Alzarri Joseph – Bulletproof Truth

Busy, busy, busy at World Cup qualifiers

“Most of our boys have watched the West Indies only on television.” – Monty Desai, Nepal head coach

Telford Vice / Harare

WINTER’S dusk descends hard and fast in Zimbabwe, banishing the day’s warmth and flooding the sudden gloom with an invasive chill in an instant. Even so, the West Indian and Nepalese players took the opportunity to linger in each other’s company on a rapidly darkening outfield after their match in the men’s World Cup qualifiers at Harare Sports Club on Thursday.

Alzarri Joseph, sitting on the turf languidly, held court in one gaggle. In another Jason Holder stood all of his 2.01 metres tall, chatting and smiling and clearly enjoying the moment. Most of the talking was done by the West Indians, most of the listening by the rapt Nepalese.

One of the topics discussed might have been their workload. Including warm-up matches, Thursday’s game was the Windies’ fourth in nine days. They will have played two more by Monday evening. Nepal have been on the park five times in the same nine days, with another match to come on Saturday. Stand by for the Super Sixes, the place play-offs and the final.

The finalists, who will meet at HSC on July 9, will have played 10 matches in 27 days. This year’s IPL champions, Chennai Super Kings, played 16 times in 59 days. If all of those games in both tournaments went down to the last ball, the finalists at the qualifiers would have been on the field for 1,000 overs and CSK for 640. The internationals would have worked 36% harder than the IPL sides in 45.76% of the time it took to complete the latter. Fifteen of the players who featured in the IPL, which ended 21 days before the qualifiers started, are among the 151 in the squads in Zimbabwe.

The 10 teams will play all 34 games in the tournament proper — minus the warm-ups — in the space of 22 days. The same programme was followed in the previous edition of the qualifiers, also in Zimbabwe, in March 2018.

Shai Hope has never played in the IPL, but he’s here. As West Indies’ captain and first-choice wicketkeeper-batter, he has been on the field for 269.5 of the 381.4 overs — more than 70% — his team have spent batting and fielding in the qualifiers. How was he holding up?

“I’m not sure at the moment, I’ll be able to answer that question in the morning,” Hope said after Thursday’s game, in which he batted for 43.3 overs for his 132 and was behind the stumps for Nepal’s innings of 49.4 overs.

“We got some time off after the first game, which was good. But these games are going to come at a much faster turnover, so we’ve got to make sure our recovery is on point and we focus a lot more on how we do things off the field.”

That time off was three days between a game against the United States on Sunday and Thursday’s match. Happily for the Windies, all four of their games have been in Harare — Bulawayo is a 35-minute flight away — as is their showdown with Zimbabwe on Saturday.

Nicholas Pooran hasn’t been as busy as Hope — 237.4 on-field overs, or more than 60% of the total. “This is what we signed up for,” Pooran said after scoring 115 on Thursday. “Unfortunately we have to qualify for the World Cup. It’s a tough road. We need to get some rest tonight, recover tomorrow, and turn up on Saturday.”

Nepal, Oman, Scotland and Ireland will have only one day off between each of their four group games. “I would have preferred one more day of rest inbetween but it is what it is, we just have to get on with it,” Monty Desai, Nepal’s head coach, said on Thursday.

Desai’s team face the Netherlands at Takashinga, also in Harare, on Saturday in what looms as a shootout for third place in group A — and thus for a spot in the Super Sixes. “It’s straightforward: Netherlands or us,” Desai said. “It’s all a mental game now. We’ll get ready mentally and trust our skills.”

Nepal played the first of their 111 white-ball internationals in March 2014. Only eight of them have involved countries that were full members at the time. They have had three games each against Zimbabwe and Ireland and one against Bangladesh. And, on Thursday, West Indies — who followed the stand of 216 Hope and Pooran shared by bouncing out the Nepalese to nail down victory by 101 runs.

Not that you would have thought they had been roughly dealt with as they mingled willingly with the winners on the outfield. Nepal looked like winners themselves, and they were. To get to the qualifiers they had to finish among the top three teams in World Cup League 2, a competition that ran from August 2019 to March this year in which each of the seven teams played 36 matches. Nepal won 19 games to finish behind Scotland and Oman.

“Most of our boys have watched the West Indies only on television,” Desai said. “For them it was a proud moment to play against a Test nation. Maybe the batsmen got distracted by the occasion and the barrage of short balls. But it’s OK. For us it’s a pure learning experience.”

Even in the aftermath of defeat, in the sniping cold and gathering dark of an outfield far from home. Maybe they were tired, but they were also happy.

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West Indies offer lessons for South Africa

“We are generally more aggressive types of players; the white-ball formats suit our style of play.” – Shai Hope

Telford Vice / Cape Town

ON the road in bilateral series against tougher opposition, the real West Indies men’s team stand up more often in T20Is than in Tests or ODIs. That’s not an opinion.

West Indies haven’t won a Test series in Australia, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan — or the United Arab Emirates — South Africa or Sri Lanka since they beat the Kiwis in February 1995. That’s more than 28 years in which they have played 37 series in those countries comprising 115 Tests, of which they have won only nine while losing 87.

The Windies’ drought in bilateral ODI rubbers in the backyard of decent teams isn’t as long. But it still goes back to July 2007, when they won in England. Since then they have played 77 matches, won 10 and lost 61.

Their T20I record sticks out like a robust thumb on a weak hand. West Indies have played 23 series in the countries above and won five of them, and all since they last claimed an away rubber against those teams in the other two formats. That adds up to 60 games, of which they have won 16 and lost 39.

The Windies’ winning percentage in T20Is in these terms — 26.67% — is exponentially better than in ODIs — 12.99% — or Tests — 7.83%. Essentially, they have been almost three-and-a-half times as successful in away T20Is against quality sides compared to Tests since that 1995 series in New Zealand, and more than twice as much in T20Is than ODIs since they won in England in 2007.

Overall, home and away and regardless of the strength of their opponents, and since they played their first T20I in February 2006, West Indies have won 22.76% of their Tests, 36.56% of their ODIs, and 40.78% of their T20Is. It’s safe to say their premier format is T20I. Or at least that they have become white-ball specialists.

Alzarri Joseph was unconvinced: “I would not think so. I think we still prioritise the longer format. These days a lot more white-ball cricket is being played than Test cricket, so that’s maybe why you would see it that way.”

That’s a difficult argument to make. Joseph spoke at a press conference at the Wanderers on Tuesday after his team had beaten South Africa by seven runs to clinch the T20I series 2-1. The ODI rubber, in which the first match was lost to rain, was drawn 1-1 and South Africa won both Tests. It is true that the Windies play fewer Tests in the modern game, but just as valid that they are a better team in the other formats, T20I in particular.

West Indies have never topped the Test rankings since they were introduced in June 2003. If the formula is applied retroactively, the last time they would have been the No. 1 team was in August 1995. They won the first two World Cups, in 1975 and 1979, but haven’t earned that title since. Their T20I World Cup triumphs have been more recent — in 2012 and 2016.

“I can’t hundred percent put my finger on it, but I do think we are generally more aggressive types of players; the white-ball formats suit our style of play,” Shai Hope, the ODI captain, said after that series. “But we need to find ways to adapt regardless of the format or the situation of the game. We need to create winning habits, and the only way we can do so is by winning games.”

Rovman Powell, the T20I captain, thought he saw that kind of change coming: “As the years go by and the guys start playing more and get familiar with their role for West Indies, hopefully we’ll get better performances. The guys are working hard to change the perception that West Indies aren’t the best international team at the moment. Hopefully this [T20I] series can be the start of people realising that West Indies cricket is slowly but surely getting back to where it truly belongs.”

By that he was probably talking about the 10 years that began with the Windies’ Test series in England in 1976. By April 1986, they had lost only six, and won 38, of the 78 Tests they had played in that period. But the deep maroon of the caps worn then has faded to an insipid marshmallow pink, the T20I version excepted.

The South Africans would do well to consider the experience of the most recent visitors a cautionary tale. They don’t want to wake up one day to find the bold green of their caps looking like thoroughly chewed and discarded spearmint gum.

As South Africa’s new white-ball coach, Rob Walter is tasked with stopping that from happening. Although South Africa have won only two of the five games with him in their dugout, a fresh positivity has been apparent in their approach. In Centurion on Sunday they chased down a world record target of 259 to win the second T20I, and they had the misfortune of being up against a team almost impervious to pressure at the Wanderers two days later — where the visitors piled up 222/8 in the series decider.

“We’re certainly making progress in how we want to play the game,” Walter told a press conference on Tuesday. “It’s good to see the guys playing with freedom and expressing their skills, and there’s more in the tank I believe.”

Was that his doing? “I would be very arrogant to say I’ve had a significant impact in this short space of time. It’s about being consistent with the language I use with the team, and that is consistently telling them to find ways to express themselves, to take aggressive options — when they feel under pressure to think what is the aggressive option they have in their strengths — and then back that. If they do that and it doesn’t work we can deal with it, but more often than not it does.”

Walter’s and his team’s looming challenge is to beat the Netherlands in their World Cup Super League fixtures in Benoni on Friday and at the Wanderers on Sunday. The Dutch are bona fide minnows but they got up to beat South Africa, and eliminate them from the race for the T20 World Cup semifinals, in Adelaide in November. Victory in the coming games is vital for South Africa’s hopes of qualifying directly for the ODI World Cup in India in October and November.

What could Walter’s players take from the way they had performed against the West Indians? “Confidence is transferrable. It’s the only thing you take into the [next] game. The batter’s on nought and the bowler’s got the ball in their hand for the first time again. It will be no different on Friday.”

That, too, is not an opinion.

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Long day’s journey into trouble

“When you look at the last game between England and New Zealand and the way that finished, this could easily be set up for that.” – Jason Holder

Telford Vice / Centurion

GERALD Coetzee hadn’t been a Test player for even 30 seconds when he wandered into trouble. The fall of South Africa’s eighth wicket in Centurion on Tuesday brought him to the crease. But before he could arrive in the middle he was accosted by Keshav Maharaj, who was on the field in a day-glow bib attending to something Marco Jansen needed.

From afar the slight, shortish Maharaj might look timid. Closer to the truth is that he is South Africa’s chief whip, a vocal, respected authority inside the dressing room and out. So when Coetzee walked up with his shirt untucked, Maharaj, a veteran of 48 Tests who isn’t part of this XI, wasn’t having it. He stopped the debutant in his tracks and proceeded to shove his shirt into his whites.

Having satisfied the dress code for entry to the highest level, Coetzee punched the first two balls he faced, bowled by Jason Holder, through mid-off for four. Coetzee dealt ably with two more deliveries before bad light forced the close, and Jansen drove Alzarri Joseph’s first legal ball of Wednesday’s play — his initial offering was wided for height, impressive considering Jansen is 2.09 metres tall — for another boundary.

It took West Indies 27 deliveries to snuff out the innings for 342. Joseph jammed Coetzee with a short delivery, which flew off the gloves to second slip, and produced another short delivery to remove Anrich Nortjé by way of a crossbatted blooper to gully. Joseph already had his best figures when he claimed he dismissed Coetzee, and his 5/81 was his first five-wicket haul in his 27th Test.

South Africa ended West Indies’ reply 130 runs short of parity 45 minutes before stumps, with Nortjé threatening to set his moustache on fire in a hostile last spell of 4/7 in five overs to finish with 5/36. Raymon Reifer’s 62, a labour of 143 balls and more than three-and-a-half hours, was part of stands of 36 with Tagenarine Chanderpaul, 64 with Jermaine Blackwood and 47 with Roston Chase. None of their other partnerships survived past 11.

By the close, the home side had built their lead to 179. But they had lost Dean Elgar, Tony de Zorzi, Temba Bavuma and Keegan Petersen. Bavuma became the only South Africa captain except AB de Villiers and Faf du Plessis to suffer a pair in his first Test as captain, all at this ground.

Holder ended the day’s play with his first delivery of South Africa’s second innings, an inswinger that trapped Petersen in front. That made Holder the only West Indies player after Garfield Sobers to claim 150 wickets and score 2,500 runs.

Much will depend, for both teams, on how Aiden Markram fares on Thursday. He scored 115 in the first innings, and looked like he was batting in a different match on a different pitch and against different opponents for his 33-ball 35 not out, 24 of them stroked in boundaries.

If you’re looking for a thread of cohesion to pull from all that, consider this: 18 of the 24 wickets to fall have gone down in the third session. The first two sessions have yielded just six wickets. That’s more than 75% of the wickets falling in a third of a match in which the runs have been more or less evenly spread between the sessions. Why is that happening?

“In general a lot of wickets fall later in the day here,” Nortjé said. “It could be because of the sun and more things happening in the pitch. It seems to be a regular occurrence here. I don’t have any explanation, really, but you could see the ball misbehaving here and there. That could be contributing to it.”

Holder also had a go: “There’s variable bounce, which is a contributing factor. When batters got stuck in they really applied themselves. But I don’t think it’s a surface where, even if you bat for a lengthy time, you’re ever in. You’ve got to watch every delivery closely and try to play as late as possible.”

So how did Holder explain the freewheeling Markram? “He’s well-balanced, and he’s really moving well. That’s the key to batting on any surface. He’s pretty poised at the crease. He looks like he has more time than anybody else.”

A counterintuitive subplot is that the match is being played on one of the better batting surfaces seen in South Africa in years. Some of the pitches prepared for the South Africans’ series in India in November 2015 — particularly the pitch in Nagpur, which was rated poor by the ICC — led to a backlash that started with the Wanderers Test against India in January 2018, in which play was temporarily suspended because there were concerns the pitch was dangerous.

Twenty-one Tests have been played in South Africa from that match. Of the 33 completed innings, seven have produced totals of less than 200 and 16 of under 300. That equates to almost 70% of sub-300 innings. The average runs per wicket in South Africa in that time is 26.68. Only in the Caribbean, where the same number of Tests have been played during that period, has it been lower: 26.37. But all 21 games have been won and lost in South Africa, compared to the five draws in West Indies.

So Holder was hopeful that the pitch would play its part in a drama for the ages: “This game has created a really good challenge for us. When you look at the last game between England and New Zealand and the way that finished, this could easily be set up for that. But we’ve still got to go and play the cricket. South Africa are a little bit in front of us but the game is not far beyond us.”

New Zealand beat England by one run at the Basin Reserve on Tuesday, only the second time that a Test has been decided by a margin that narrow. Plenty will have to happen if Centurion is to deliver a sequel, especially as the protagonists could not, under any circumstances, be accused of playing Bazball.

But Holder is correct in saying the sides could have a proper contest on their hands. It is possible, after all, to play proper cricket on a proper pitch even as you maintain old-fashioned virtues like tucking in your shirt.

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Markram burns bright on dull day

“You appreciate the nice things people say to you, but it probably doesn’t outweigh the … I don’t want to say nonsense, but the not nice things you read.” – Aiden Markram

Telford Vice / Centurion

IT started with a dot ball, blocked into the covers in moth-eaten fashion. Immediately, the sightscreen went on the fritz. Once that was straightened out, in a minute or three, some unfortunate wandered across said sightscreen as the bowler reached the business end of his journey, causing the batter to wave a halting hand.

Five more barren deliveries followed. One over done, and it only took eight minutes. Just another 89 to go. Welcome back to Test cricket, South Africa.

After seven weeks of T20 spills and thrills to pay the bills and make the game look like something straight out of Beverly Hills, and a sliver of ODIs, we’ve come down to flannelled foolery with a bump.

Consequently, perhaps, there were more reporters and commentators than spectators at Centurion on Tuesday for the start of the series between South Africa and West Indies. There’s a clue in the day. Tests that begin on a Tuesday are doomed to be played to the sound of one hand clapping. Especially when the home side currently are the least attractive entity in the game in their country and the visitors aren’t exactly drawcards.

Aiden Markram smeared the 11th ball of the match, a leg-side offering from Alzarri Joseph, into the grey area between square leg and midwicket for four to register the first runs of the series. The openers should have been separated seven overs later, when Dean Elgar edged a drive off Kyle Mayers. But third slip, Roston Chase, couldn’t do anything except palm what should have been a straightforward catch towards gully, where Jermaine Blackwood also failed to hold on.

With 11 minutes left in the session, a brass band slid into a soggy version of Stand By Me that sounded freshly fetched from a New Orleans funeral and matched the mood perfectly.

That chimed with Elgar and Markram, too, who seemed less than intent on playing emphatic cricket. They had three overs to score four runs and bring up the hundred before lunch. When Elgar resolutely defended the last ball of the session, bowled by Chase, South Africa were 99 without loss.

But the tempo picked up and the partnership swelled to 141 before Elgar’s newfound penchant for the ramp led him to attempt the stroke once too often, off Joseph, and fall to an acrobatic catch by at deep third by Blackwood — who rushed in then dived backward to snare the ball one-handed.

By then, Markram was 60 runs into his masterclass, which was studded with cover driving of Wolvaardtian calibre. Recognised as the purest batting talent of his generation in South Africa, Markram can come across as joyless. So a scene almost empty of enthusiasm seemed perfect for a man who can look as if he plays without passion.

It’s an unfortunate and unfair opinion, but it’s also unsurprising given Markram’s unshakeably serious demeanour on the field. Another view on Markram could be had from what he told the Sunrisers Eastern Cape team he captained after Joburg Super Kings had beaten them with two balls remaining at St George’s Park on January 21.

“Tonight’s pretty simple,” Markram said, as captured on a dressing room video. “Fifteen, 20 runs more and this fucking changeroom is smiling. So we’re not diving fucking deep into what-ifs and buts and all that bullshit. But the one thing I wanted to touch on is that it was a fucking incredible game to be part of. To stand on that field and watch how you guys fought is something you can’t teach. It’s something you can’t encourage guys to do. It comes from within.” The next day at the same ground, Markram’s team hammered Durban’s Super Giants by 124 runs.

Passion? The man has plenty, and it showed itself 11 balls into the third session when — a delivery after he survived a review for caught behind to a delivery from Joseph that hit his shoulder — he carved a cut through point for four. It took Markram to his first century in 17 innings in which he reached 50 only once and 30 just three times. His lean run cost him his place in the squad for the series in Australia in December and January. Maybe that was why, as his bat swung skywards and he whipped off his helmet, his eyes looked hot with wetness. Were those tears?

“I was fighting them off,” Markram said. “It meant a lot to me. It’s been a strange journey but I’m grateful that it worked out. There was a lot of relief going through me.”

Losing his place, he conceded, “might have been a good thing. Today felt like starting with a clean slate. Things work out weirdly at times, and I was heartsore not to be in Australia. But I was satisfied with the reasons why I was not on the tour. As batters we need runs on the board, and if you’re not scoring runs in a team that wants to be the best in the world your position should be under scrutiny.

“Those were the frustrations; sometimes getting in and not going big and other times just not scoring because of a good ball or a bad shot. Those frustrations build and you find yourself not in the squad, but you understand why.”

Markram regained his place by decree. Shukri Conrad, South Africa’s new Test coach, said bluntly Markram would open the batting in place of Sarel Erwee — who scored one of only two centuries made by South Africans last year. “It’s great when a coach backs you like that,” Markram said. “It gives you extra confidence. You want to do him justice for backing you. That’s one of his biggest strengths — he’s always clear in his messaging and you always know exactly where you stand.”

Conrad made known his bold decision, among several others, on February 17 — six days after Markram’s Sunrisers had beaten favourites Pretoria Capitals with 22 balls to spare in the final at the Wanderers. Only Jos Buttler and Faf du Plessis scored more runs than Markram in the tournament and he was one of just three century-makers. That, Markram said, had boosted his morale going to the Test series.

“It’s very different, but when you have runs under the belt you can take confidence from it. The SA20 was a great competition and we finished well. Those sorts of happy vibes, you do carry them forward.”

Markram said he had blocked most of the bad vibes that had been aimed his way: “I’ve binned social media and I’m not very good on my phone. A couple of years ago I decided to get off Twitter and not read [cricket]. Whatever you don’t read you can’t look into. You appreciate the nice things people say to you, but it probably doesn’t outweigh the … I don’t want to say nonsense, but the not nice things you read.

“After having a tough day there’s no point in reading the negative things people are sending to your notifications. A couple of bad innings and you feel like you’re the worst player in the world because you’re reading what everyone has to say. Some people have thick skins, but there’s no point reading it because it’s not doing any good.”

So he’s not going to bother finding out what people thought of Joseph yorking him for 115 in the eighth over after tea. Markram’s wicket was among the seven that tumbled for 79 with the help of a quickening surface that harboured movement and the odd delivery that refused to get up, and the renewed focus and application by West Indies’ attack. Joseph, who also trapped Temba Bavuma in front for a second-ball duck in his first innings as South Africa’s captain, took 3/60.

The home side should have scored more than their 314/8, but they will be relieved to have reached 300 for the first time in 10 completed innings in which they passed 200 only twice. Much of the credit for that belongs to Markram, who took the trouble to properly greet reporters individually at his press conference. So who was the real Aiden Markram — the well-mannered, measured young man whose inner fire had brightened what might have been a dull day, or the tough-talking Sunrisers captain?

“There’s a lot of passion that comes out in changerooms, but you’re in the public eye and you have to try to be a role model to the kids who are looking up to you and try to make people proud of you. You don’t want to go too far away from your authentic self but you have to understand the role you play.”

He won’t read this, but good on him.

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