s; content to nudge and nurdle their way to a defendable total or a successful chase using good old cricket strokes.

England have reeled off five consecutive T20I wins against South Africa, all of them since February last year, and have lost only one of their last 10 games in the format. Whichever way you spin it, Eoin Morgan’s side will be heavily favoured to add a fifth victory to the four they have achieved at the tournament. And yet …

This South African team are unlike those who have gone before. They arrived unfancied, they have not panicked, and they are winning without much help from their stars — Quinton de Kock has yet to fire and Kagiso Rabada was off his mark for three games before he took 3/20 against Bangladesh in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday.

South Africa are having a much better time of it than they did the last time their men’s team were at a World Cup: the 50-over version in England in 2019, when they lost five of their eight completed games and were out of the running before the end of the group stage. So reaching the semis would be a welcome over-achievement.

England and Australia are currently in the semi-final positions, but should the Aussies stumble in Saturday’s earlier match — against the Windies in Abu Dhabi — and South Africa win, England and South Africa will advance. If Australia win and South Africa lose, the Australians will join England in the final four. Victory for both the Aussies and the South Africans would leave the matter in the hands of net runrate. At least South Africa, by dint of playing in the later game, would know how quickly they would need to score to nudge past the Australians. Only England, whose booming NRR of 3.183 is more than three times Australia’s, would seem secure.

Seven of the 10 IPL games in Sharjah this year were won by the team batting second, as have five of the ground’s seven T20 World Cup matches. Three of the latter have been day/nighters, and two of them went to the side fielding first.

The smart money will be on an England win. Happily for South Africa, a lot of money isn’t smart.

When: England vs South Africa, Super 12 Group 1, 14:00 Local, 16:00 SAST

Where: Sharjah Cricket Stadium

What to expect: Don’t believe everything you read about this ground being a batter’s graveyard. The truth is runs flow faster per over in T20Is in Sharjah (7.23) than in Dubai (7.10) or Abu Dhabi (7.18). How the runs are scored on Saturday will be influenced by the fact that the pitch to be used is only two strips from the edge of the table. So one of the square boundaries will be significantly shorter than the other.

T20I Head to Head: England 11-9 South Africa (1 no result; 2-3 in World T20 games)

Team Watch:

England

Injury/Availability Concerns: Tymal Mills was ruled out of the rest of the tournament earlier this week, which means there will be at least once change to England’s team. Mark Wood, who has been struggling with an ankle issue, came through a training session on Thursday and will need to do the same again on Friday in order to be considered to play. David Willey is the other option to come into the team.

Tactics & Matchups: England played far more aggressively against Sri Lanka’s pacers in their last match as the slowness of the Sharjah surface made taking slow bowling on far trickier. Sri Lanka’s spinners conceded just 34 runs from their combined eight overs. England could adopt a similar approach against South Africa too, by sitting in against Tabraiz Shamsi and Keshav Maharaj and trying to attack the likes of Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortjé.

Probable XI: Jason Roy, Jos Buttler (wk), Dawid Malan, Jonny Bairstow, Eoin Morgan (c), Liam Livingstone, Moeen Ali, Chris Woakes, Chris Jordan, Mark Wood/David Willey, Adil Rashid

South Africa

Injury/Availability Concerns: Somehow Temba Bavuma’s thumb, Tabraiz Shamsi’s groin, David Miller’s calf and Quinton de Kock’s previously unbent knee are all holding up. Clearly the magic spray really is magical. All are fit and accounted for.

Tactics & Matchups: Quinton de Kock remains South Africa’s most dangerous batter, even though he hasn’t scored more than 16 in any of his three innings in the tournament. If he strikes form South Africa will undergo a batting revolution. With Kagiso Rabada having rediscovered his mojo against Bangladesh on Tuesday, and Anrich Nortjé boasting the best economy rate in the tournament for bowlers who have sent down at least 15 overs, the South Africans could have the most potent pace pair in the business.

Probable XI: Quinton de Kock (wk), Reeza Hendricks, Rassie van der Dussen, Aiden Markram, Temba Bavuma (c), David Miller, Dwaine Pretorius, Kagiso Rabada, Keshav Maharaj, Anrich Nortjé, Tabraiz Shamsi

Did you know?

No team have lost fewer wickets in the tournament than England’s dozen. And no team have taken more wickets than the 39 claimed by England.

What they said:

“One of the things that makes me extremely proud is that regardless of how well we’ve done or how poorly we’ve done, guys have always wanted to get better. They’re not really that interested in standing still or spending too much time reflecting on what has been and gone. They want to continue to get better because they know that once you lose that drive in trying to achieve things individually and as a team, it has a big repercussion effect on the wider game and throughout our country.” – Eoin Morgan

“We’ve really had to graft as a batting unit. We’ve always spoken about being flexible, and looking at the players that we have in the team, I felt that I could do a role up front but I could also do a role in the middle order. We’ve had a guy like Rassie [van der Dussen] go in earlier because we know if he has the opportunity to face a considerable amount of balls he can really put a bowling attack under pressure. A guy like Reeza [Hendricks] has come off well recently at the top of the order. So we’re trying to utilise that form.” – Temba Bavuma

(With inputs from Rob Johnston)

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Short, sharp shock puts SA in semifinals zone

“We want to do well for ourselves more than anyone else wants us to do well.” – Kagiso Rabada

Telford Vice | Cape Town

FIRST Kagiso Rabada took centre stage in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday. Then Anrich Nortjé grabbed top billing. Then Taskin Ahmed polished his star. And all the while Mustafizur Rahman could only sit and watch, wondering what might have been.

It isn’t often that a pitch in a T20I anywhere favours fast bowlers, even less so in the UAE, and still less on a platform as grand as a World Cup. So Tuesday’s surface at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium was an exception. It was grassy, quick, offered bounce and seam, and the extra humidity that hung in the air made the ball swing.

Given those conditions, the history between these teams in the format, and the fact that Bangladesh had one-and-a-half feet on the plane after losing all of their first three games, victory for South Africa was always likely.

But for the Bangladeshis to be bundled out for 84 was a shock. It was the eighth time they have been dismissed in double figures in their 119 T20Is, but the first time by South Africa — who won by six wickets with 6.3 overs remaining to retain their unbeaten record in seven T20Is against Bangladesh.

Mission accomplished, as Rabada told a press conference: “There was a clear instruction that we should try finish the game before 15 [overs].” The South Africans knocked off the target smartly enough to boost their net runrate to +0.79. That puts them in second place in Group 1 with Australia third on -0.63. South Africa’s next and last engagement in the group stage is a mega match against leaders England in Sharjah on Saturday. By then, Australia will have completed their programme against Bangladesh and West Indies. So Temba Bavuma’s team will know exactly what they need to do to reach the semifinals — either beat England or make sure they finish with a better runrate than the Aussies.

This was easily South Africa’s most emphatic showing. It followed a narrow loss to Australia and close wins over West Indies and Sri Lanka. Was this evidence of a team hitting its straps ahead of their biggest challenge, or would it have been better to prepare for England with another nail-biter?

“No, I don’t prefer a tight game at all,” Rabada said. “It’s too much stress. We’re glad that we won convincingly today. We knew every game was going to be tough and would require so much intensity. It’s hard work, the amount of focus that you have to show; resilience, thinking on the spot. It takes a lot out of you. We can take confidence out of our performance as a collective heading into the England game. We know it’s going to be tough.”

Bangladesh don’t have such complexities to consider. Their race was pretty much run before Tuesday’s match. All that’s left for them to do now is try and stave of a World Cup whitewash against Australia, then go home and hope their public will show understanding for their poor showing. “Against that type of batting line-up 84 is never good enough,” Taskin told a press conference. “We are trying our best. So hopefully, insha-allah, in future we’ll overcome.”

Rabada offered advice on how to deal with the fans: “You’ll always have critics, and that’s something that we have made peace with. You can’t take the good without the bad.”

Besides, the most virulent critics were in the dressing room: “We put ourselves under more pressure than the public, because we’re the cricketers. We want to do well for ourselves more than anyone else wants us to do well. So we put more pressure on ourselves. Whatever people have to say outside of the game, it’s OK. We can’t control that. Everyone’s entitled to their opinion. In saying that, we see a lot of value in people who genuinely support us.”

It’s cold comfort, but Bangladesh will have earned Rabada’s gratitude. He went into the match with his team’s worst bowling average and economy rate and only two wickets. That started changing in the fourth over on Tuesday, Rabada’s second, when Mohammad Naim smashed a low catch to midwicket. Rabada bent his next delivery through the air and onto the boot of Soumya Sarkar, whose bat descended too late to spare him from being trapped in front. The hattrick ball took the shoulder of Mushfiqur Rahim’s bat and flew past gully — yes, gully! In a T20I! — and bounced before reaching point. Two deliveries later, Mushfiqur fended to gully, where Reeza Hendricks held a sharp, high catch.

Rabada bowled with verve and violence to claim 3/10 in the space of his first 15 balls, taking those wickets across five of his deliveries. He finished with 3/20 — his best figures in his 39 T20Is and his second-best economy rate, and the fourth time that he has struck as many as three times.

Before Tuesday, Rabada had gone through his gears only to not reach peak performance. This time, he did that and more. It wasn’t that he had bowled badly previously. But he wasn’t as good as he would have known he could have been. On Tuesday, he was.

Nortjé has been at or near his rapid, relentless best from the moment he marked out a run-up at this World Cup. But he found an extra touch of something special on Tuesday, allowing just five scoring shots from the 20 balls he bowled and taking 3/8 — his best figures in his 15 T20Is, the first time he has claimed three wickets, and his best economy rate; 2.40 bettering the 3.50 he conceded against the Windies.

Nortjé ended the innings with consecutive deliveries by rushing Mahedi Hasan into a pull that blooped back to the bowler, and forcing Nasum Ahmed to retreat so far backward from the crease that his downswing smashed his stumps. Rather than wanting to criticise Nasum, you felt sorry for him.

Over to you, Bangladeshi quicks. Taskin answered the challenge by nailing Reeza Hendricks’ pad with an inswinger bang in front of the stumps to end the first over. In his third he had Aiden Markram snapped up at slip, where Naim dived and hung on. Temba Bavuma walked out to see a second slip step up, and was immediately cut in half by an inswinger that snuck over the stumps. Taskin’s 2/18 marked the third time in 29 T20Is that he had taken two wickets, and he did so at his fifth-lowest economy rate.

With Shakib Al Hasan, Bangladesh’s top wicket-taker and key allrounder, out of the tournament with a hamstring injury, you might have thought their second-most successful bowler would have been guaranteed a place in Tuesday’s XI. Instead Mustafizur was rested. There he sat, baleful in his bib, watching others of his ilk revel in conditions he won’t have seen often. Or will again.

It’s unlikely a fast bowler even of Mustafizur’s quality would have been able to help Bangladesh defend 84, but it would have been good to see him strutt his stuff in this saga of seam and swing. Sadly, so it goes.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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South Africa rising, Bangladesh sinking

“I’m trying to make sure I’m bowling to the batter’s plan C and D instead of their plan A.” – Dwaine Pretorius

Telford Vice | Cape Town

BANGLADESH’S chances of earning their first win of the T20 World Cup by beating South Africa in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday were slim before Sunday, when they dwindled still further with Shakib Al Hasan’s elimination from the rest of the tournament because of a hamstring injury.

The removal from the equation of the key allrounder was the worst possible news for a side who have stumbled to defeat against Sri Lanka, England and West Indies. That’s especially considering they’re up against opponents who, after going down to Australia, beat the Windies and the Lankans.

The South Africans have also emerged, apparently unscathed, from the crisis that erupted when Quinton de Kock pulled out of the game against the West Indians in Dubai last Tuesday rather than comply with a board directive to take a knee.

If momentum exists in sport beyond the level of pundits casting about for something to say to earn their keep, it’s with Temba Bavuma’s team as they look to take another step towards what seemed, before the tournament, the unlikely goal of reaching the semi-finals.

For Bangladesh, Tuesday’s match is a dead rubber in all but name: barring mathematical miracles they are already out of the running for the semis. And yet, it might have been different. England beat them properly, by eight wickets with 35 balls to spare. But the Lankans got home with only seven balls to spare and the Windies by a marginal three runs.

The South Africans have had the mirror-image experience. Australia scrambled to victory with just two deliveries remaining, and they beat the Windies and the Lankans with 10 balls and a single delivery unbowled. Consequently, rather than relying on one or two stars they are building a can-do culture that involves several players pulling their weight. The mere fact that they won without De Kock, who withdrew on the morning of the West Indies match, proved as much.

While Bangladesh have fallen short trying to play a fairly orthodox brand of T20 cricket, South Africa have set off on their own path. As their captain, Bavuma is immovable. He is also among their slower scorers. That seems a negative factor, but if none of your batters are shooting the lights out for significant periods it becomes an important positive element — the bits and bobs of briskly scored runs add up to defendable totals if someone immune to panic like Bavuma is at the other end keeping the innings in one piece.

On the bowling front, Anrich Nortjé’s bristling pace, Tabraiz Shamsi’s rasping spin and Dwaine Pretorius’ coolness under pressure have offered valuable contrasts. It isn’t often that players of the calibre of Kagiso Rabada find themselves at the bottom of the pile: he brings up the rear in the attack for the tournament with his average of 43.50 and economy rate of 7.90. That said, Rabada’s batting has been handy — he made a sensible 19 not out against Australia, and without his seven-ball unbeaten 13 against Sri Lanka the result would have been starkly different.

South Africa’s biggest test so far looms against England in Sharjah on Saturday, but they will know that they can’t afford to lose on Tuesday. If they keep playing like they have done, the pressure to win becomes motivation rather than the signal to freeze in the headlights it used to be for teams from their country.

When: Bangladesh vs South Africa, Super 12 Group 1, 14:00 Local, 12:00 SAST

Where: Sheikh Zayed Stadium, Abu Dhabi

What to expect: The tournament’s friendliest batting conditions. Unlike in Dubai and Sharjah, no side have been dismissed in Abu Dhabi during the Super 12 stage. But the pitch isn’t a featherbed: Afghanistan’s 160/5 against Namibia has been the only first innings of more than 125 there, and teams have lost nine wickets in three of the four matches. It’s an even-handed venue — two sides have won batting first, and two fielding first.

T20I Head to Head: Bangladesh 0-6 South Africa 11-5 (0-1 in World T20 games)

Team Watch:

Bangladesh

Injury/Availability Concerns: Shamim Hossain seems the frontrunner to replace Shakib Al Hasan, but the vacancy could also be filled by Nasum Ahmed or Rubel Hossain. Nural Hasan sat out against West Indies on Friday with what team management have described as a “lower midriff injury”. That might mean another opportunity for Liton Das.

Tactics & Matchups: Catch! Bangladesh spilled three chances and botched a stumping against the Windies. They’ve dropped nine catches in their six games at the tournament. In the Super 12, they’ve had three half-centuries hit off them while scoring two, but they have had bowlers concede more than 10 runs an over in an innings six times.

Probable XI: Mohammad Naim, Liton Das (wk), Soumya Sarkar, Mushfiqur Rahim, Mahmudullah (c), Afif Hossain, Mahedi Hasan, Shamim Hossain, Shoriful Islam, Taskin Ahmed, Mustafizur Rahman

South Africa

Injury/Availability Concerns: David Miller was hobbling with a dodgy hamstring while hammering South Africa to victory over Sri Lanka in Sharjah on Saturday. Tabraiz Shamsi has been dealing with a tweaked groin since the warm-up games. Shamsi has been cleared to play since South Africa’s first match, while Miller will undergo a final fitness test on Tuesday. He batted and ran well during training.

Tactics & Matchups: Keep on keeping on. Unusually, South Africa arrived with minimal expectation of success. But they have found ways to be competitive, even though they boast only one half-century — Aiden Markram’s 51 not out against West Indies — and just one of their bowlers has gone for less than a run a ball: Anrich Nortjé’s economy rate is 5.16.

Probable XI: Quinton de Kock (wk), Reeza Hendricks, Rassie van der Dussen, Temba Bavuma (c), Aiden Markram, David Miller, Dwaine Pretorius, Kagiso Rabada, Keshav Maharaj, Anrich Nortjé, Tabraiz Shamsi

Did you know?

Dwaine Pretorius has taken 10 wickets at an average of 8.2 and a strike rate of 6.4 in the 10.4 overs he has bowled at the death — from the 16th to the 20th over — in T20Is in 2021.

What they said:

“Obviously the boys are gutted. They know the expectation back home is high. They know the media interest is high. They probably feel they’ve let a few people down in terms of not crossing the line.” — Russell Domingo

“I’m trying to make sure I’m bowling to the batter’s plan C and D instead of their plan A. It’s not an ego battle out there; it’s trying to be as effective as possible. If I can do a job for the team and put us in a better situation, I’m willing to do that ugly job. It doesn’t always look the prettiest, but when it works it’s very effective.” — Dwaine Pretorius

First published by Cricbuzz.

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