Adil Rashid – Bulletproof Truth

South Africa beautiful in the beastly heat

“Klaasen! Klaasen! Klaasen!” – the Wankhede warms to Heinrich Klaasen

Telford Vice / Wankhede Stadium

A South African flag lolled in air as thick and almost as opaque as kheer as it sprawled over the edge of the upper tier of the Wankhede’s Sunil Gavaskar Pavilion on Saturday. The red across the top was crumpled, the blue at the bottom slumped, the green in the middle glum. It was the picture of suffocating anxiety.

The sight of Quinton de Kock taking guard settles the nation’s nerves, like it did with Jacques Kallis and Graeme Smith before him. The spectre of De Kock being dismissed early sets those nerves on edge. They were jangling properly when he edged a drive to the second ball of South Africa’s World Cup match against England and was caught behind.

Where would the nation’s next lump of runs come from? It was, of course, an overly dramatic question born of years of overwrought drama. No doubt it was asked by the fair few members of the nation sprinkled around the Wankhede, their green shirts sticking ever more solidly to them by their own sweat as the sun sank slowly through the smoggy murk above.

Going into the game De Kock had scored two of South Africa’s four centuries in the tournament. By the end of their innings a fifth century would be celebrated; a performance forged with the kind of drama the nation could appreciate.

Reeza Hendricks, in only his fourth ODI of the 17 South Africa have played this year, mostly because of a selection logjam at the top of the order, delivered a lightsaber masterclass that ended 15 runs short of his name being added to the list of luminaries. He brought the curtain down on his innings in a moment of wretched luck by chopping Adil Rashid into the ground and onto his stumps.

Rassie van der Dussen, another of the century-makers, hit a typically flinty 60. The other, Aiden Markram, was caught in the deep having forged elegantly to 42. Importantly, Hendricks and Van der Dussen shared 121 off 116 to nullify the impact of De Kock’s early dismissal.

Might David Miller, who has left his starts unfinished at this World Cup, come up with the required lump of runs? No. He drilled the sixth ball he faced uppishly and almost, but not quite, through Ben Stokes at cover to reduce South Africa to 243/5 in the 36th.

What had loomed, while Hendricks and Van der Dussen were crashing and dashing their runs, as a total higher than 300 was in danger of being sawn off at the knees. All South Africa had left, in frontline batting terms, was Heinrich Klaasen. And Marco Jansen. Yeah, but can he really be called an allrounder …

By the time Jansen strode out on his elongated legs, Klaasen had spent 56 minutes at the crease in 36-degree heat that, the gizmos said, felt like 40. Klaasen would be out there for another 67 minutes, hitting England’s stricken attack — Rashid was off the field at the start of the match with a stomach problem and Topley and David Willey came and went because of a finger injury and cramp — to all parts for his 67-ball 109, his third century in 11 ODI innings.

When Klaasen wasn’t doing that he was on his haunches, trying desperately to suck enough oxygen out of the pollution all around to keep going. Jansen joined him often, more in empathy and to be able to look his partner in the eye than any pressing need of his own. The crowd knew a good drama when they saw it, and resounded with shouts of, “Klaasen! Klaasen! Klaasen!”

In the 44th Klaasen pulled a blooped single off Mark Wood, losing his bat in the process. Jansen dutifully brought it to the other end, where Klaasen was taking his umpteenth breather. In the 47th Wood poleaxed Klaasen with a yorker. This time he stayed down, flat on his back. With impressive decency considering the heat of the contest, Jos Buttler fetched Klaasen’s bat and lent it against the stumps gently.

Two balls later Klaasen put Wood’s full toss over the long-on boundary and far away for six. Klaasen dismissed Wood’s next effort from his presence with a ragged pull as if he were heaving a sack of cement onto the back of a truck. The ball sped to the fine leg boundary for four, clinching the hundred off 61 deliveries. Probably because he was too tired to reach the far end of the pitch before celebrating, Klaasen screamed in Wood’s face. Then he apologised to the bowler, more than once.

When Gus Atkinson’s leg-stump yorker found its target to start the 49th, Klaasen could finally depart the scene and take a break. He left behind his role in a stand of 151 off 77, a record for South Africa’s sixth wicket, and walked off to a standing ovation. Happily, he found the energy required to answer the salute appropriately.

Klaasen also left behind Jansen, whose 42-ball 75 not out was his first ODI half-century, a convincing statement of intent to retain the allrounder’s spot, and an innings in which he hit the ball at least as sweetly, powerfully and intelligently as anyone else; Hendricks and Klaasen included.

It was almost a pity that England had to bat. Why not send the crowd of 24,493 to bed gobsmacked at what they had seen, even the English supporters among them? But that’s not how this works, and the discombobulated, disheartened, dishevelled English disintegrated to 100/8 in the 17th before Atkinson and Wood cracked 70 off 32. Closer to the truth is that the South Africans were like a cat continuing to play with a bird it had already killed.

The end came when Keshav Maharaj nailed Atkinson’s middle stump with the last delivery of two overs that had sailed for 27 runs. England were 170/9, and all out: they weren’t going to risk Topley’s finger further by sending him to the crease.

Never in their 789 ODIs had England conceded a total as big as South Africa’s 399/7. Never had they scored more than 364 in a successful chase. Never would they have thought they were in for a hiding as emphatic as this — defeat by 229 runs, a record loss.

That part of the South African nation who were at the Wankhede went home knowing they had been part of something big; the resurrection of a campaign that had faltered against the Netherlands after a solid start against Sri Lanka and Australia. It’s always a good day when you beat England, even better when that happens at a World Cup, and better still when you do so properly.

The last time that previously crumpled, slumped, glum South African flag was seen on Saturday, it was on its way out of the ground; proudly unfurled and held aloft.

Cricbuzz

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Human or heroes? Players can’t be both

“If we’re having an interaction there needs to be some respect.” – Tabraiz Shamsi

Telford Vice / Cape Town

HOBART’S air was cold with the wetness that had diminished the previous night’s match to a dozen overs. That didn’t stop an unmistakably Eastern Cape Afrikaans accent from cracking through the grim, gritty gloom hanging over a pavement alongside Criterion Street in the heart of Australia’s prettiest city.

“… and they just went round and round the ground, pulling the rope with the tractor.” The Rs were raw and ragged. Round and ground were as nasal as they could be, making those words sound as if a firm Y had been shoved between the R and the O.

The conversation took a short, sharp step forward in the tone of someone who also didn’t grow up around there: “Oh really?” To a non-Australian English speaker’s ear that sounded like, “Aw rally?” Unlike Taswegians, who tend to speak in a slow, soft drawl, words tumble faster from Victorians — though not as fast as from Sydneysiders — and their vowels stay in the bottom of their mouths. When Victorians say celery you might hear salary.

The two men were walking and talking in the company of another, who nodded and smiled in confirmation. The three disappeared into a bustling café on Criterion Street; blokes out for a natter and a bite.

The first speaker was Anrich Nortjé, a son of Kariega deep in the dust of the Eastern Cape. The second was Peter Siddle, who grew up in Gippsland, a rural region of Victoria. They were with Rilee Rossouw, a comparative city slicker from Bloemfontein, a flat, sleepy sprawl bang in the middle of South Africa that is home to not much more than half a million people. There are enough dots of commonality in those disparate bits of geography to connect the three players, at least for a couple of hours. Country people are country people, regardless of which country they’re in or from.

And then there’s the cricket connection. Rossouw and Siddle were opponents in 2018 and ’19, when they played for Hampshire and Siddle. They became friends in June and July, when Rossouw turned out in 10 T20s with Siddle for Somerset. So the happy accident of Siddle’s return to Hobart from Adelaide, where he had featured in a one-day game for Tasmania against South Australia, coinciding with the South Africa squad’s arrival for their T20 World Cup match against Zimbabwe allowed for the making of a plan to catch up before the South Africans departed for Sydney the next day.

What did they talk about? “It was just guys catching up; Rilee and him are quite good mates,” Nortjé said in Sydney two days later. He seemed guarded about, perhaps confused by, a question that ostensibly had little to do with cricket. So the tack was changed. Did he and Siddle discuss fast bowling? “Here and there but not so much. They were catching up and I was just joining them — I was hungry! But Peter’s a great guy. I really enjoyed the chat with him.”

A different but also similar scene unfolded at the MCG on Sunday, when first Adil Rashid and then Moeen Ali hustled to the middle to talk to Saqlain Mushtaq, who had been inspecting the pitch while the England and Pakistan teams warmed up on the outfield for the T20 World Cup final. Rashid has played 229 matches for England since August 2009 and Moeen 256 since February 2014. They appeared in 168 together. Saqlain arrived in their international careers in May 2016, when he was appointed to the first of his several stints as England’s spin consultant. In an hour or so Saqlain would be Pakistan’s head coach and Moeen and Rashid would be on the field for England. But in those few precious minutes they were three friends reunited. What did they talk about? Like Nortjé, Siddle and Rossouw, probably not cricket.

Pablo Picasso is supposed to have said: “When art critics get together they talk about form and structure and meaning. When artists get together they talk about where you can buy cheap turpentine.” Oscar Wilde held a similar view: “When bankers get together for dinner they discuss art. When artists get together for dinner they discuss money.”

Difficult as it may be to believe, cricket is not always uppermost for cricketers. Even when they are around other cricketers or within close proximity of, before or after, even something as important as a World Cup match. Because players were, are and always will be people before they were, are and will be anything else. Cricket no more defines them than outer space defines astronauts. Cricket is what they do. It’s not who they are.

That cricket can make players is not in dispute. A less considered but just as relevant truth is that it can also break them. To list some of those who likely would not have had the gumption to succeed in the world beyond the game would not be difficult but it would be cruel. Many have been so malformed by cricket that they aren’t fit for any other walk of life. They have never grown up because the game has indulged them to the point of stunting their personal growth. Once they retire their awakenings in the real world, where they struggle to find a foothold in coaching or commentating, are rude, painful and pitiful to behold.

They discover they are not, after all, heroes. Instead they are what we all are: nothing more nor less than human. They are people from somewhere, maybe now elsewhere, perhaps on their way to living somewhere else; people with pasts, presents, futures, backgrounds and accents. But now that cricket has embraced a nittier, grittier concept of data and how it should drive decisions on and off the field, there is a danger that cricketers will be considered less human and more an element of an equation spelling success or failure.

Suryakumar Yadav, for instance, moved from Ghazipur in Uttar Pradesh to Mumbai at the age of 10 — when he was as besotted by badminton as cricket — after his father landed a job at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre. He now lives in the city’s Chembur district with his family and dogs named Oreo and Pablo. But most of what we are reading and hearing about him is tied to the bald fact that he had a strike rate of 189.68 at the T20 World Cup. He is far more than a number.

To see what cricket can do to players — as opposed to do for them — consider Temba Bavuma, a clear-eyed, deep-thinking figure of integrity who these days struggles to look up at press conferences. He seems a husk of the person who showed the leadership and skill to guide his team through the calamity of Quinton de Kock refusing to play rather than take a knee at last year’s T20 World Cup.

Bavuma’s failure to be bought at the SA20 player auction in September was myth colliding with reality: he is South Africa’s most tenacious Test batter but he is not a serious T20 asset. Worse, as South Africa’s white-ball captain he was held up to twist in a withering wind at the T20 World Cup, where he scored 70 runs in five innings at a strike rate of 112.90. Seventy-nine of the 198 players who took guard in the tournament scored faster.

Bavuma’s appointment as captain in March last year — which made him undroppable — is a fair subject for debate, as is his decision to accept that position in what he must have known is his weakest format. But what cannot be tolerated is the blatant abuse he is subjected to routinely, much of it plainly racist, in public forums. Neither is it fair that he is looked down on and disparaged by his peers in the Xhosa community, for whom professional success is closely tied to personal worth. Small wonder Bavuma seems to have shrunk into a shell from which he would do well to emerge. His experience should make cricketers ask, if they haven’t already, how much of themselves they can safely expose to the world.

“You share what you feel you would like to share,” Tabraiz Shamsi said on the same day as Nortjé was hesitant to go into detail about his conversation with Siddle. “For myself, my family stuff is quite private but other stuff I’m happy to share. At the end of the day we are human.

“In the past, with no social media, people were a lot further away from cricketers. So the public did not realise that we go through the same things a general person would go through. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it as long as there’s no disrespect. That’s the one thing I feel strongly about regarding this — if we’re having an interaction, there needs to be some respect.”

Too often there isn’t. Too often players are walking statistics whose only perceived value is in their performances. When they do well they are feted as heroes. When they don’t they are criticised in shameful ways, often personally. Small wonder they are sometimes reluctant to talk about matters not directly connected to events on the field. That doesn’t make them privileged prima donnas or unappreciative of the fans. It makes them what they are: human.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Compelling chapter added to Stokes story

“We were all nervous, even when it was Ben Stokes batting, because it was getting tight.” – Adil Rashid

Telford Vice / Melbourne Cricket Ground

“WELL done for trying …” Ben Stokes is better than most at answering reporters’ questions in a meaningful way. But that preamble to an enquiry put to him at a press conference reduced even one of cricket’s more polished talkers to a splutter. “I’m sorry,” he said with a startled smile when the reporter was done asking, “What was your question again?”

This happened at Lord’s in August, after South Africa had beaten Stokes’ England Test team in just more than three days of playing time. There was plenty to explain, to rue having done poorly, and to promise to do better. Well done for trying? Excuse me?

It was strange watching Stokes flounder, because it so rarely happens. He astounds even his own teammates, and not only by pulling off outrageous feats in the middle. Sometimes at training sessions, just for the hell of it, he flips from his feet onto his hands and walks several metres upside down; easy as you like. Watching England’s other players watching him with the same kind of awe as people who don’t play top level cricket for a living watch them is an education.

There Stokes was again at the MCG on Sunday, walking not on his hands but on imported air to spur England to victory in the T20 World Cup final against Pakistan. He opened the bowling and took the important wicket of Iftikhar Ahmed, who was caught behind for a duck as Pakistan were held to a total of 137/8.

But the biggest chunk of Stokes’ work started in the fourth over of the reply, when Haris Rauf had Phil Salt caught at midwicket, reducing England to 32/2. Stokes took guard and saw his team slip further to 84/4 in the 13th. By the end of that over England were 0.59 runs behind the required rate and two runs ahead of the Duckworth/Lewis par. England needed 51 off 42. Stokes had scored 18 off 24. The game, the final, the trophy, the culmination of everything England had worked for was in the balance.

In the England dugout, other players were again watching Stokes with the same kind of awe as people who don’t play top level cricket for a living. “We were all nervous, even when it was Ben Stokes batting, because it was getting tight,” Adil Rashid said. “But we also knew that Stokes was there with Moeen [Ali] and [Liam] Livingstone to come. So we also had that self-belief that we still had batters in the shed. But when you’re in that situation everyone is biting their fingernails. Thankfully we got over the line.

“Obviously he is human, but ‘Stokesy’ is a matchwinner. He’s proven that in the 50-over World Cup, he’s done it in Tests, and now he’s done it in T20. Even if it wasn’t him [to score the runs] we had the likes of Liam Livingstone coming in, Sam Curran, Moeen there. We’ve got matchwinners all the way down, but it’s just a normal thing to get nervous. Especially in a final, and on the verge of winning it. So we were nervous but we were also confident with ‘Stokesy’ there.”

Stokes stayed there until the job was done, scoring an unbeaten 52 off 49 to clinch England’s five-wicket win with an over remaining. “He always stands up in the biggest moments,” Jos Buttler said. “He’s a man who can take a lot of pressure on his shoulders and perform. When he’s in the middle you know you’ve got a good chance. I’m so proud of him and pleased for him. He’s stood up and done it again.

“He’s a true matchwinner and he’s been there in those scenarios time and time again, and he has a lot of know-how about doing that. It wasn’t his most fluent innings and he didn’t time the ball as well as he can, but you knew he was never going to go down without a fight, that he was going to stand up and be there at the end. We’re immensely lucky to have him. He’s one of the great players of English cricket.”

The greatest? “He’s certainly in the conversation …” Buttler didn’t get further than that before a yelp of mock protest came from the far side of the room, where Rashid and Moeen Ali were awaiting their interactions with the press: “No!”

Shan Masood knew he didn’t have the luxury of being snarky: “Ben Stokes is a world-class player who isn’t in need of me giving him any compliments. He soaked in the pressure of a final and he made sure he was there at the end.”

Like he was at the end of the 2019 ODI World Cup final against New Zealand at Lord’s. Stokes’ unbeaten 84 won that game, not least because a throw from Martin Guptill deflected off Stokes’ bat as he dived to make his ground during the super over. The ball streaked to the boundary, prompting Stokes to ask the umpires not to award the runs to England. They did not have the authority to accede to his request, and those runs stood.

Stokes looked more bewildered in that moment than he had when he was tossed a curveball in a press conference at Lord’s in August. Sunday threw up no such weirdness, and he was able to do what was required to steer England to a convincing victory in more conventional fashion. His runs, punctuated by enough boundaries to keep England ahead of the curve they needed to follow to nail down their win, flowed like the forecast rain that did not.

It was as close to a gritty innings — as opposed to a blaze of big shots — as Stokes is likely to have to play in white-ball cricket. And he got on with things and did it. Like anyone else who can’t walk on their hands or be outrageous just for the hell of it. Stokes made himself as close to human as the rest of us, especially those who gaze at his exploits from far away, can only stand back and admire. Well done for trying indeed.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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England’s happy and glorious champions

How they won the World Cup – properly this time.

Telford Vice / Melbourne Cricket Ground

THE weather was English for the T20 World Cup final at the MCG on Sunday, but not the cricket. The first sign of that was the eighth delivery of the match, which Babar Azam drove into the turf and towards the covers — where Sam Curran fielded and tossed the ball up lamely, softening the punchline of his own small joke.

Since when have England’s players had fun on the field? For a while now, actually. And their grown-up, intelligent approach clearly works. Along with becoming one of the most attacking teams and innovative teams, regardless of format, the English seem to take pleasure in going about their business. You could see that, too, in Moeen Ali sauntering to the crease, his bat slung over his shoulder like a fishing rod, with England 84/4 needing another 54 off 44.

That’s not to say England don’t take matters seriously. Certainly, there was seriousness in Liam Livingstone’s threatened throw on the stumps after Shan Masood had hammered one of his off-breaks back to him via the pitch in the 11th. And 21 balls after Curren’s bit of harmless fakery, when splayed the stumps with the help of the inside edge of Mohammad Rizwan’s angled bat, he ripped a roar through his joy.

But there’s a lightness of spirit about the way England play that other teams must envy; an absence of the old nonsense about international sport serving as some kind of proxy for geopolitics. They plainly enjoy what they’re doing. You might say that’s what happens when there is enough money, professionalism and stability in a system to insulate players from the rawer edges of the pressures others face.

Maybe that helps explain why Pakistan batted for most of their innings more like one of the other teams who wear green — the sorry South Africans who disappeared against the Dutch in Adelaide a week ago — than the side whose batters might have turned up on Sunday had India beaten England in their semi-final. That geopolitics nonsense has its uses: it could have served to fill the vacuum of intensity that befell the Pakistani batters.

Their powerplay of 39/2 was bang on average for the MCG in this tournament, and for what Pakistan had achieved in their other games in the competition. But it was slightly off the 46/2, give or take a decimal point or three, that teams had made against England in the World Cup.

The pitch, the same one used in Pakistan’s heart-breaking loss to India, was, like then, not a straightforward surface to bat on, especially against seam. It was also a better strip than suggested by Pakistan’s total of 137/8, which was comfortably lower than the other two scores they have made batting first. Only when Masood was sharing 39 off 24 with Babar and 36 off 25 with Shadab Khan was the innings imbued with anything like the required impetus.

With Curran and Adil Rashid operating at less than a run a ball and taking 5/34 between them, and Ben Stokes having the dangerous but patchy Iftikhar Ahmed taken behind for a six-ball duck, Pakistan were always going to struggle to come up with a more competitive score. Only once in this tournament had a total as small or smaller been defended — by Zimbabwe, whose 130/8 proved enough to beat Pakistan by one run in Perth, and in the aftermath of the Pakistanis’ shattering defeat by India.

Not for the first time in Australia this past month, the crowd of 80,462 was overwhelmingly comprised of Pakistan supporters. The editorial in Sunday’s edition of the Melbourne Age, which examined cricket’s issues with racial and cultural differences in the country, went as far as to try to claim the Pakistani fans for Australia, even if only by dint of their opposition: “A sense of inclusion … ought to be extended tonight to the Pakistan team. After all, it’s the MCG and they’re playing against England.”

But it would take more than unofficial honorary citizenship to recast this match as some kind of ersatz white-ball Ashes contest, not with the way the game was going. The fans knew that, and were reduced to a worried burble for most of Pakistan’s innings. Only when Shaheen Afridi boomed an inswinger into Alex Hales’ stumps with the sixth ball of England’s reply did they rediscover their voice, which soared stirringly wherever their team have gone.

Would they need the rain, which had been forecast to fall heavily but had stayed above the thick blanket of grey cloud until the last over of Pakistan’s innings, to allow them to come back and shout another day? As in Monday, the reserve day, should each team not face at least 10 overs.

The question never needed to be answered as the drizzle didn’t reach the tipping point. Happily so, because Pakistan found a way to compete. England had lost Hales and Phil Salt inside the fourth over with only 32 scored, but Jos Buttler kept the momentum in a forward gear by clipping 20 off 10. Then England’s captain was beaten five times in an over by Naseem Shah’s bristling seam bowling. But the English still made hay, with Buttler scooping Naseem’s other delivery over his shoulders for six. Another went for five wides down leg.

Haris Rauf did for Buttler in the next over with a catch behind, and suddenly England were 45/3. Would it be them who might need the drizzle? No. Because nobody rains on Stokes’ parade. He added 39 off 42 in a steadying stand with Harry Brook, and then put foot in a partnership of 47 off 33 with Moeen.

Pakistan would be justified in wondering how the climax of the match might have played out had Afridi not injured himself in taking the catch, at long-off, that removed Brook in the 13th. Shadab Khan limited the damage to five runs in the over, and Naseem went for only two off the next. Rauf had conceded two before Stokes lashed the last ball of the 15th through the covers off the back foot for four. Back came Afridi, but he aborted his first delivery and left the field after bowling it at the second attempt. Iftikhar finished the over, and went for a dozen runs. England snuck ahead of the Duckworth/Lewis par score when Stokes cracked the penultimate delivery to the cover boundary for four. He launched the next ball over long-off for six, reducing the equation to 28 required off 24.

Moeen slammed three fours off Mohammad Waseem in the 17th, swinging the equation further in England’s favour: 12 required off 18. Six were needed off 10 when Moeen played on to Waseem’s yorker, but it hardly mattered. Stokes creamed a four through the covers two balls later to reach 50 off 47, and two deliveries after that he sealed the five-wicket win with a single to midwicket and with an over to spare.

Maybe the English hadn’t expected to be tested after they held Pakistan to their mediocre total, but they were. And they passed that test handsomely to claim victory far more convincingly than in the 2019 ODI World Cup final against New Zealand at Lord’s — when they were awarded the trophy on the dubious basis of a boundary count.

On Sunday they were indeed worthy champions. Better than that, they had fun proving their superiority. That doesn’t matter as much as winning, but it should.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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SA’s push comes to England’s shove

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

Telford Vice | Cape Town

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where: Sharjah Cricket Stadium

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

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

Team Watch:

England

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

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

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

South Africa

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

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

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

Did you know?

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

What they said:

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

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

(With inputs from Rob Johnston)

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Stokes wins closest ever World Cup final for England

Good luck to the keepers of cricket’s annals, who will struggle to smuggle this scoreline neatly into their records.

TMG Digital + Print

TELFORD VICE at Lord’s

BEN Stokes played a charmed innings to mastermind England’s triumph in the most closely fought final in men’s World Cup history.

England, who played in their fourth final, claimed the trophy for the first time by beating New Zealand, who had reached in the decider for the second consecutive time.

But it needed a super over to separate the sides after the match was tied — New Zealand totalled 241/8 and England were dismissed for 241.

Even that wasn’t enough to decide the issue: both teams scored 15 runs in the super over, so the equation was further distilled to which side had hit the most boundaries.

All told, super over and everything, New Zealand hit 14 fours and three sixes.

England? Twenty-four fours and two sixes.

Arise, World Cup champions. And good luck to the keepers of the annals, who will struggle to smuggle that scoreline neatly into their records.

New Zealand have batted first only three other times in their 11 games in the tournament, and twice in those matches they have made smaller totals than Sunday’s 241/8. They won one of those games and lost the other.

Their most dependable batters, Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor, who between them had scored both of the centuries and five of the 11 half-centuries the Kiwis have made during the World Cup going into the final, were dismissed for 30 and 15.

It was left to opener Henry Nicholls, playing only his third match of a tournament in which his 28 against India in the semi-final at Old Trafford, to provide stability with his 77-ball 55.

Williamson helped Nicholls add 74 for the second wicket, the only half-century stand of the innings, and No. 5 Tom Latham’s 47 was New Zealand’s next best effort.

Chris Woakes and Jofra Archer used the new ball effectively for England, and Woakes took 3/37.

Liam Plunkett claimed 3/42, taking all of his wickets with cross-seam deliveries.

Of England’s six bowlers, only Stokes, who went wicketless for 20 off three overs, conceded five or more runs a ball.

New Zealand defended a lower total as recently as Wednesday, when they made 239/8 in their semi-final against India at Old Trafford and won by 18 runs.

But they reduced the Indians to 5/3 in the first 19 balls of the innings — the like of which they couldn’t repeat on Sunday.

Instead Jonny Bairstow stood firm through stands of 28 with Jason Roy and 31 with Joe Root.

Roy was fortunate to survive, by the slimmest of “umpire’s call” margins, which was handed down after South Africa’s Marius Erasmus decided the Englishman was not out, when the New Zealanders reviewed Trent Boult’s shout for lbw off the first ball of the innings.

Then Colin de Grandhomme dropped a return catch Bairstow offered in the 11th, when he was 18 and England were 39/1.

Root gave De Grandhomme some solace six overs later when he flashed at a wide delivery and was caught behind.

Bairstow went for 36 three overs after that, dragging Lockie Ferguson onto his stumps.

And when Ferguson roared in from the cover boundary to catch, centimetres from the turf, Jimmy Neesham’s first ball of the match — which had been hammered there by Eoin Morgan — England were 86/4 and reduced to their last pair of proper batters.

But they were Stokes and Jos Buttler, and they clipped 110 runs off 133 balls in a largely controlled partnership that endured into the 45th over and took England to within 46 runs of victory.

It ended when Buttler hammered Ferguson to deep cover, where substitute Tim Southee held a fine sliding catch. Buttler’s 60 came off 60 balls and included six fours.

That started a slide of six wickets for 45 runs, but Stokes survived for an undefeated 84 off 98 balls with five fours and two sixes.

England were 220/7 with Stokes 63 not out and in the 49th over when he smashed Neesham to the midwicket boundary — where Boult fell over the boundary and turned a catch into a six.

England needed 15 off the 50th over, and Stokes lofted Boult for six over midwicket.

That narrowed the equation to nine off three — clearly in the Kiwis’ favour.

Stokes smacked Boult to midwicket along the ground, and Martin Guptill’s throw hit Stokes as he dived to make his ground.

From there, it scooted over the boundary to earn six runs off one delivery.

That meant England needed three runs off two balls, but only two were added as Adil Rashid and Mark Wood were run out in the process.

That tied the scores, prompting the super over.

Stokes and Buttler returned to club 15 runs off Boult, each of them hitting a four.

Neesham and Guptill came out to face Archer, and Neesham lifted a massive six over midwicket off the second ball.

Two were required off the last ball, but Guptill was run out by Roy’s throw to wicketkeeper Buttler scrambling back for the second.

That tied the scores again, but for only as long as it took to tally up the boundaries.