2022 Indian Premier League – Page 2

The IPL and South Africans? Complicated …

Only once has an IPL final been devoid of South Africans.

Telford Vice | Cape Town

HOW many South Africans does it take to win an IPL final? Ten. And to lose an IPL final? Seventeen. How many IPL finals have been won and lost without the involvement of any South Africans? One.

Herschelle Gibbs, Albie Morkel, Jacques Kallis, Morné Morkel, Faf du Plessis, Lungi Ngidi and Quinton de Kock have all finished on the winning side in grand finals. Morkel, Du Plessis and De Kock have each done so twice. That’s 10 appearances by South Africans in champion teams.

Albie Morkel, Makhaya Ntini, Kallis, Roelof van der Merwe, Mark Boucher, JP Duminy, AB de Villiers, Chris Morris, David Miller, Du Plessis, Imran Tahir, Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortjé have all been in XIs that have fallen at the last hurdle. Albie Morkel has been there three times, and De Villiers and Du Plessis twice.

Only in 2017, when a Mumbai Indians team whose foreign contingent comprised Lendl Simmons, Kieron Pollard, Mitchell Johnson and Lasith Malinga beat a Rising Pune Supergiant selection that featured Steve Smith, Dan Christian, Lockie Ferguson and Adam Zampa by a solitary run has the IPL final been devoid of South Africans.

This year? All square so far. Miller is part of Gujarat Titans’ squad, the first franchise to qualify for the play-off rounds. Dewald Brevis is with Mumbai Indians, the first side eliminated from the business end of the tournament.

Here on the sharp tip of Africa we have a conflicted relationship with the IPL, cricket’s most significant sign of progress since the legalisation of overarm bowling. South Africans are pleased and proud to see their compatriots compete on the game’s most glittering stage, not least because it suggests their country is still part of the real world despite worrying indications to the contrary. But the IPL also reminds us we are an increasingly small part of that world.

CSA cannot afford to pay any of their players anything like an IPL salary, and push came to shove this year when Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortjé, Marco Jansen, Lungi Ngidi, Rassie van der Dussen and Aiden Markram chose to play in the tournament rather than in a Test series against Bangladesh.

The IPL holds up a mirror to South African cricket in other ways. Du Plessis’ omission from last year’s T20 World Cup squad came as a shock in the wake of his six half-centuries in 16 innings for Chennai Super Kings, which helped him finish as the tournament’s second-highest runscorer. His absence from South Africa’s squad wasn’t due to selectoral oversight, but because he and CSA couldn’t reach agreement on the level of his involvement with the national team. As Du Plessis hasn’t been contracted by CSA since the 2021/22 season, he is free to negotiate his own deals with CSA as and when it suits him.

He is on course for another bumper IPL this year, having scored 389 runs in his first dozen innings. Will he be part of the plan for the next iteration of the T20 World Cup, in Australia in October and November? Who can say. But there was a rattling effusiveness in the way he spoke about his teammates after hammering 73 not out off 50 balls for Royal Challengers Bangalore against Sunrisers Hyderabad on Sunday that suggested he had signed off from cricket in South Africa.

“There’s some fantastic young Indian batters within our set-up,” Du Plessis told Harsha Bhogle in his post-match television interview. “Even someone like Suyash [Prabhudessai], who played three games and probably didn’t go the way he would have liked to, there’s some real talent there. And Rajat [Patidar] comes in and just plays with that freedom; real cool calm composure about him and those are always really good traits for a youngster to have.

“And also Mahipal [Lomror] is also another young guy coming into the team. We’re very lucky that we have some real good Indian batting talent. Really happy for ‘Wani’ [Wanindu Hasaranga, who took 5/18 in the same match]. I think personally he was looking for that one match where he blows right through the batting line-up. He’s been threatening to do that right throughout the campaign. So very happy that tonight was that night. He’s obviously one of those special bowlers, if you’re not picking him, and especially when you get to the lower-order batters, he can run through them quickly.”

Du Plessis has always been among cricket’s better, more enthusiastic talkers. But even by his standards that was a mouthful. Maybe because the IPL, beyond all the glitz and glamour — or crassness, according to the unappreciative — and besides the obscene amounts of money involved, is still about that basic tenet of sport: fun. It is thus nothing like international cricket, which is exponentially more about pressure than it is about fun. That’s more true in South Africa, in several senses, than anywhere else.

Gibbs hit an unbeaten 53 off 48 balls for Deccan Chargers in their win over RCB in the 2009 final. Kallis’ 49-ball 49 steered Kolkata Knight Riders to success over CSK in 2012. Last year, Du Plessis clipped 86 off 59 as CSK beat KKR. Will that list lengthen this year? We’ll find out at the final in Ahmedabad on May 29.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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IPL links in CSA T20 plan

“CSA has an opportunity to launch a project that could redefine the landscape and economics of cricket in South Africa.” – CSA on their latest T20 project.

Telford Vice | Cape Town

FORMER IPL kingpin Sundar Raman has a stake in the company that will try to catapult South Africa into the travelling T20 circus. That should convince potential investors that CSA are serious about their third attempt to secure a slice of the global tournament pie. Others will see the irony in Raman being cast as part of a solution to a problem he could be considered to have helped cause.

A document headlined “MSL: Re-imagined”, seen by Cricbuzz, was presented at a special CSA members council meeting on April 25. In it, Raman is listed as holding a 12.5% share in the company unveiled on Friday as the vehicle to drive the establishment of the tournament. CSA own 57.5% and broadcasters SuperSport the remaining 30%. The first edition of the as yet unnamed six-team competition is planned for January 2023.

If successful, the tournament will do what the stillborn the Global League T20 and the short-lived Mzansi Super League did not: make money. The document says CSA spent close on USD32-million on the two ventures. The most significant return was the USD1.6-million CSA were paid in rights fees by the South African Broadcasting Corporation for the 2019 MSL, the last time the tournament was played.

The league’s central costs, which excludes expenditure specific to each team, are estimated at USD56-million over 10 years. SuperSport have committed USD89-million to the project, and a minimum of USD30-million in central revenue over 10 years has been forecast. The latter will be shared equally between the league and the teams, who will keep funds generated by shirt sponsorships, ticket sales, hospitality and food and beverage sales. From the 11th year of the competition’s existence, teams will pay the league 20% of their revenue as a franchise fee.

Prize money has been estimated at USD2-million, and teams will have USD1.5-million to spend on signing players.

The document says “letters/expressions of interest” from potential investors have been received from the Delhi Capitals, the Chennai Super Kings, the Mumbai Indians, the Rajasthan Royals, and a “Kevin Pietersen-led consortium”.

CSA are understandably in awe of the blockbusting IPL, which has provided the blueprint for T20 tournaments everywhere. The document acknowledges that “the success of the IPL has changed the face and the economics of the BCCI; and CSA also has an opportunity to launch a project that a decade from now could redefine the landscape and economics of cricket in South Africa”. The other side of the equation is that “save for the IPL … success from cricketing and economic perspectives has been varied”. Indeed, “Outside of the IPL, no other premier domestic T20 league has had runaway success”. What to do? “CSA should therefore focus on the opportunity to create the second-best T20 league in the world.”

That is easier said than done, as cricketminded South Africans discovered in September 2017 — when then CSA chief executive Haroon Lorgat was ousted on the brink, according to some sources, of securing a broadcast deal for what was to have been the GLT20. The MSL, less ambitious in that the franchises were owned by CSA, was a vanity project that was never going to be profitable.

CSA’s toxic culture of backstabbing and dishonesty fuelled by palace politics and greed has been a major factor in cricket in the country losing public and sponsor trust. Three of CSA’s four permanently appointed chief executives have left in dubious circumstances, and government pressure was needed to persuade the chronically dysfunctional former board to resign in October 2020. By then, heavyweight sponsors had walked away.

But even CSA can’t be blamed for all the game’s ills. In February 2014, the BCCI — with the support of their England and Australia counterparts — engineered a takeover of the ICC that skewed the game’s finances in favour of the already richer national boards. India, the richest of them all, hiked their share of the 2016 to 2023 rights cycle to USD440,000,000. The then 93 associate countries would have made USD230,000,000 between them over the same period. Or almost 180 times less than India. Each.

India’s argument was that, as they made most of cricket’s money, they should keep the largest share of the profits. Other boards objected, and in April 2017 it was decided that India would get USD293,000,000, and each of the rest of the full members USD132,000,000. The associates would share USD280,000,000. Cricket in South Africa has never really recovered.

The BCCI president who sparked that revolution was N. Srinivasan. His righthand man? Sundar Raman. Eight years later, Raman — the IPL’s first chief of operations and later its chief executive — is involved in trying to undo some of the ramifications of the changes Srinivasan wrought.

It’s not too late and it might not be too little, but helping to drag cricket in South Africa out of the financial ditch it has stumbled into could go down as the singular triumph of Raman’s career. If, of course, he does.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Is SA cricket surplus to Brevis’ requirements?

“His dream is to play for the Proteas and playing in South Africa is very important to him.” – Weber van Wyk, Dewald Brevis’ agent.

Telford Vice | Cape Town

IF you’re a cricketminded South African, Dewald Brevis should scare you. Not because of his potential, nor the comparisons with his hero, AB de Villiers, nor the fact that the teenager is a household name in households far from his country. The worry is that he has no use for South African cricket.

Brevis’ Mumbai Indians salary is, per week, almost five times as much as Graeme Smith was paid by CSA to be their director of cricket. Smith was appointed on the strength of the relationships he built while playing 117 Tests, 197 ODIs and 33 T20Is in an international career that endured for almost 12 years. Brevis has yet to play a single first-class or list A match, much less a game for South Africa’s senior team. Why should he bother when, with his 19th birthday looming on Friday, he is paid exponentially more than Smith, and 16 times the average annual South African salary for nine weeks’ work?

Weber van Wyk, Brevis’ agent, begged to differ. “He’s come through a system in which South African cricket has given him many opportunities to prepare him for hopefully a long career in franchise and international cricket,” Van Wyk told Cricbuzz. “His journey may be different to other players’, but I wouldn’t say he doesn’t need South African cricket. It’s quite the opposite. His dream is to play for the Proteas and playing in South Africa is very important to him.”

Those are emotional and sentimental reasons for staying true to the game in South Africa, and they are admirable. But De Villiers expressed much the same feelings for years, and when push came to shove in terms of his workload he chose the franchise circuit and retired from international cricket at 34. What happens if Brevis faces a similar choice? “Dewald’s career is just starting and he is just focusing on what is ahead of him month to month and just thankful for opportunities he is getting,” Van Wyk said.

Fair enough. Who can say what decision Brevis might make once he is an established player and adult? But it won’t reassure those who were alarmed by what they considered De Villiers’ defection that Brevis going the same way cannot be ruled out. Their concern will grow every time he delivers an impressive performance at the IPL, of which there have already been several.

Having sat out Mumbai’s first two matches, Brevis made his debut against Kolkata Knight Riders on April 6 in Pune, where the crowd of 21,000 would have held an exponentially bigger than he had yet seen as a player. He seemed unfussed by that, hitting 29 off the 19 balls he faced from Umesh Yadav, Rasikh Salam, Pat Cummins, Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy.

Three days later and still in Pune, Brevis’ first delivery in the IPL bagged the wicket, by hook, crook or DRS, of Virat Kohli. Four days after that, at the same venue, he hammered a 25-ball 49 against Punjab Kings. Rahul Chahar’s first over for Punjab, in which Brevis hit a four followed by four consecutive sixes, went for 29 runs: the leg spinner’s most expensive of the 170 overs he had bowled in the IPL.

Three days on at the beautiful Brabourne in Mumbai, Brevis put the first ball he faced — from Lucknow Super Giants’ Avesh Khan — through point for four with an apexed elbow and a painter’s flourish. He hit 31 off 13, which were bowled to him by Avesh, Ravi Bishnoi and Dushmantha Chameera.

Brevis has since had two quiet games, getting out for four and three playing early attacking shots against Chennai Super Kings and Lucknow. But he has made his mark, and in high places. “Brevis = Player” Ben Stokes tweeted during his 13-ball 31. After Brevis was dismissed, Stokes popped up with, “Sorry Brevis”. But it’s who else takes notice that matters.

That’s because there are more players like Brevis where he comes from: honed in the country’s elite schools, brought to the attention of franchise team owners by precocious performances at junior level, and who could be whisked away to the IPL and the like without delay. A senior international career isn’t part of that equation. It’s at best irrelevant, at worst a hindrance.

Did Van Wyk foresee some who have grown up in the game in South Africa choosing to bypass senior cricket in their country in favour of a career abroad? “I can’t answer that. That’s up to the player, and it differs from player to player.” It’s a reasonable response to the question. And it will worry many South Africans, who see the textbook example in Brevis himself.

He is a product of Afrikaanse Hoër Seunskool in Pretoria, which has also given cricket De Villiers, Faf du Plessis, Jacques Rudolph, Heino Kuhn, Neil Wagner and Kruger van Wyk. Currently, 18 CSA-accredited coaches are on the school’s books. Three of them hold a level three certificate. That makes them as or more qualified than a host of prominent coaches, some of whom have been in charge of senior international teams. Schools in this league draw the best young talent, and offer bursaries to those who can’t afford their steep fees.

Thus moulded for a fine future, Brevis duly fired at this year’s under-19 World Cup, in the Caribbean in January and February. He scored two centuries and three half-centuries, two of them in the 90s. His aggregate of 506 in six innings is a record for the tournament, beating the 505 Shikhar Dhawan piled up in seven trips to the crease in 2004.

Brevis’ timing was perfect. The IPL auction started nine days after the last of his World Cup innings, a 130-ball 138 against Bangladesh, and Mumbai spent USD393,554 to secure his services. That’s as much as the Gujarat Titans paid for David Miller, and more than was fetched by 133 other players — among them Aiden Markram, Jason Roy, Mustafizur Rahman, Tim Southee, Tymal Mills, Devon Conway, Rassie van der Dussen, Dwaine Pretorius, Kyle Mayers and Lungi Ngidi. Of the 204 players who were bought, only 58 were more expensive than Brevis. Another 396 went unsold. They included Shakib al Hasan, Steve Smith and Suresh Raina.

Cricket has changed vastly since Brevis was born 37 days after Australia beat India in the 2003 World Cup final at the Wanderers, just more than a year after Smith made his Test debut, and 18 months ahead of De Villiers playing the first of his 420 matches for South Africa.

An illustration of how much has morphed into what many of us may not recognise as part of cricket is that Brevis has been made the subject of a non-fungible token (NFT), a unique digital memento that cannot be copied, and which often features a video clip — in Brevis’ case of him launching England’s Tom Prest over long-on for six during the under-19 World Cup quarter-final in Antigua. The ownership of NFTs is protected by blockchain technology, and their value can rise and fall like that of other collectables. Brevis’ NFT was sold 16 times from March 9 to April 19 for between USD200 and USD444. Stokes’ NFT has gone for more than Brevis’ three times, with a top sale of USD500. But Kagiso Rabada’s has yet to fetch more than USD37. Not even the South African Cricketers’ Association (SACA) knew about this. On being informed, SACA set about looking into what happened to Brevis’ image rights fees.

Maybe he doesn’t need that money, either. Just like he doesn’t need a Proteas cap. He and his agent have said he wants to play for South Africa, but who knows what a few more IPL paydays will do to that dream? Having made it to the big time without the help of international cricket, his loyalty surely must be to the IPL. If there is a choice to be made, why should Brevis pick a team he has never played for? Or didn’t play for before he reached the most high profile stage in the game?

De Villiers played 118 matches for South Africa before he made his IPL debut, but the travelling T20 circuses claimed him in the end. Last month, Rabada, Marco Jansen, Anrich Nortjé, Ngidi, Van der Dussen and Aiden Markram went the same way, albeit temporarily, when they picked the IPL over the Test series against Bangladesh.

As explained above, Brevis is different. How different? We don’t yet know. That’s really what’s scary.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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IPL reboots Markram

“I’ve got a lot of clarity from the management, and that really helps as a player.” – Aiden Markram

Telford Vice | Cape Town

AIDEN Markram has scored just 15 fewer runs in five innings for Sunrisers Hyderabad in this year’s IPL than he did in 14 trips to the crease during bilateral games in South Africa’s recently concluded summer. Does that represent a return to form for the gifted but struggling player, or are matters more complicated than that?

Of course they are, many would say. The India, New Zealand and Bangladesh attacks Markram faced in challenging conditions at home and in Christchurch from December to March — scoring 205 runs with a best effort of 42 in five Tests and four ODIs — were surely of a higher calibre than what he has seen on the IPL’s featherbed pitches and small grounds, where he has made 190 runs, among them two half-centuries.

Batting conditions in the IPL are indeed easier compared to what visiting Test teams would face in India, as would be the case for international white-ball cricket anywhere. But it isn’t true that the bowlers have been short on quality.

Of those Markram faced to score 57 not out off 41 balls against Rajasthan Royals on March 29, only one — Riyan Parag — has yet to earn an international cap. The others were Trent Boult, Prasidh Krishna, Nathan Coulter-Nile, R. Ashwin and Yuzvendra Chahal.

Against Kolkata Knight Riders on Friday, Markram hit an unbeaten 36-ball 68 off André Russell, Aman Hakim Khan, Varun Chakravarthy, Sunil Narine, Pat Cummins and Umesh Yadav. Aside from Aman, all have played at the highest level.

Markram followed that with 41 not out off 27 deliveries against Punjab Kings on Sunday, when he faced Rahul Chahar, Liam Livingstone, Arshdeep Singh, Kagiso Rabada and Vaibhav Arora. Arshdeep and Arora are as yet uncapped internationally, but there’s no disputing the threat posed by the rest.

It’s not just that Markram has piled up, at the IPL, 92.68% of the number of runs he scored for South Africa in 35.71% of the innings he had for them after the 2021 T20 World Cup. It’s also the way he has scored those runs for SRH: with the confidence that was missing as he shambled through his international summer. That version of Markram was a long way from hammering sixes to clinch victory, as he did against KKR — off Cummins, no less — and Punjab.

Markram looked and sounded increasingly mournful playing for South Africa in 2021/22. He couldn’t have come across more differently during a press conference after the Punjab game. “Batting in the middle order in white-ball cricket, you are forced to play the game situation,” a content, smiling Markram said. “I understand my role in the side, and that’s to take it really deep and let our free-stroking players express themselves. I’ve got a lot of clarity from the management, and that really helps as a player. We keep trying to learn and improve as players, so that when we get into positions to win games or set good totals we’re taking the right risks and options.”

No doubt it helps having Tom Moody and Brian Lara among your coaches, and Kane Williamson as your captain. That said, it cannot be claimed that Markram didn’t have the full support of South Africa’s selectors, captains and coaching staff. Despite months of mounting public and media clamour for his axing, he was dropped only after he lashed out in frustration at Taskin Ahmed in the first ODI against Bangladesh and was caught at backward point for a third-ball duck.

So South Africans might be expected to thank the IPL for Markram’s resumption of normal service. Don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen. The opinion of many cricketminded people in this country is that the IPL takes much but gives nothing in return. In this view, Rabada, Anrich Nortjé, Marco Jansen, Lungi Ngidi, Rassie van der Dussen and Markram himself choosing to play in the IPL this year rather than make themselves available for the Test series against Bangladesh is but the latest example of this sorry trend. Thus the notion that the tournament is instrumental in Markram’s rehabilitation as a key batter would land like a whale in a desert: unbelievable and disbelieved. Try to float that idea and you will be told that the IPL is, among other uglinesses, a garden of exploitation, not Eden.

A more sober theory is that the diminished pressure on players when they appear below the top level means we can’t put much store on franchise cricket as a barometer of form for the international game. For instance, five days before Markram made his duck against Bangladesh he scored 70 off 84 balls for the Titans in a list A match against the Dolphins.

But it is good to see him be Markram again, and to see him score important runs again, and in some style. If that endures throughout the tournament and beyond, and especially if Lara cures his charge’s new and worrying habit of opening his stance more than he used to and more than is wise, even South Africans will put their IPL disapproval on hold.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Has Boucher had his last game as coach?

“I don’t think anyone in my situation can enjoy what’s been put on my plate.” – Mark Boucher

Telford Vice | St George’s Park

HOW much longer will Mark Boucher be South Africa’s coach? It seems an odd question, given that his contract runs until after the 2023 World Cup, and that this summer alone he has guided his team to victory in Test series against India and — despite a depleted team — Bangladesh, and presided over one of cricket’s greatest comebacks to draw a rubber in New Zealand.

In white-ball terms, Boucher’s team beat India and Sri Lanka, came within a smidgen of reaching the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup, and lost to the Lankans and Bangladesh. The latter was a shock, but given the rest of Boucher’s team’s record this season his job should be safe.

It isn’t. Next month Boucher will be the subject of a disciplinary hearing at which CSA, his employers, want him sacked on charges of being party to a culture of racism in the South Africa teams in which he played. He will also be under scrutiny for his dealings with Enoch Nkwe, a former assistant coach, and the way he handled issues within the dressing room relating to Black Lives Matter. If Boucher is cleared, he might feel his relationship with CSA has deteriorated beyond repair, negotiate a settlement, and leave his position.

So South Africa could be under new management when they next take the field, in England in August. Indeed, the last wicket of their 332-run win over Bangladesh in the second Test at St George’s Park on Monday, when they clinched the series 2-0, had barely fallen when Boucher was asked whether he had enjoyed his time as South Africa’s coach.

“It’s been tough,” Boucher told a press conference. “I’ve really enjoyed coaching the guys. On the cricketing side of things, we’ve got a very tight unit. I’ve really enjoyed being around the guys and seeing the development in their cricket. Outside that, it would be quite difficult for me to say I’ve enjoyed it. That’s just being honest. I don’t think anyone in my situation can enjoy what’s been put on my plate.”

The tour to England, where Boucher was part of the team that won the 2008 Test rubber, will be followed by a trip to Australia, which will feature South Africa’s first Boxing Day Test at the MCG since 2008 — a match in which Boucher played, and which sealed South Africa’s first Test series win in Australia. Did he want to be part of those ventures?

“I’m very competitive, and you want to judge yourself against the best teams in the world,” Boucher said. “We played against the two best of recent times against India and New Zealand, and they were hard-fought series. When I was playing, going to England and Australia was always very tough. It would be nice to compete against them, but we’ll see what happens in the future.”

For now, Boucher will busy himself with preparing for the future, even though it is uncertain. “We’ll have a personal development plan for each player,” he said. “We’ll talk contracts. Our coaches will sit together with them and talk about areas in which they’ve been good and where we feel they can improve. There’s a World Cup around the corner [in India in October and November next year], so we’ll need to do some planning about the team we’re looking to select in those conditions. There’s a lot of work to be done outside the season. That will happen hopefully within the next month.”

Part of that process would involve securing the services of Simon Harmer and Duanne Olivier, who would need to be extricated from their commitments to Essex and Yorkshire this winter if they are to be in South Africa’s squad.

“As far as I’m concerned everyone is available,” Boucher said. “I’ve had personal conversations with most of the guys, and they’ve all come into the set up saying they want to play for South Africa. I’d like to think each guy, if they’re selected to play for South Africa, would choose to do so ahead of any county or franchise team around the world.”

That seems disingenuous considering Kagiso Rabada, Marco Jansen, Lungi Ngidi, Anrich Nortjé, Rassie van der Dussen and Aiden Markram chose to play in the IPL instead of in the Test series against Bangladesh. But we should forgive Boucher that lapse, if that’s what it was. He does, after all, have a lot to think about.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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South Africa spin to win

“I have an amazing core of players around me who understand me as a character and respect me as a player and a person.” – Dean Elgar

Telford Vice | St George’s Park

EVEN South Africa’s most myopic supporters would concede that Bangladesh did better this time. But not by much. At Kingsmead last Monday, they lost their last seven wickets in 55 minutes. At St George’s Park a week later, it took South Africa four minutes longer to claim those seven magnificently.

The visitors resumed on 27/3 and were rumbled for 80 in a second innings that lasted only 23.3 overs, making South Africa victors by 332 runs with an hour and a minute short of two days to spare to complete a 2-0 series triumph. Only three times in their 130 Tests have Bangladesh been bowled out for fewer runs, an ignominious list that includes their 53 in Durban.

Bangladesh have gone down in all eight Tests they have played in South Africa, five of them by an innings. Indeed, last week’s loss, by 220 runs, is their smallest margin of defeat in this country. But these two results will sting more than most because the visitors’ hopes would have been raised by their brilliant performance in the ODIs, where they stormed to two convincing wins to clinch the rubber. As it has turned out, all that that accomplished was to give them further to fall. Worse, not only did Bangladesh lose, they did so ignobly by trying to pin some of the blame for their dismal performance on the standard of the umpiring.

But enough about them. South Africa’s untrammelled success in this series was difficult to imagine when, in the aftermath of the ODIs, they bid farewell to Kagiso Rabada, Marco Jansen, Lungi Ngidi, Anrich Nortjé, Rassie van der Dussen and Aiden Markram, who chose to play in the IPL instead.

Dean Elgar pleaded with them not to go, but now that South Africa have won without them, things seem to have changed. “I don’t know if those guys are going to be selected again; that’s out of my hands,” Elgar told a press conference on Monday. Mark Boucher concurred: “They did go to the IPL and vacate their spots.”

If CSA wanted to hatch some positive marketing about the episode, they could argue that they always knew there was a strong chance South Africa would be without their first-choice pace attack because of the IPL clash. Hence, the suits could have said, they put the matches on pitches where spin would dominate.

Not that many would have foreseen that Keshav Maharaj would loom quite so large over proceedings. Maharaj followed his 7/32 in the second innings at Kingsmead with 7/40 at St George’s Park, making him the only bowler in Test history to take seven wickets in the fourth innings of consecutive Tests. Invariably precise and bristling with intensity, he was close to unplayable in Gqeberha, where the pitch helped the ball turn and bounce more sharply than in Durban. So much so that Maharaj probably would also have been successful against significantly stronger opposition had they faced him in these conditions.

Until Kingsmead, South Africa had never used only two bowlers to claim all 10 wickets in an innings. Now they’ve done it again. Simon Harmer was that other bowler, and a fine foil he made. Harmer bowls a brand of slow poison that deserves its own sub-category in player profiles: non-Asian attacking orthodox off-spin, which not long ago would have been an oxymoron.

Maharaj took 16 wickets at an average of 12.12 in the two matches, and Harmer 13 at 15.15. No other bowler claimed more than nine. Wiaan Mulder’s 12.00 was the only other average below 20, but he bowled just 17 overs in the series. Maharaj and Harmer bowled almost two-thirds of all South Africa’s overs in the rubber.

A disappointment for the home side was that they failed to convert any of the seven half-centuries they scored into centuries. Forty completed individual innings for South Africa have passed since Kyle Verreynne made 136 not out in Christchurch in February, his team’s most recent ton. Three of South Africa’s 50s against Bangladesh belonged to Elgar, the series’ leading runscorer, who said: “We need to notch up a few more hundreds. Our senior guys, when we get into good positions, we need to get to three figures. We know how much that means and how much pressure you put on the opposition that way. Our batting is the one negative area. We’re extremely aware of it and we’re working bloody hard to get those hundreds.”

Elgar has presided over seven victories in his nine Tests in charge since his appointment in March last year. South Africa were seventh in the World Test Championship standings when he took over. They are now second. A significant part of the credit for the turnaround belongs to their captain.

“Hopefully I’ve nailed down a style of play that we can all follow going forward,” Elgar said. “I like challenges, which is why I’m still playing Test cricket at nearly 35. I feel I’ve got a lot of good years left, maybe even my best years. I’m really enjoying it. I think if I was younger I may not have enjoyed it as much.

“If you’re playing good cricket and the results are going your way, it’s always going to ease the burden of captaincy. The last year has been extremely testing off the field, but I have an amazing core of players around me who understand me as a character and respect me as a player and a person. They understand the kind of cricket I want to play. Most of the senior guys have bought into it. We’re in a very special place, which makes me feel a lot happier about what I’m doing.”

Elgar’s next engagement as South Africa’s captain is in England in August. That’s also where his journey as a leader started in July 2017 when he stood in for Faf du Plessis, who was on paternity leave and missed the first Test of that series at Lord’s. England won by 211 runs inside four days.

“Lord’s got the better of me in that Test, because you are playing at Lord’s,” Elgar admitted. He’s a better captain now, England should know.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Slow stuff seals fast finish

“If you want to win games you’ve got to put your ego aside and do what’s best for the side.” – Dean Elgar on demoting himself from the slip cordon.

Telford Vice | Kingsmead

SOMEONE joked on Sunday evening that Bangladesh would struggle to make it to lunch at Kingsmead on Monday. He was met with scoffing and eye rolls. Yes, South Africa had reduced the visitors to 11/3 in search of a mythical target of 274 to win the first Test. But seven wickets in a session? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Turns out the joker was indeed wrong — South Africa needed less than half-a-session to seal victory. The match was over 55 minutes into the fifth day’s play, with Bangladesh losing 7/42 in the 13 overs they faced. Even South Africa’s media manager was wrong-footed by the rampant surge to success, greeting the virtually assembled reporters at the press conference that followed with a cheerful, “Good afternoon!” It was 11.53am.

The Bangladeshis’ total of 53 was their lowest in South Africa and the lowest recorded by any team at Kingsmead. Deservedly so. Their batting was wretched. There was much to admire about the way they took the one-day series by the scruff of the neck, clinching it emphatically in a deciding match. But this was an abjectly poor performance. They looked less like players who had grown up on a steady diet of spin bowling on turning pitches, and more like the South Africa sides who flailed and flapped and floundered in the subcontinent in the 1990s.

Which is not take anything away from the bowlers. Both of them. The match marked the first time in South Africa’s 451 Tests that they have dismissed their opponents using only two bowlers in an innings. And the first time spinners have taken all 10 wickets in an innings for South Africa since Hugh Tayfield claimed 7/23 and Tufty Mann 3/31 against Australia in January 1950, also at Kingsmead.

Now, as then, those bowlers were an off-spinner and a left-armer: Simon Harmer and Keshav Maharaj. Harmer had 4/41 after 19 overs in the first innings, and finished with 4/104. Maharaj toiled for 37 overs in that innings but went wicketless for 65. In the second innings, Maharaj claimed 5/14 with his first 35 deliveries on his way to a haul of 7/32. Harmer took 3/21 to complete match figures of 7/136. It’s tempting to let those startling numbers shimmer on the screen uncluttered by comment, but that wouldn’t do Harmer and Maharaj justice.

Harmer, who played his first Test since November 2015, has returned from the Kolpak wilderness a vastly improved cricketer. His unbeaten 38 in the first innings was a significant contribution and easily his highest score at this level. His bowling was a delightful contradiction in terms: whoever heard of attacking off-spin? And yet there he was, bristling to take the game to all who faced him. Doubtless he will keep in a special place in his memory the delivery that turned and bounced and nailed the top of Najmal Hossain Shanto’s off-stump in the first innings.

Maharaj had only good things to say about his fellow slow poisoner: “He’s good to have in the changeroom, he’s lots of fun, he’s got good ideas, and he’s matured a lot as a cricketer. You can see that in the way that he’s bowling. It’s world class in terms of his shape on the ball, his trajectories, his lines, his lengths. And also the way he thinks about things on the field, which is quite remarkable and an asset to this team.”

How did Maharaj feel about the first innings, when he worked as hard as Harmer but had no success? “I’ve played a lot of cricket at Kingsmead and I know you’re not going to take wickets all the time,” Maharaj said. “I was in a good space in terms of the way the ball was coming out. It does get frustrating not being rewarded, but having a world-class performer at the other end is good.”

His reward was waiting in the second innings. Only Vernon Philander, twice, Jacques Kallis and Tayfield have claimed a Test five-for for South Africa in fewer deliveries. Any thoughts Bangladesh might have entertained about winning, drawing, or even not disappearing in a clatter of wickets vanished in the fifth over of the innings, when Maharaj cleanbowled first-innings centurion Mahmudul Joy Hasan and trapped Mominul Haque in front four balls apart. To remove Yasir Ali, he produced a jewel that cut a curve through the air towards the batter before pitching and then spat away to fell off stump. The shock of that ball was compounded by the facts that it gave Maharaj figures of 5/14 and that, because of it, Bangladesh were suddenly 26/6.

That made Dean Elgar happy: “The style of captaincy I’m trying to expose our players to, and get them familiar with how I want to play, is about positive, ruthless cricket; making bold decisions and taking players out of their comfort zones. That’s my gut feel. It’s not influenced by the coaching staff. They allow me to do me during game time.”

Then he said something, about his decision to stick to spin in the second innings, that jarred with the accepted South African way of cricket: “I could have bowled a seamer, but I wanted the guys to be ruthless.” A South Africa captain preferring spin over seam to get the job done? Against Asian opponents? At home? Woulda thunk it?

There was more of Elgar’s idea of leadership to be gleaned during Bangladesh’s first innings on the third morning, after he dropped a straightforward slip catch that Litton Das had offered off Lizaad Williams. Elgar summarily consigned himself to mid-off and installed Keegan Petersen at slip. “If you want to win games you’ve got to put your ego aside and do what’s best for the side,” Elgar said.

The result was South Africa’s first win in their last five Tests on Kingsmead’s slower, turning pitches, and only their second in their 10 most recent Durban Tests. It is the first time Elgar has celebrated victory in his five Tests here. He was also on the losing side at Kingsmead in March last year, when the Dolphins beat the Titans by an innings in the first-class final. Elgar top scored with 16 in the Titans’ first innings — of 53, exactly the same sorriness Bangladesh capitulated for on Monday. “I’ve caught quite a few hidings at Kingsmead,” Elgar noted with a smile.

Much has been made of the defection of South Africa’s first-choice pace attack to the IPL, but how much would they have been called on to do considering the conditions and the way the match unfolded? “If we were on the Highveld playing one spinner would have been the only option, but you’re playing in Durban,” Elgar said. “How awesome was it to see two spinners bowling in tandem, and have the ball on a string and dominate the opposition? It was something we’ve always wanted to see. It was great to see both of them compete at such a high level. Most batting line-ups would have had a tough task against both of them. Even if the IPL guys were available, Keshav and ‘Harmy’ would have bowled most of our overs. The skill and intensity they brought was amazing to witness.”

That’s not to suggest Elgar isn’t a real South African: “It’s not the style of cricket we’re used to or want to play. But it shows a lot of character with regards to adapting to being put in situations or conditions that you’re not familiar with. We have the resources to adapt. We still want to play the Highveld kind of cricket, where you’re playing three seamers and a world-class spinner, where fast bowling is our prime source of attack.”

Elgar had plenty of praise for Harmer and Maharaj, but the latter — whose home ground is Kingsmead — would be forgiven for feeling a little bleak at his captain’s outright preference for pitches that lean towards the quicks. “I love playing at Kingsmead,” Maharaj said. “Our record here is not great, so I was happy that I could help change that mindset and make everyone want to come and play more cricket at Kingsmead.

“I know it’s not the traditional South African pitch you would play a subcontinental team on, but it’s good to see that we have the adaptability to cross the line in most instances.”

Harmer and Maharaj are likely to get another chance to prove their point in the second Test, which starts on Thursday at St George’s Park, where the pitch is similar to Kingsmead’s. Elgar is unlikely to change his mind even if the spinners take all 20 wickets, but there’s no harm in trying.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Mahmudul makes magic as South Africa slip

“It’s a weird wicket. Both new balls did less than the older ball.” – Lizaad Williams

Telford Vice | Kingsmead

AS tea ticked closer at Kingsmead on Saturday, a tennis ball spurted from a lively game of grass-bank cricket onto the outfield. There it lay unnoticed, near the long-on boundary at the northern end, for more than an over until Marais Erasmus spotted it and motioned towards the dugout for assistance.

Khaya Zondo obliged, trotting over and tossing the ball back to grateful recipients. His reward was to be asked to sign autographs for the gathered throng of children. Happily, he obliged. A few overs later, the same ball found its way onto the field again. This time, Ryan Rickelton saw it as he loped back to his fielding position. He swooped and lobbed it back, left-arm and fluidly, and was also promptly persuaded to make the kids’ day.

The game on the grass bank didn’t stop for tea, of course. And as the players emerged for the third session another, different ball was deftly driven into the concrete moat meant to help keep spectators off the field. A nearby security guard shook his head and glared at the offending batter, who had held the striking pose of his follow-through.

All the while the sun beamed down, confounding a forecast for rain — and making the blazing floodlights, which had been turned on before the day’s play started under heavy cloud cover, look like sparklers at a fireworks display.

If you didn’t know better you would have thought all was well. It wasn’t, for South Africa. When Bangladesh resumed 269 behind with Simon Harmer having dispensed with four of Bangladesh’s top five, the home side seemed on course for domination. By tea, their lead had been whittled to 110 and three wickets still stood.

The odd man out — or should that be in? — among the visitors’ top five, 21-year-old opener Mahmudul Joy Hasan, delivered a career-defining performance in only his fourth Test innings. Having faced 141 balls on Friday, he hung tough for another 185 on Saturday. In all, he batted for more than seven hours for his 137, his first century and the only hundred by a Bangladeshi in the 13 Tests they have played against South Africa, home and away.

It was a desperately needed innings, and Mahmudul answered the call with the rock solid discipline of a stalwart. He made his choices with due care and never looked out of his depth. When he was dismissed in the ninth over after tea to end the innings, he had done the lion’s share of the toil it took to diminish South Africa’s advantage to a marginal 69 runs — exactly 200 fewer than it was when play began.

And he should have been out earlier. Twice. Mahmudul was 64 when he tried to work a delivery to leg and was dropped by Sarel Erwee at the forwardest of short legs. He was 108 when Keegan Petersen grassed a grab at slip. Both were fiendishly difficult chances, and both times the bowler denied was Harmer.

Earlier, in the ninth over of the morning, Dean Elgar had somehow spilled the straightforward slip catch that would have removed Litton Das and ended his partnership with Mahmudul at 20. Instead it grew to 82; one of three half-century stands presided over by Mahmudul.

Those weren’t the only questions South Africa raised. Given that Harmer, Keshav Maharaj and Elgar bowled all but nine of the 49 overs Bangladesh faced on Friday — and dismissed them and dried up the runs — why did Lizaad Williams and Duanne Olivier send down the first nine overs on Saturday? They kept the damage down to 23 runs, and Williams had Taskin Ahmed caught in the gully to claim his first Test wicket. But it was puzzling why what had worked so well on Friday wasn’t the option taken first thing on Saturday, especially considering the ball was no longer new.

“The wicket had been under the covers overnight and it was overcast this morning, so the ball might have moved around,” was Williams’ initial stab at an explanation at a press conference, which he followed with: “It’s a weird wicket. Both new balls did less than the older ball. It’s not normal. I don’t know why it’s doing that, but it’s good for us because you bowl with the older ball for longer than with the new ball.”

The upshot was that Harmer’s deserved claim for a five-wicket haul in his first Test since November 2015 fell one short. Having taken 4/42 in 20 overs on Friday, he went wicketless for 61 in the same number of overs a day later. There was more poetry where that came from in the way Bangladesh’s innings unravelled — with Harmer safely pouching two catches at slip to hasten the end, albeit both more straightforward than those dropped off his bowling.

South Africa faced four mostly uneventful overs in their second innings before the clouds closed their fist around the ground and bad light, followed by rain, ended play at 4.10pm. The home side will take a lead of 75 into the fourth day of an increasingly intriguing contest.

But their struggle to dismiss opponents they might expected to push around, especially in their own conditions and more so after striking significantly on Friday — stoked the embers of the debate over the defection of their first-choice pace attack to the IPL. How much better would Elgar’s team have fared had Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortjé, Marco Jansen and Lungi Ngidi been available instead of half a world away?

There is no quantifiable answer to that question, but it’s worth putting to bed the moan that the IPL is solely to blame for South Africa’s diminished pace arsenal. What the pandemic has done to scheduling for international as well as franchise cricket is an important consideration. As is the fact that, contrary to what has been widely assumed, this IPL is not exponentially bigger and longer than previous editions. At 65 days it covers just 11 more days than it has previously, in 2012 and 2013, when it comprised 76 games — two fewer than this year.

How good or bad is the IPL for the rest of cricket? That’s as knowable as how long a tennis ball will be allowed to lay undisturbed on the outfield before someone tosses it back from whence it came. But we do know there is no removing the IPL from global cricket’s equation anywhere near as easily.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Kingsmead returns to green glory days

“I’ve never seen the colour of the grass at Kingsmead like it is right now.” – Keshav Maharaj

Telford Vice | Durban

OLD-TIMERS joke that the only way to tell the pitch from the outfield at Kingsmead used to be by locating the stumps and the creases. Then you took guard to face Neil Adcock, Mike Procter, Vince van der Bijl, or other fine fast bowlers on a surface that rivalled a snooker table for greenness.

But Kingsmead’s emerald fire has dwindled. Tests here have become attritional struggles against spin and the elements. This is where, in August 2012, South Africa and New Zealand bowled and faced only 99.4 overs in a game ruined by a sodden outfield. It’s also where Rangana Herath took match figures of 9/128 in December 2011 to seal Sri Lanka’s first win in the country. Almost eight years later, the Lankans returned to Durban to spark what would be a 2-0 series triumph — the only Test rubber won by an Asian team in South Africa. Indeed, conditions at Kingsmead have become un-South African enough for the home side to have won only one of their last nine Tests here.

This time, it seems, things might be different. Dean Elgar and Keshav Maharaj, a local, mind, have both spoken of the unusual amount of grass, and its colour, they have seen on the pitch being prepared for the match.

Thereby hangs a theory. Kingsmead hasn’t hosted a Test since Sri Lanka’s win in February 2019, and South Africa have since played 10 matches in the format at home. The ground staff can’t do anything about rain and bad light, which are both frequent factors in matches here and seem set to feature again, but they can try to ensure the surface gives the home side’s fast bowlers something to work with and that it lasts five days. Not doing so, on both counts, would seem detrimental to the ground’s future as a Test venue. It seems they have taken that possibility seriously enough to relay the table.

Even so, Elgar might grimace at the unfair irony of Kingsmead finally delivering a seamer’s pitch when most of his first-choice fast bowlers are not around. Kagiso Rabada, Marco Jansen, Anrich Nortjé and Lungi Ngidi, along with Rassie van der Dussen and Aiden Markram, have all high-tailed it to the IPL. The unfortunates among us who don’t somehow consider professional cricket a profession could see this as betrayal of national duty. The rest of us accept it as a business decision made by people whose primary motivation for playing cricket is to be paid. Would any of them turn out for South Africa for free?

Of course, that’s not Bangladesh’s problem. They have to find a way to maintain the momentum generated by their stunning 2-1 win in the ODI series, their first in any format in South Africa. It will help that seven of the players who helped achieve that famous success are in the Test squad, and that Tamim Iqbal, Taskin Ahmed and Mehidy Hasan — who starred in the ODIs — are among them. It will also help that, with Herath and Allan Donald in their coaching staff, they have both bowling bases covered. And that Russell Domingo knows Kingsmead as well as any coach. And that, thanks to the IPL, which has taken 128 Test caps out of South Africa’s squad, the visitors are the more experienced side.

But the temporary return home for family reasons of Shakib al Hasan, as iconic a player for Bangladesh as anyone is for any other team, is a setback. Happily, he is due back for the second Test at St George’s Park, which starts on April 7.

Bangladesh have lost all six Tests they have played in South Africa, five of them by an innings. But they have also never played a match in the format at Kingsmead, where India and Sri Lanka have won all three Tests they’ve played since December 2010. Conditions this time may mitigate against a fourth victory for Asian side in five matches in Durban, but that doesn’t mean South Africa will anticipate a lesser challenge.

With the calamity of the ODI series still fresh, and considering South Africa have lost the first Test seven times in their last 11 series — and in both of their most recent rubbers, at home to India in December and in Christchurch in February — the visitors will know their time is now.

When: Thursday, 10am Local Time

Where: Kingsmead, Durban

What to expect: More green grass than has become the norm for a Test here. Even if that is the case, the primary challenge for batters early in the match will likely by swing rather than seam. Then, as the surface slows, spin will come into the equation.

Team news

South Africa: Stand by for changes galore, what with the IPL defections. Keegan Petersen’s return from Covid-19 was always likely, and we could see an overdue debut for Ryan Rickelton

Possible XI: Dean Elgar (capt), Sarel Erwee, Keegan Petersen, Temba Bavuma, Ryan Rickelton, Kyle Verreynne, Wiaan Mulder, Keshav Maharaj, Glenton Stuurman, Lutho Sipamla, Duanne Olivier

Bangladesh: Tamim Iqbal is set to come in for Shadman Ismail, who scored 53 runs in four innings in New Zealand in January.

Possible XI: Tamim Iqbal, Mahmudul Hasan Joy, Nazmul Hossain, Mominul Haque (capt), Mushfiqur Rahim, Yasir Ali, Liton Kumar, Mehedy Hasan, Shoriful Islam, Ebadat Hossain, Taskin Ahmed

What they said:

“I’ve never seen the colour of the grass at Kingsmead like it is right now. Traditionally Kingsmead spins, and I would hope it does from my personal point of view. But I think it will be a decent, traditional pitch.” – Keshav Maharaj on Kingsmead’s return to greenness.

“Experience-wise we are ahead but they are playing at home, so they will get some advantage. Both teams will have advantages but whoever plays good cricket for five days will win.” – Mominul Haque walks a diplomatic tightrope.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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South Africa’s suddenly serious series

“I’m comfortable where I sit with the players who aren’t here.” – Dean Elgar on South Africa’s IPL absentees.

Telford Vice | Cape Town

DEAN Elgar joked in December that South Africa’s players didn’t know who their administrators were, a comment on cricket’s chronic instability in the country. Now he might have to admit to something similar about the attack he will take into the Test series against Bangladesh.

The defection to the IPL of Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortjé, Lungi Ngidi and Marco Jansen takes 82 Test caps out of the mix. It also removes some of the game’s finest quicks from the equation. For instance, no-one has taken more Test wickets this year than the 23 claimed by Rabada, Jansen and Pat Cummins. Add the omission of Rassie van der Dussen and Aiden Markram, who are also IPL-bound, and the excised experience grows to 128 caps.

Suddenly, Duanne Olivier and Lutho Sipamla are South Africa’s senior fast bowlers. Also in the squad are Lizaad Williams, Glenton Stuurman and Daryn Dupavillon, as well as Ryan Rickelton and Khaya Zondo. Olivier, Sipamla and Stuurman have played 17 Tests between them. Dupavillon, Williams, Rickelton and Zondo are uncapped.

Elgar is in the same sorry situation as the head chef at a top class restaurant who arrives in the kitchen to discover their best knives have been stolen and their sous and pastry chefs have eloped. Except that he has known for weeks that this might happen, and had his fears confirmed before the squad was announced on March 17.

“A lot of events have happened since my last interview around this very topic,” Elgar told a press conference on Monday, with reference to the impassioned plea he made on March 4 for his players to choose country over cash. “I’m comfortable where I sit with the players who aren’t here. I’ve had some really good, in detail chats with those players just to find out where they are mentally. I’m very comfortable with the answers that they’ve given me.

“Be that as it may, they’re not here with us and we have to make do with our next best that we have in the country, who I’m still very confident in. Yes, we’ve lost a few Test caps along the way not having the IPL players with us, but it’s a great opportunity for those guys to stand up and put those other players under pressure. I’m confident they can do that.”

Elgar’s tone was significantly more subdued compared to the passion he showed almost four weeks ago, when he said “we’ll see where [the players’] loyalty lies” and implored them not to “forget that Test and one-day cricket got them into the IPL, not the other way around”.

Pholetsi Moseki, CSA’s acting chief executive, expressed surprise at the time that Elgar had told the press the players had been saddled with the choice of going to the IPL or staying on for the Test series. Had Elgar been told to rein himself in?

“I’m pretty confined with regards to what I can and can’t say,” Elgar said on Monday. “The players were put in a bit of a situation with regards to making themselves available. I’m sure they wouldn’t have made a rash decision if it didn’t mean a hell of a lot to them. I’ve had conversations with the players and I know where they stand with regards to the Test side and playing Test cricket. I think they were put in a situation that was unavoidable, bearing in mind that quite a few of the guys have never had IPL experience before. I don’t think they wanted to hurt their opportunity going forward in the competition.”

It was a strange comment considering, of the six absentees, only Van der Dussen has not been to the IPL before; albeit Markram has played only six games in the tournament and Jansen just two. But there is something to be said for players’ not creating doubt over their availability in the minds of IPL franchise owners. The amount of money they could earn in a single edition of cricket’s moneyed monster could change their lives in a way that dutifully turning out for the national team, year in and year out, cannot match.

That alone decides the debate about the choice they made, but damaging misinformation about how they came to be lumped with that decision has muddied the discussion at public level. It is true that, with regard to being given permission to feature in the IPL rather than for South Africa if dates clash, the IPL is the only franchise tournament specified in the memorandum of understanding (MOU) between CSA and the South African Cricketers’ Association. It is not true that the MOU guarantees players clearance to go to the IPL ahead of being picked for South Africa. CSA retain the right to refuse to issue any player an NOC, or no objection certificate, for any tournament including the IPL. But CSA can hardly afford to do so in the case of cricket’s biggest payday. That could prompt retirements from the international game — the savvy thing to do, financially speaking. So compromises are made.

On the plus side for Elgar, South Africa will welcome back Keegan Petersen, the leading runscorer in the home series against India in December and January who missed the tour to New Zealand in January and February after contracting Covid. Petersen’s grit will be important in a team who consider recovering some of the prestige lost in the home side’s shock loss to the Bangladeshis in the one-day series as part of their mission. That’s the case even though Temba Bavuma, Kyle Verreynne and Keshav Maharaj are the only members of the ODI squad who will be in the Test dressing room.

“I think what happened in the ODI series has hurt quite a lot of players,” Elgar said. “I wasn’t involved but I’m pretty hurt about the result. I’d like to think that’s fuelled us. Our hunger is going to be right up there.”

But Elgar recognised that the visitors, who lost all 19 of the completed matches they played against South Africa in South Africa before this tour, were a significantly improved team: “We know this Bangladesh side is not the one of old. They’re a new team with a westernised coaching staff who have changed their mindset with regards to how to play cricket in South Africa.” Russell Domingo, South Africa’s coach from August 2013 to August 2017, heads a Bangladesh coaching cohort that includes compatriot Allan Donald and Australians Jamie Siddons and Shane McDermott.

Given the slant of the one-day series, in which the home side conceded they were outplayed in all departments despite the fact that the matches were staged in Centurion and at the Wanderers — venues where conditions are overtly South African, and so distinctly un-Asian — did Elgar look forward to the Tests unspooling more slowly at Kingsmead and St George’s Park?

He seemed irked by the suggestion: “Not really. I still think our best Test cricket is played on the Highveld. I’ve got no say over scheduling and venues. Hopefully in the future that can change, but I’d still be extremely happy to play against these guys on the Highveld. I don’t think we’ve got any fear about that. We play our best brand of cricket in that area.

“But even though we’re playing in conditions that are lower and slower, we can adapt. I’ll play them anywhere. I’ve played against mighty cricket nations on really tough surfaces on the Highveld, and we’ve had a lot of success out of that. I’m not too fazed about us playing on slower or quicker wickets. I just think we need to nail down our basics again. That doesn’t change from venue to venue.”

It doesn’t, but South Africa’s failure to launch at two of their fortresses and Bangladesh’s stellar performance must prompt a rethink. The visitors’ Test squad includes seven of their ODI heroes, notably Tamim Iqbal, Taskin Ahmed and Mehidy Hasan. And it should sharpen the home side’s focus that the series will be played at the same grounds where Sri Lanka won 2-0 in February 2019 — the only Test series victory by an Asian side in South Africa.

Will Kingsmead, where the rubber starts on Thursday, again prove itself as reasonable a facsimile of a subcontinental pitch as can be found on the sharp tip of Africa? “We want more grass on the pitch, and I think the preparation has been pretty good until now,” Elgar said. “I’m not too familiar with what they’ve done, but it seems like grass has grown a little bit here at Kingsmead. I think it helps if you put water on the pitch because that tends to make grass grow.”

Yes, that was another of Elgar’s jokes. No, he wasn’t laughing. There is too much at stake for that.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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