Never before have South Africa lost an ODI to an associate team.
Telford Vice / Dharamsala
THEY make them tough in Kaned. It’s a village an hour’s walk from the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium, as unwieldy an official name as only the suits could find for the crowning jewel of cricket grounds we call Dharamsala.
India’s 2011 census — the 2021 count was postponed to next year because of the pandemic — revealed that Kaned was home to 1,362 souls living in 251 houses. Of those people 765 had jobs, 742 were male, 620 female, and 246 were aged six or under.
Of the latter, around a hundred from Government Senior Secondary School Kaned, boys as well as girls, were gathered in the stands at the north-west corner of the ground on Tuesday to watch South Africa and the Netherlands play their men’s World Cup match.
Smartly uniformed, they were in their seats from long before the scheduled start time of 2pm (IST). And there they sat, uncovered by a roof, even as the rain pelted down. Their only concession to the elements was to hold A4 sheets of paper — the usual, printed with 6 on one side and 4 on the other — over their heads.
Two hours, not all of it wet, ticked past the appointed time before the youngsters saw a ball bowled. That they did at that stage was due in no small part not only to the efforts of the groundstaff but also to the colander qualities of the outfield. Yes, the same outfield that has attracted unwanted attention during the tournament. Strewn with unlovely green warts and welts as it is, it drains superbly.
By the time the setting sun had turned the snowcapped peaks of the Dhauladhar mountains to the north-east into glittering acres of crumpled tin foil, the ever swelling crowd had seen South Africa reduce the Dutch batting order to a molehill of runs. The bowlers lived on the edge in the dense humidity, which helped the ball swoon and swoop this way and that, and sometimes too much — until the end of the 19th, more extras had been conceded than any Dutchman had scored runs off the bat. Thirteen of those 19 sundries were wides, which accounted for 21 of the 32 extras after the allotted 43 overs.
Consequently, having been reduced to 82/5 in the 21st and 112/6 in the 27th, the Netherlands rose as steadily as water up a dyke wall during a storm. The fall of the fifth wicket brought to the crease Scott Edwards, the Dutch’s splendid splinter of a player and captain. He was still there at the end, having hit an unbeaten 78 off 69 and batted through four partnerships — the biggest of them the 37-ball 64 he shared with Roelof van der Merwe. The unbroken partnership of 41 with Aryan Dutt flew off 19 deliveries, nine of which Dutt used to club his 23 not out. The last nine overs yielded 104, the last five 64.
The Dutch middle order not only rattled South Africa’s bowlers, they also showed them up in the field. Including the difficult return catch Van der Merwe offered Gerald Coetzee in the 37th, the South Africans put down three chances. Coetzee bowled the last delivery of the innings to Edwards, and the South Africans were so focused on appealing for the lbw that they allowed the batters to run a second leg bye. It was an unedifying end to what had started emphatically for Temba Bavuma’s team.
The Netherlands’ highest total in their eight ODIs against South Africa is the 258/9 they made in Amstelveen in May 2013. But that was in 50 overs. Given seven more on Tuesday, their 245/8 might have soared past 300.
The booming swing on offer diminished as the hours wore on and batting became more straightforward. But South Africa’s bowling debrief would be interesting to hear, especially as the same attack was flayed for 326 by Sri Lanka in Delhi’s admittedly helpful batting conditions 10 days previously.
When Colin Ackermann had Quinton de Kock snaffled behind off the glove for 20 — his lowest score in seven innings — shoulders were shrugged. These things happen. Seven balls later, when Van der Merwe smuggled an arm ball past Bavuma’s bat and onto his stumps, eyebrows edged upward. Seven deliveries after that, when Paul van Meekeren nailed Aiden Markram’s off-stump with a peach of an inswinger that stayed a touch low, backs straightened. Six balls hence, when Rassie van der Dussen reverse swept Van der Merwe into backward point’s hands, South Africa were 44/4 in the 12th — the wickets had crashed in 21 deliveries — and you could cut the shock with a bad memory: it was happening again. And, again, it was no fluke: the Dutch deserved it.
Thoughts began to turn, like the stomachs of the South Africans who had them, to coming up with an equivalent of what has been called the Adelaide awfulness — the Netherlands’ shock win over South Africa in last year’s T20 World Cup. The Dharamsala disaster, perhaps?
Not so fast, Heinrich Klaasen and David Miller seemed to say in a stand that gradually took on the trappings of a resumption of normal service. Only, having reached 45 off as many deliveries, for it to be ended when Klaasen hammered a Logan van Beek long hop down fine leg’s throat.
Just once in his other 13 ODI innings had Marco Jansen taken guard earlier in the innings than at Tuesday’s 18.5 overs. That was in Potchefstroom in March, when he walked out three balls earlier with South Africa 142/5 in search of 261 to beat West Indies. They got home by four wickets with 21.1 overs to spare, thanks largely to the 103 Klaasen and Jansen shared off 62.
Things were different this time. Miller and Jansen added 20 off 37 before van Meekeren produced a delivery that held its line to send the beanpole allrounder’s stumps to disparate parts of the field. If it wasn’t pretty much over then, it was when van Beek ended the 31st by bowling a swiping Miller for 43 with a slower cross-seamer that found off-stump. South Africa’s dismissal for 207 in 42.4 marked their first loss in the format, by 38 runs, to these fine opponents. It was also the South Africans’ only defeat in the 27 ODIs they have played against associate teams.
The Kaned kids had melted out of the crowd of 11,224 sometime around the interval. Their early exit was a pity, because there was a well-rounded education on offer. Along with learning how to bat when nobody gives you a chance, and how not to bowl and field when everyone thinks you will win, they could also have absorbed the essence of how to bowl and field, and how not to bat. It was a school night for all present.
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