2022 Indian Premier League – Bulletproof Truth

Stars ‘understand need’ for CSA T20 league

“There’s 100% buy-in for CSA’s T20 league, not only from a financial aspect but also from the perspective of the cricketing landscape in South Africa.” – Rassie van der Dussen

Telford Vice / Catania, Sicily

SOUTH Africa’s marquee players have given their blessing to CSA’s new T20 league — even if it risks the team’s direct qualification for next year’s ODI World Cup.

The players appreciate the importance of the venture in securing cricket’s sustainability in the country, and they don’t think a planned simultaneous tournament in the UAE would lure the top names away from South Africa.

“There’s 100% buy-in [for the South African league], not only from a financial aspect — the guys will earn some extra money — but also from the perspective of the cricketing landscape in South Africa,” Rassie van der Dussen told Cricbuzz. “We understand the world scenario and the need for a league to make the board and the game in the country financially viable.”

CSA’s league is set to be played in January, and they want South Africa’s top players to be involved to lend the project credibility and status in a calendar that is fast becoming cluttered with similar tournaments. “Everyone’s excited for the league and the role that we play in it to make it successful; everyone’s on board with that,” Van der Dussen said.

But that has forced South Africa’s withdrawal from an ODI series in Australia, which was set to clash with the league — and which carried World Cup Super League points. South Africa are currently 11th in the standings. Only the top eight will earn berths at the 10-team 2023 World Cup in India. The remaining two places will be decided at a qualifying tournament in Zimbabwe in June and July next year. As things stand, South Africa will have to follow that path to India.

“If it means we have to go and qualify for a World Cup, while looking at the greater good of the game in the next 15 to 20 years, that’s a small price to pay,” Van der Dussen said. “This sport has given us all so much. It’s unfortunate that we’re going to have to forfeit those points, especially against Australia. But if we have to go to Zim, we’ll do that.”

A rival to CSA’s league is being put together in the UAE, where organisers seem to be gearing up to pay players more than in any tournament aside from the IPL. Might Van der Dussen’s compatriots choose to go to the Persian Gulf instead? “The MSL showed us what the quality of cricket is like in South Africa, and as a destination the guys would probably want to be at home. I doubt we’ll see the guys go to the UAE league.”

Besides all that, T20 tournaments present opportunities for struggling players to regain their form. Aiden Markram, for instance, went to this year’s IPL having reached 50 for South Africa only twice in 20 innings across the formats. In 14 trips to the crease for Sunrisers Hyderabad he scored 381 runs — among them three half-centuries — at an average of 47.63 and a strike rate of 139.05. Now back in national colours, he has made two 50s in four white-ball innings on the current tour of England.

“Confidence is a massive thing in this game, especially as a batter,” Markram told a press conference on Tuesday. “The tournament certainly provided me with confidence and belief that I was probably lacking prior to the IPL. It played a role in putting me in a better space mentally and giving me that little bit more belief that I can compete on that stage with some of the really good cricketers in the world.”

There is a world of difference between T20 franchise tournaments and the international game, but if they retread, refresh and reboot players like Markram, their detractors should be grateful. Especially if they support teams who have to scrap it out at a qualifier to make it to the World Cup.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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When Dwaine met Dhoni

“Anything is always possible.” – MS Dhoni’s gift to Dwaine Pretorius.

Telford Vice | Cape Town

DWAINE Pretorius was 15 when MS Dhoni played the first of his 538 matches for India. Four years later Dhoni made his debut in the IPL, in which he has played 234 games. Six of the latter have featured Pretorius.

What was the fast bowling allrounder’s biggest takeaway from that experience? “Anything is always possible,” Pretorius told a press conference on Monday in Delhi, where he is in the South Africa squad that will begin a series of five T20Is in the Indian capital on Thursday.

Pretorius hadn’t been part of the IPL until this year, when he played for Chennai Super Kings. And felt the MS magic first hand. “I really enjoyed playing under Dhoni and batting with him,” Pretorius said. “Seeing the brand he has in India shows you how big he is and what he’s done for the sport in this country.”

The India icon shared four partnerships with Pretorius. Three didn’t last more than five balls. But, against Mumbai Indians at the DY Patil Stadium on April 21, the pair put on 33 off 21 balls in a crucial stand for the seventh wicket.

“The biggest thing I learnt from him is how calm he is at the crease, and how much he tries to take pressure off himself and put it onto the bowler,” Pretorius said of his up close and personal interaction with Dhoni. “He made me realise that, at the death, the batter isn’t under more pressure. It’s actually the bowler who is under more pressure. You can still lose the match if you have to defend 18 off the last three balls, and as a batter you can actually win it. It was a fresh mindset.

“He doesn’t get too excited. He doesn’t get too down on himself. Anything is always possible. He’s very optimistic. He believes he can do anything. I’m going to try and bring that into my game — the calmness but also the self-belief that, from any position, any game can be won.”

That didn’t happen often for CSK this year. They won only four of their 14 games and were the second team, after Mumbai, to be eliminated from the play-offs. Considering Chennai have reached nine finals and claimed the title four times — second only to Mumbai’s five — and were the defending champions, their performance this year must have generated shock and horror in the dressing room.

“Not really,” Pretorius said. “What’s nice about the CSK team and franchise set-up is that it is very experienced. We all understand that cricket doesn’t always go your way. It’s important to take the positives out of a bad season and try and build for a stronger future; trying to make sure that a bad season is not a complete loss.”

What does Pretorius hope the international game learns from the IPL? “I enjoy the strategic timeout. It makes the game a bit longer, but it splits the match into three parts. It gives each team a moment to assess their strategy and what’s the best way to go forward. You also get the coaches’ view from the outside, the objective opinion, on different situations. It makes the game more liquid, and it breaks momentum. So even if you might be out of it for the first few overs, you can come back into it after the strategic timeout.”

Even so, the IPL doesn’t get the credit it deserves as a finishing school for T20 cricketers. More often it is held up as a prime example of what’s wrong with the modern game, and even as the driving force among cricket’s ills. Pretorius wouldn’t agree: “Playing in my first IPL was a great experience. It was one of my bucket-list items, so I’m very glad I got the opportunity and also for CSK — one of the most successful franchises. It’s a very performance-based set-up, so you get a lot of responsibility as a player. You prepare like you want to, come up with the plans you believe will work, and then make sure you execute your plans.”

Pretorius has taken 23 wickets in T20Is at an average of 19.47 and a strike rate of 15.00, and he has an economy rate of 7.76. He has scored 170 runs at 24.28 and a strike rate of 161.50. Those are decent numbers, but if he puts in an extra special star turn in this series, South Africa’s supporters should know who and what to thank: Dhoni and the IPL, probably in that order.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Big three loom large for South Africa in India

South Africa are the only visiting team who have not lost a T20I series in India.

Telford Vice | Cape Town

THAT Quinton de Kock, David Miller and Kagiso Rabada are the sole survivors of both South Africa’s previous bilateral T20I series in India is no surprise. De Kock and Miller are the team’s leading runscorers in the format among active players, and no current seamer has taken more wickets for the national side than Rabada.

No-one has more T20I caps for South Africa than Miller, who earned the first of his 92 in May 2010. De Kock, who is fourth on that list, has been part of the side since December 2012 and Rabada since November 2014. All three will be back in India for the five-match series that starts in Delhi on Thursday and ends in Bangalore 10 days later — and which comes hot on the heels of an IPL in which they performed prominently.

De Kock’s 70-ball undefeated 140 for Lucknow Super Giants against Kolkata Knight Riders was the tournament’s highest score, and helped him finish behind only Jos Buttler and KL Rahul as the IPL’s heaviest hitters. Miller, who burnished his reputation as a finisher of the highest order for the champions, Gujarat Titans, was in sixth place. No fast bowler took more wickets than Punjab Kings’ Rabada, who had the leading strike rate among bowlers who sent down at least 30 overs.

Cricketminded South Africans will expect the big three to come up with efforts of similar impact next week, when Temba Bavuma’s side will look to keep alive their team’s record of being the only visiting outfit who have played more than one T20I rubber in India never to have been beaten in the format there.

At Dharamsala in October 2015, not even Rohit Sharma’s 106 and a target of 200 could stop the South Africans from winning by seven wickets with two balls to spare. Albie Morkel made for an unlikely demon bowler in the second and last game of the rubber in Cuttack, taking 3/12 as India crumbled to 92 all out — then their lowest T20I total at home. South Africa completed their whitewash in 17.1 overs, winning by six wickets.

De Kock was in that squad but didn’t play in either match, not with AB de Villiers around. Miller had almost as quiet a series. He wasn’t required to bat in the first game and had faced only eight balls when victory was clinched in the second. Rabada, too, kept a low profile by going wicketless for 32 and taking 1/18.

India’s only T20I win over South Africa at home, by seven wickets with an over to spare thanks to Virat Kohli’s 72 not out, followed in Mohali in September 2019. But the South Africans squared the series emphatically at the same ground four days later. De Kock scored 52 and 79 not out in the series and Rabada dismissed Kohli, Hardik Pandya and Ravindra Jadeja for 39 runs in the second match. Miller made 18 in the first game and didn’t bat in the second.

Many South Africans believe that the result of the 2015 T20I series, and the visitors’ 3-2 win in the ODIs that followed, prompted the preparation of unfair pitches that turned square for the Test series that ended the tour, and which India won 3-0. The theory goes that the BCCI couldn’t stomach the prospect of their team losing all three series, especially as Kohli was in his first home summer as captain.

This time, there will be grumbling among South Africa supporters about the itinerary handed their team. After the Delhi match they will trek 1,260 kilometres eastward to play in Cuttack three days later. From there, it’s just a 460-kilometre jaunt down the coast to Visakhapatnam for the third game. Three days after that they will be in action in Rajkot, 1,388 kilometres across the country north west from Vizag. The finale is two days later in Bangalore, 1,262 kilometres to the south. Considering direct flights aren’t available between some of those cities, the squad could spend as much as 15 hours in the air getting through the five matches.

So the travel tips players as seasoned in these matters as De Kock, Miller and Rabada have gathered over the years might be as valuable to their less experienced teammates as anything they might say or do on the field. Teammates like Tristan Stubbs, the 21-year-old batter who survived the shock of replacing the injured Tymal Mills at Mumbai Indians only to be named in South Africa’s squad for the series.

“I was literally half asleep; I got a fright when I realised it was him,” Stubbs said, in media files CSA released on Friday, of taking the call from selection convenor Victor Mpitsang that confirmed he had been picked. Stubbs knew he was unlikely to play: “If I happen to get on the park, I’ll just try and enjoy every moment.” He also knew, after two games for Mumbai, that India’s weather wasn’t for the faint-hearted: “I walked off the field looking like I had jumped in the pool.”

De Kock, Miller and Rabada, who have played 260 IPL games between them and another 45 in India for South Africa across the formats, should be able to help Stubbs deal with that, too.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Indian silver gleams for South Africa

“The confidence that he will bring into the team, we look forward to that.” – Temba Bavuma on David Miller.

Telford Vice | Cape Town

EIGHT trophies gleamed behind Temba Bavuma during an online press conference on Tuesday that was conducted from the Wanderers, home of the Lions in South Africa’s domestic competitions. This was no gratuitous display of unearned accolades: Bavuma has been instrumental in winning those prizes.

He played in the Lions’ successful first-class campaigns in 2014/15, 2018/19 — when he captained them — and 2019/20. Bavuma was also part of the Lions’ teams who won the list A title in 2012/13 and 2015/16, and the T20 version in 2012/13, 2018/19 and 2020/21. He led them in the last two of the latter, and scored a century in the 2018/19 final.

Small wonder that, as Bavuma entered the room on Tuesday, he allowed himself a smug smile and made reference to all that sparkling silverware. He will hope to make a similar deposit in a different trophy cabinet in the coming weeks.

Bavuma will lead South Africa in the five T20Is they will play in India from next Thursday to June 19. The South Africans have won and drawn their only two bilateral series in the format in India — in October 2015 and September 2018 — and are no doubt eyeing another victory. With Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Jasprit Bumrah rested for the series, and Ravindra Jadeja, Deepak Chahar and Suryakumar Yadav out because of injuries, the home side would seem ripe for the beating. Bavuma might want to schedule a detour to CSA’s offices — less than three kilometres from the Wanderers — to drop off the trophy on his way home from India.

If only beating India in India was that simple. KL Rahul, who will captain the home side in Sharma’s absence, was the second-highest runscorer in this year’s IPL, which ended on Sunday with Gujarat Titans beating Rajasthan Royals by seven wickets in the final in Ahmedabad. Hardik Pandya, who turned in an exemplary performance as a captain and a player to engineer Gujarat’s triumph in their first bite at the biggest cherry in cricket, is also in India’s squad. As is Yuzvendra Chahal, the tournament’s top wicket-taker.

Bavuma knows his opponents will not go quietly, even without some of their most prominent players. “Even though India are resting their main players, it will still be a competitive series,” he said. “The guys in that squad can walk into the Indian team.”

South Africa are not giving their stars a break. David Miller, a vital cog in the Gujarat machine, will be in action. As will Quinton de Kock and Kagiso Rabada, who were third among the IPL’s leading run-scorers and wicket-takers.

Miller had his best IPL yet with 481 runs in 16 innings. He is the subject of an enduring subplot in South African cricket discourse that says he has either not lived up to his potential in an international shirt or not been given enough opportunities to shine for the national team.

Gujarat, this theory goes, got the best out of Miller by entrusting him with more responsibility. There is evidence for this argument in the fact that Miller batted at No. 5 in 13 of his innings for Gujarat. That’s in 86.67% of his trips to the crease for them. In his 83 T20I innings for South Africa, Miller has batted at No. 5 only 34 times: 40.96%. Or less than half as often as he filled that position for Gujarat.

Bavuma brings intelligence and sensitivity to the delicate business of captaincy, attributes that could be important in the cause of keeping Miller’s form flaming. “The confidence that he will bring into the team, we look forward to that,” Bavuma said of the lusty left-hander. “He has performed exceedingly well at the IPL and I’m sure that will do a world of good for his confidence and whatever feelings of insecurity that might be there. The conversations that I have had with David, he has never expressed those types of feelings to me.

“David is still an integral member within our team and we trust his performances will continue well into the future. In terms of him batting a bit longer, that has always been the conversation over the years when David has done well. He understands where he fits in within the team. If he feels he can add more value in a different position, a conversation can be had in that regard. There is no way we are going to stifle him or restrict David in any manner. That’s how we try to treat all the players. We try to set them up in positions where they can succeed and make strong plays for the team.”

That 17 players made more runs in the IPL than Aiden Markram, who scored 381 in a dozen innings for Sunrisers Hyderabad, might not seem worth noting. But it is in light of the fact that, in the same number of innings across the formats for South Africa before he went to the tournament, Markram made just 191 runs. Or just more than half his aggregate at the IPL, which may have given him his game back just in time for the T20I series.

But Dewald Brevis, who celebrated his 19th birthday during the IPL and scored 161 runs in seven innings for Mumbai Indians, is not in the squad. Bavuma wasn’t fussed by that: “In all fairness to him, he hasn’t played a first-class game. In terms of expectation but also to allow the boy to grow within his game, it would be fair to allow him to play a couple of first-class games where he can really get an understanding of his game. It will be a lot of pressure to throw him into the international set-up and expect him to make plays. He will be treated like any other exciting young prospect who comes onto the scene. He should be given time and space to hone his game within the system and ease into the international side of things.”

Several of the other players Bavuma will have at his disposal in India will be raring to go, having spent much of the IPL on the bench. Marco Jansen featured in eight games, Anrich Nortjé and Dwaine Pretorius in six each, Rassie van der Dussen in three, Tristan Stubbs in two, and Lungi Ngidi in none at all. Bavuma, Reeza Hendricks, Heinrich Klaasen, Keshav Maharaj, Wayne Parnell and Tabraiz Shamsi — the members of the squad who were not at the IPL — haven’t picked up a bat or ball in anger since April or May.

“From a mental point of view, in terms of wanting to play, I don’t think we will be falling short,” Bavuma said. “As a professional cricketer, you have to find a way to mentally, physically get yourself into the right space to be able to perform. Those guys who went to the IPL and didn’t get much opportunity to play will maybe want to prove something.”

Something that says they know what to do to put another trophy in the cabinet.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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David Miller is no fuss, all finish …

… but he wouldn’t be much good at baseball.

Telford Vice | Cape Town

DAVID Miller makes for a powerful argument against the view that T20 is closer to baseball than cricket, an opinion the lusty left-hander disproved not for the first time while master-blasting Gujarat Titans to victory over Rajasthan Royals in their IPL qualifier at Eden Gardens on Tuesday.

The last two sixes Miller hit in a hattrick of maximums that sealed victory would not have counted had he been playing baseball. Instead, they would have been foul balls. Or balls not hit into the 90 degrees between, in cricket terms, a straight line from middle stump through cover and to the boundary, and another drawn from middle stump through wide mid-on to that fence. All a foul ball earns you in baseball is a strike against your name — though it can’t be strike three — or dismissal: you can be caught off a foul ball.

Two of Miller’s three fours and 17 of his total of 26 singles and twos would also have been declared foul. He would have had two strikes against him from swings and misses, and one ball in his favour because it was outside an imaginary strike zone. He was twice hit by deliveries, which would have earned him walks to first base. The first of them was the fifth ball he faced. That would have ended his innings without him having achieved much.

Pitches come to baseball batters on the full, but they should not be confused with cricket’s full tosses, which are often easier to hit than deliveries that bounce first. The seams on a baseball, which follow a similar pattern to those on a tennis ball, are noticeably more raised than on a cricket ball. That makes a baseball dip and swerve every which way through the air significantly more sharply than a cricket ball, and at between 150 and 160 kilometres an hour. MLB pitchers have fine control even at that speed. Also, a baseball is always new — it’s replaced whenever a pitch bounces or is hit out of the playing area.

So, had Miller been playing baseball on Tuesday, his scintillating 38-ball 68 not out would have been reduced to a middling 35 off 38. And probably fewer than that considering hitting a baseball properly is exponentially more difficult than dealing with a cricket ball. A baseball bat does not have a cricket bat’s flat face, which tips the balance between bat and ball firmly in the former’s favour. The opposite is true of baseball, where the bat is as round as the ball you’re expected to hit. This is the most important point of departure between the two sports. It means that in cricket, particularly in T20, the finisher is a batter. In baseball, the role is played by a pitcher — a relief pitcher or “closer”.

Mariano Rivera, who played for the New York Yankees for 19 seasons, was the finest closer of them all. His total of 652 saves — awarded to a pitcher who preserves his team’s lead in a game, subject to certain conditions — is an all-time MLB record. His busiest summer as a reliever — he was a starting pitcher in 1995, his debut season — was 1996, when he threw 1,602 pitches. He was paid USD131,125 that year. In 2002, he threw only 724 times to get the job done and was paid USD9.45-million.

Also in 2002, the Yankees’ most used starting pitcher, Mike Mussina, threw 3,350 pitches and was paid USD11-million. So Rivera earned 85.91% of Mussina’s salary for shouldering only 21.61% of his workload. All told, Rivera threw 19,438 pitches and was paid almost USD170-million. Mussina’s 53,509 pitches across 18 seasons for the Baltimore Orioles and the Yankees earned him USD144.5-million. Rivera’s pitches fetched USD8713.95 apiece, and Mussina’s USD2701.11. Why was Rivera worth more than three times as Mussina to his team despite working almost three times less than the starter? Because he was available for most games — typically starters pitch only once every five games — but mainly because, as the closer, he nailed down wins. He was the cool-headed finisher.

Cool-headed big hitters of Miller’s calibre do with the bat what pitchers like Rivera do with the ball. Miller has been at the crease 17 times when his IPL teams, Kings XI Punjab and Rajasthan, have won batting second. In that scenario, he has scored five half-centuries — among them efforts of 80 not out and 94 not out — and a century. Only three times in matches in which his team have chased has he finished on the losing side despite scoring an unbeaten half-century. When he has been dismissed in the single figures with his team hunting a target, they have won four times and lost 10 times. The upshot is that, like Rivera, finishers like Miller are good for business.

Can there be any surprise that the most consummate of the ilk in cricket history, MS Dhoni, holds the record for not outs in the IPL with 79? That’s in 234 matches, 26 of which his team have won with him at the crease. In those terms, he has reached 50 five times.

Connecting the dots between baseball players like Rivera and cricketers like Miller and Dhoni may seem, well, dotty. But it offers an avenue for understanding the similarities and differences between the world’s two greatest bat-and-ball games, neither of which can be seriously considered superior to the other.

Even so, there is a stark degree of separation between these three stars. Miller has earned USD9.5-million from his dozen IPL campaigns. Dhoni, who has played in all 15 editions, has made USD21.2-million from the tournament. So playing for the Yankees earned Rivera more than 15 and seven times as much as Miller and Dhoni have been paid by the IPL.

But that equation isn’t settled there. Dhoni has also played 538 matches across the formats for India and, of course, guided them to World Cup glory. Miller has won 238 white-ball caps for South Africa, and turned out for 13 teams — aside from his IPL franchises and South Africa — based in seven different countries. There’s more to them as professionals, and thus their bank balances, than their IPL exploits.

Maybe the buck stops with their estimated net worth. Miller’s is USD11-million, Rivera’s USD90-million, and Dhoni’s USD113-million. But even that isn’t conclusive, because Rivera retired in 2013. What might Dhoni’s net worth be nine years after he calls it quits? Or when cricket’s finest finisher finally finishes finishing.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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ABD can check out of RCB, but he can never leave

“He has been inducted into the RCB hall-of-fame, and that induction is scheduled to take place in Bengaluru next year. As of now, that is all.” – AB de Villiers’ agent on his future involvement with the franchise.

Telford Vice | Cape Town

“ABD! ABD! ABD!” Until this year, it was not uncommon to hear that chant at a cricket ground in India. But this time it was puzzling. The shout went up at the Kotla before tea on December 7, 2015. AB de Villiers was batting. But Delhi homeboy Virat Kohli was on the verge of sealing a 3-0 triumph in his first home series as Test captain. Surely that mattered more?

“ABD! ABD! ABD!” There it was again at the Chinnaswamy on May 1, 2018 during an IPL game between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Mumbai Indians. That time it made still less sense: De Villiers wasn’t even at the ground. He was in the team hotel recovering from a fever.

That wasn’t the only instance of him becoming the centre of attraction despite not being at the scene. For too much of the 2019 Word Cup, Faf du Plessis was lumped with trying to explain to the press why South Africa’s squad didn’t include De Villiers. Nevermind that he had retired from international cricket more than a year earlier, and had murmured a casual, almost perfunctory, belated offer of a comeback weeks before the tournament.

So Du Plessis would have been forgiven a touch of déjà vu on Tuesday — the day before he is due to lead RCB in the IPL eliminator against Lucknow Super Giants at Eden Gardens, when a De Villiers story stole the headlines again.

In a lighthearted video interview with Danish Sait’s “Mr Nags” comedy character posted on RCB’s social media feeds, Kohli was asked whether he missed De Villiers, who quit all cricket a month after last year’s IPL. “I miss him a lot,” Kohli said. “I speak to him regularly, quite regularly. He keeps messaging me. He was in the US recently watching golf. Augusta Masters is what I heard it was called. So he told me he was there experiencing it with his friends and family. We stay in touch and he’s very keenly watching RCB, obviously, and hopefully here next year in some capacity.” At that, “Mr Nags” did a theatrical double take, complete with electronic bells and whistles. Then it was back to an impishly smiling Kohli: “Did I spill the beans?”

The video was posted on May 11. Surprisingly, it took another 13 days — which takes us to Tuesday — for De Villiers’ response to hit the screens. “I’m glad to hear Virat’s confirmed it,” he said in another video interview, this one with VUSport. “To be honest, we haven’t decided on anything yet. I will definitely be around the IPL next year. I’m not sure in what capacity, but I am missing getting back there. I’ve heard a little bird tweeting, saying that there might be some games in Bangalore next year. So I would love to return to my second home town and see a full capacity stadium there, the Chinnaswamy, again. I would love to return. I’m looking forward to it.”

Cue online pandemonium as almost every cricket commentator, real and imagined, weighed in with a view on De Villiers’ apparently miraculous resurrection. Not enough of them made clear that the possibility of him coming back as a player was negligible. Asked if he could expand on the news or offer insight, Edward Griffiths — De Villiers’ agent — told Cricbuzz: “He has been inducted into the RCB hall-of-fame, and that induction is scheduled to take place in Bengaluru next year. As of now, that is all.” So far, so true: the franchise named De Villiers and Chris Gayle as inaugural members of their hall-of-fame last Tuesday. But, clearly, there is value even in a non-playing De Villiers and RCB will know the worth of having him around, in whatever invented job description, beyond his induction. Those yells of “ABD! ABD! ABD!” lubricate the flow of money into coffers. From RCB’s and doubtless De Villiers’ perspectives, why not? The team and the tournament have done more to create the cult of ABD! than international cricket could accomplish for any non-Indian, even a star of De Villiers’ magnitude.

He appeared in every IPL until this year; for Delhi Daredevils in the first three editions, the next 10 for RCB. He also played 415 matches for South Africa across the formats and another 144 first-class, list A and non-IPL T20 franchise games — the latter for seven teams in six countries. But it’s as a Bangalore boy that De Villiers will be remembered, particularly outside South Africa.

He has played more games for RCB than anyone except Kohli, owns the second and third-highest scores yet made in the team’s colours, is their second-highest run-scorer after Kohli, and has shared with Kohli their two highest partnerships for any wicket. Little wonder Kohli says he misses him. The bigger picture is that the connection between the De Villiers and RCB brands is rock solid. This is the age not of the team but of the player, of individual social media giants who attract attention for what they post almost as much as for what they achieve on the field. De Villiers, like Kohli, ticks those boxes.

Bangalore are among the IPL’s most popular and well-resourced outfits. The Rs464 crore (USD111.6-million) Vijay Mallya paid for them in 2008 made them the most expensive franchise. RCB have been represented by players of the calibre of Rahul Dravid, Jacques Kallis, Kevin Pietersen, Yuvraj Singh, Glenn Maxwell, Quinton de Kock, Anil Kumble, Zaheer Khan, Dale Steyn, Mitchell Starc and Muttiah Muralitharan. But, despite reaching the final three times, they have never won the title.

De Villiers played in two of those deciders — in 2011 and 2016 — and in a semi-final — for Delhi in 2009 — along with seven preliminary finals or eliminators for RCB. He scored three half-centuries in those games, two of them matchwinning performances, and was on the victorious side three times.

For South Africa, De Villiers featured in knockout matches in four editions of the World Cup, two in the Champions Trophy and two in the World T20. It must hurt somewhere in his soul that he was not required to bat in the only one of those games that South Africa won: the 2015 World Cup quarter-final at the SCG.

No doubt De Villiers is as proud to have played for South Africa, and to have played so well, as anyone else. But he will carry with him the scars of catastrophes like the 2007 World Cup semi-final against Australia in St Lucia, when South Africa crashed to 27/5 inside 10 overs, and the quarter-final of the 2011 edition of the same tournament in Dhaka, when they lost 8/64 in 19.1 overs to help New Zealand defend 221.

De Villiers was part of South Africa’s first ever Test series win in Australia, in 2008/09, when he scored 63 and 106 in the first match at the WACA and 56 in the third in Sydney. He was a significant factor in the long batting line-up that was central to South Africa winning in England in 2012 to secure the Test mace, and in the same year in the successful rubber in Australia, when he scored 169 in the second innings of the third match in Perth. De Villiers is among only four South Africa players who retired with a Test average of 50 or more, and only the second in the modern era after Kallis.

And yet, for many, a vacuum will loom at the centre of his international career. De Villiers would consider this unfair, but somehow his performances seemed more about himself than about South Africa’s team. Maybe that’s unavoidable for someone who is an outrageously better player than anyone else around. But consider that the memory of his 31-ball century against West Indies at the Wanderers in January 2015 — still the world’s fastest ODI hundred — is significantly more uppermost than the fact that South Africa made what remains their highest total in the format that day, and that openers Hashim Amla and Rilee Rossouw also scored centuries and shared 247, then South Africa’s highest stand for any wicket, and that the home side won by 148 runs.

Contrast that with the place accorded in the annals to Du Plessis’ vigil in the second innings of his Test debut, in Adelaide in November 2012. Bigger than his more than six hours at the crease in intense heat denying and defying bowlers as good as Peter Siddle and Nathan Lyon on a challenging pitch, bigger than his undefeated 110, is the truth that Du Plessis saved the match for his team. It is the difference between heroes and superheroes.

But don’t expect chants of FDP! to soar even if Du Plessis guides RCB to glory this year. Teams only have the bandwidth for so many superheroes, who only have the bandwidth for so many teams. The real truth of De Villiers’ to-be-continued relationship with RCB is as simple as that: they need each other.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Big names? Big deal. How not to win cricket’s most glittering prize

The IPL is not a telephone directory. It takes more than names and numbers to win it.

Telford Vice | Cape Town

MS Dhoni, Rohit Sharma, Kane Williamson, Shreyas Iyer, Mayank Agarwal and Rishabh Pant walk into a bar, where they see Stephen Fleming, Mahela Jayawardene, Tom Moody, Brendon McCullum, Anil Kumble and Ricky Ponting.

Fancy meeting you here, one says to another. What’s up? That some of the biggest names in cricket have been lumped together in a bar tells us they are not in Ahmedabad, which is in the dry state of Gujarat. It’s just before 8pm (IST) on Sunday. This coming Sunday …

The televisions in the noisy, crowded room are, of course, turned on — the IPL final is about to start. And none of those big names are involved, because they are the captains and coaches of the six teams who were shut out of the tournament’s play-off stages. Played 14, didn’t win enough of them, thanks for coming.

Thereby hangs a puzzle, because the six sides — Chennai Super Kings, Mumbai Indians, Sunrisers Hyderabad, Kolkata Knight Riders Punjab Kings and Delhi Capitals, and the previous iterations of some of them — have won a dozen of the 14 completed editions of cricket’s most glittering prize between them, and only Punjab and Delhi are without a title. Only in the first two IPLs, which were won by Rajasthan Royals and Deccan Chargers, were one of those half-dozen outfits not triumphant. Only in 2009, when Royal Challengers Bangalore went down to Deccan Chargers in the final, have one of them not reached the decider.

How, given all that, could it be that not one of those teams — particularly CSK and Mumbai, who have earned nine championships combined, or almost two-thirds of all the IPL silverware on offer — have made it to the business end this year? The other side of that question is how four sides who have just one title to show for their efforts — Rajasthan’s win in the inaugural 2008 competition — are the only ones left in the race this year?

It only adds to the intrigue that two of the final four, Gujarat Titans and Lucknow Super Giants, are new franchises in their first campaigns and haven’t had the chance to win anything. The captains and coaches still in the running, when compared to the stature of those who have fallen by the wayside in 2022, is part of this riddle: Gujarat’s Hardik Pandya and Ashish Nehra, Rajasthan’s Sanju Samson and Kumar Sangakkara, LSG’s KL Rahul and Andy Flower, and RCB’s Faf du Plessis and Sanjay Bangar, who has Mike Hesson at his elbow as director of cricket. There are giants of the game among them, certainly, but none taller than several of the 12 gathered for a mythical last IPL supper in a bar far from Ahmedabad.

Add some of the names attached in various capacities to the teams who haven’t made it, and the mystery deepens still. We’re talking about figures of the stature of Sachin Tendulkar, Zaheer Khan, Shane Bond, Michael Hussey, Eric Simons, Shane Watson, Ajit Agarkar, Pravin Amre, Simon Katich, Muttiah Muralitharan, Dale Steyn, Brian Lara and Jonty Rhodes. On the other side of that equation, Lasith Malinga, Paddy Upton, Gautam Gambhir and Gary Kirsten are in the dugouts of the sides who are still in the fray.

Might money buy success? None of the 10 franchises reached their salary cap of Rs90 crore (USD11.9-million) at the player auction in March. Mumbai and SRH came closest at Rs89.9 crore. But Mumbai were the first team to be eliminated, finishing bottom of the standings with four wins and 10 losses. SRH, who lost eight games, ended eighth. Before we think that decides the dollar debate, consider that the four teams who are still standing spent between Rs89.85 and Rs88.55 at the auction. Another four shelled out between Rs87.05 and Rs81.55. So, among the six teams who failed to make the play-offs were the four with the smallest salary bills.

Something similar is true of football’s English Premier League, in which Manchester City emerged victorious over Liverpool by a single point in the final standings, which were settled on Sunday. In March, no club had spent more on players than the £355-million committed to that cause by Man City. Liverpool doled out £41-million less than the champions, and between £29-million and £9-million less than Chelsea and Manchester United — who finished third and sixth. But the top six teams in the standings were also the top six spenders on players.

None of the five most expensive players at the IPL auction were bought by franchises that remain in the hunt. Of the 10 most handsomely paid, only RCB’s Harshal Patel — who sold for Rs10.75 crore — Lockie Ferguson and Avesh Khan — who were bought for Rs10 crore each by Gujarat and LSG — are still in action.

An important part of the explanation for what may seem inexplicable is that players change teams. For instance, Gujarat captain Pandya was part of Mumbai’s champion sides in 2015, 2019 and 2020. Du Plessis, RCB’s skipper, was involved in CSK’s success in 2018 and 2021 — when he scored a 59-ball 86 in the final against KKR.

Also, quality will out. Accordingly, the four finalists provided at least five and as many as eight of the leading 10 performances in terms of top run-scorers and wicket-takers, highest individual scores, best bowling in an innings, best economy rate in an innings and best economy rate in the tournament.

Among them were some of the IPL’s most enduring memories. Quinton de Kock’s screaming 70-ball 140 not out — the highest score this year — for LSG against KKR on Wednesday was a thing of wonder. Rajasthan’s Jos Buttler hammered half of the six centuries made in 2022, and across just six innings. Consistently bristling wrist spin earned Rajasthan’s Yuzvendra Chahal 26 wickets and made him the IPL’s most dangerous bowler. Happily, those stars have not shined for the last time this year.

But the IPL is not a telephone directory: it takes more than names and numbers to win it. It needs, among many other factors, belief, nerve, luck and bonding between players who, after the final, might not see each other — except as opponents — until next year. It’s difficult to know when you’ve nailed down that last element, but sometimes it can be read between the lines.

It’s there in comments attributed to Sal Kishore on Gujarat’s website: “It’s been amazing being here, with Ashu pa [Nehra] and Hardik. Ashu pa has made sure that everybody feels so secure in this team. Even when I was playing the 12th game of the season, I still felt like I need to contribute something for the team; not like I’ve been left out or something like that. We’ve all felt so secure and a lot of credit needs to be given to the both of them making the environment like that.”

And in what Rahul had to say about LSG teammate Mohsin Khan: “He’s been brilliant. I played with him in the nets first time a month ago, and I didn’t want to face him. Seriously — he was sharp. He’s scary at times in the nets. It’s not just the pace, he has a good brain, and skill as well.”

Even Virat Kohli isn’t immune. The former India captain is fading into the twilight of a great career, but his sentiments on Sunday, after RCB secured fourth place by dint of Mumbai beating Delhi Capitals, spoke of someone who is raging hard against the dying of the light: “It has been wonderful that I have got so much support in this edition. I am forever grateful to all the love that I have never seen before.”

More evidence of strong unity was to be seen in a video posted on Rajasthan’s social media feeds of their players keeping, for the most part, their composure and their humour intact on a jarring, strangely foggy, storm-struck flight from Mumbai to Kolkata for their qualifier against Gujarat on Tuesday.

There was visible relief on the Royals’ faces when the aircraft landed safely. How many of them might have headed straight for the nearest bar to calm their nerves? And who would they have found there?

First published by Cricbuzz.

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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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The IPL’s serious fun

“No picture, no cricket.” – a Mumbai taxi driver sums up the game’s television age.

Telford Vice | Cape Town

IF you don’t like the IPL, best you click away now. By like, we don’t mean taking every ball of every match as seriously as an appointment with your boss. Because the IPL is difficult to like in that earnest way — too much hype, too much money, too much cricket. Just too much.

The tournament is like a fire. If you’re too close, your cricketing soul could be burned to a crisp. Or lost forever in the smoke, not to mention the mirrors. To not live in India but be in the country during the IPL is to feel the heat of the fire’s flames and be rendered heady by its fumes. It can also be exhilarating, a wave to catch and ride all the way to the shore.

But that’s the preserve of civilians adjacent to the drama. The soldiers enlisted in the IPL’s logistics, administrative and hands-on workforce shamble through interminable weeks wearing the same look of hazily glazed anaemic weariness. Limp and unexcited, they endure endless hours of intense busyness, a travel treadmill, an outrageous order of what must be done day and night, night and day to keep the circus on the road. They become some of the most efficient human beings on the planet. If not, they don’t last. And they’re the lucky ones.

Many of the media people involved with the tournament never escape their screens in the cause of churning out another preview, screed on screed of online written ball-by-ball commentary, an umpteenth match wrap, one more quotes piece. Leave the room? Don’t be daft. Rinse, repeat, and try not to end up with pressure sores.

These poor souls, compelled to take every ball of every IPL match they cover indeed as seriously as an appointment with their bosses, are able to tell you all about the trees that make up the tournament but little about the woods they comprise. The luxury of taking a step back and seeing the bigger picture, the unfolding spectacle, the wondrous theatre, is not for them. Maybe they’ve seen it too many times and the magic has rubbed off. Maybe, if they pause for breath and perspective, they might not be able to offer a meticulous analysis of the next ball. And will thus be summarily summoned by the boss to explain themselves.

For them, and their bosses, the IPL is not fun. So if you’re privileged enough not to have to take the IPL seriously, don’t. That makes it fun. Considering the other reason for the IPL’s existence — vast amounts of money — is far removed from most of our realities, fun is all we have.

That doesn’t have to mean attending games as a fan, which is expensive and exhausting. You’re not a spectator at an IPL match. You’re an audience participant, expected to do the ever more manic bidding of the ever more manically motivated stadium announcer. Some of these curious creatures, at once powered and shocked by their inner electricity, seem to regard the actual game as players might a pitch invader. They sound insulted in the silence forced on them by a bowler having the temerity to lurch into a run-up just as they’re about to scream something manic into their microphones.

The announcers have odd but apt bedfellows at the Cricket Club of India (CCI) in Mumbai, where the members groan at the thought of any match at their beloved Brabourne because it means they are not free to take a stroll around the ground that day. Little wonder big cricket became fed up with them enough to build Wankhede, just 700 metres to the north of the Brabourne, and decamp there in 1975. Even in its haughtiness the Brabourne is a place of apparently effortless elegance, all luscious lines and confident curves evoking a world that, for most of us, has never existed: of deep, dark, polished wood and glamorous comfort, and not having to think about how to pay for it.

How the membership of the CCI squares all that with the fact that their fiefdom has hosted 15 games in this year’s IPL with another — mercifully the last of them — to follow between Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals on Friday would be good to know. Doubtless they felt similarly when the tournament invaded their ground for seven games in 2010, then for the second preliminary final four years later, and for three matches in 2015. That’s a total of 27 good walks spoiled, surely a source of malevolent muttering around the bridge tables.

The mutterers would be aghast to learn that the majority of IPL fans couldn’t care less where matches are played. If they have no hope of being there, why does the venue matter? Besides, who needs a ticket to watch what is primarily a television product? As a Mumbai taxi driver told a couple of reporters as he drove them to the Brabourne to cover a tour match he didn’t know about during South Africa’s Test series in November 2015: “No picture, no cricket.”

If the game isn’t on television, it doesn’t really exist. The IPL has done more than anything to enforce that as modern cricket’s central truth. Certainly, the best way to enjoy — perchance to like — the tournament is from afar. If you can take in what remains a thrilling show without paying a pretty price to be herded into a heaving stadium to squint at the action from too far away, why wouldn’t you? Unless, of course, you hope to appear on television yourself carrying out a stadium announcer’s inane orders.

The IPL we see on television is far from all there is to the IPL. We see the product. We do not see the machine that makes the product, the many moving parts that tick over in sequence to ensure that when we flick the switch what we want to see is what we get. If you like the IPL for the IPL’s sake, you probably don’t think about that. But maybe you would like it more if you did — if you knew it was a three-dimensional, 360-degree phenomenon that lives and breathes beyond the confines of a television screen or the boundaries of a place like the Brabourne.

Despite all appearances to the contrary, and the tournament’s own efforts to cast itself as a carefully packaged fantasy, a cricketing confectionery, the IPL is bracingly, beautifully real. It runs on blood as much as it does on sweat. Seriously, what’s not to like about that?

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Stubbs soars into T20I squad

Nortjé “medically cleared for action”.

Telford Vice | Cape Town

NOT quite two weeks ago, few outside of the tiny bubble of South African domestic cricket knew the name of Tristan Stubbs, a promising 21-year-old middle order batter from the Eastern Cape who had scored 506 runs in 17 senior T20 innings.

That narrative changed on May 5, when Mumbai Indians named Stubbs to replace the injured Tymal Mills for the remainder of this year’s IPL. A new chapter in Stubbs’ fairytale was written on Tuesday when he was picked in South Africa’s squad to play five T20Is in India in June.

More than half of Stubbs’ career T20 runs came in less than half of his career trips to the crease during the provincial competition in February. In May, he scored 56 runs off 61 balls without being dismissed in two T20s for South Africa A against their Zimbabwe counterparts.

But Stubbs’ IPL dream didn’t come true this time: he was trapped plumb in front for a second-ball duck by Chennai Super Kings’ Mukesh Choudhary at the Wankhede on Thursday. That remains the only game he has played for the first team to be eliminated from the race to reach the playoffs.

Stubbs is one of nine players in the 16-player squad who are attached to IPL franchises. They include Aiden Markram, Rassie van der Dussen, Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortjé, Marco Jansen and Lungi Ngidi — who earned the disapproval of many South Africans, among them Dean Elgar, for choosing to play in the tournament rather than make themselves available for the home Test series against Bangladesh in March and April. That slight would seem to have been forgiven.

“This is the Proteas like we have not seen them in a long time,” convenor of selectors Victor Mpitsang was quoted as saying in a release on Tuesday. “The injection of the IPL players means that we will have a team that’s ready to fire on all cylinders immediately and has vast experience of the conditions that we will be playing in.”

Nortjé has been battling a hip injury that has kept him out of all 14 matches South Africa have played since the T20 World Cup in November, and has meant he has played in only five of Delhi Capitals’ 13 games. The release said Nortjé had been “medically cleared for action”. Mpitsang described the anticipated return of the seventh-ranked T20I bowler as reason for “a collective sigh of relief”.

The casualties from South Africa’s T20 World Cup squad, who performed better than expected and narrowly missed securing a semi-final berth, are Bjorn Fortuin and Wiaan Mulder. Stubbs and Jansen are new faces, while Wayne Parnell is back in the mix having last played a T20I in June 2017. Stubbs and Jansen are uncapped in the format, while Ngidi hasn’t played in any of Delhi’s matches.

India are the No. 1-ranked team in the format with South Africa fourth. The series will serve as preparation for the T20I World Cup in Australia in October and November.

South Africa T20I squad: Temba Bavuma (captain), Quinton de Kock, Reeza Hendricks, Heinrich Klaasen, Keshav Maharaj, Aiden Markram, David Miller, Lungi Ngidi, Anrich Nortjé, Wayne Parnell, Dwaine Pretorius, Kagiso Rabada, Tabraiz Shamsi, Tristan Stubbs, Rassie van der Dussen, Marco Jansen.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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