Charl Langeveldt – Bulletproof Truth

Conrad revolution elevates Bavuma

“I get paid to make certain calls and subjectivity plays a part.” – Shukri Conrad, South Africa Test coach

Telford Vice / Cape Town

CHANGE continued to sweep through South Africa’s structures on Friday, when Temba Bavuma replaced Dean Elgar as captain of a Test squad that included neither of the side’s only century-makers last year.

One of them was Kyle Verreynne, who was the team’s second-highest run-scorer in Australia in December and January. He will give way as first-choice wicketkeeper to Heinrich Klaasen. Sarel Erwee — the other South African century-maker in 2022 — Rassie van der Dussen, Khaya Zondo, Lungi Ngidi and Glenton Stuurman also failed to crack the nod, and Theunis de Bruyn retired from international cricket on Thursday.

The squad of 15, picked to play West Indies in two matches in Centurion and at the Wanderers in February and March, features Tony de Zorzi for the first time. Keegan Petersen returns from a hamstring injury that forced him out of the series in Australia, and Aiden Markram, Ryan Rickelton, Wiaan Mulder and Senuran Muthusamy are back in favour.

Last month came the news that bowling coach Charl Langeveldt would join Punjab Kings, and it was first reported last week — and repeated in the press on Friday — that JP Duminy was being lined up to replace batting coach Justin Sammons.

Outside the dressing room, the selection chief has been sacked. Or, in the floury words of a CSA release, they had “decided to release Victor Mpitsang of his role”. The other selector, Patrick Moroney, will in future be confined to under-19 duty. For now at least, squads and teams will be picked by Test coach Shukri Conrad and his white-ball counterpart, Rob Walter, with input from the captains. Conrad and Walter are themselves new arrivals having been appointed last month to replace Mark Boucher.

Conrad made plain at a press conference on Friday that he had sparked most of the playing personnel revolution. Here he is on the leadership reboot: “Dean’s done an exceptional job over the last couple of years, and in my conversation with him that’s something I made clear. This was my decision. Dean’s still going to play a huge part in our leadership group. This doesn’t make Dean a poor captain and Temba a good captain. But I felt this was the right fit for me and for us going forward.”

There was plenty more straight talk where that came from. Here’s Conrad on Markram, who has gone 15 Test innings without reaching 50: “People are always going to be behind Aiden Markram or they are going to say he flatters to deceive. I’m in the former group. Aiden’s going to open the batting. He’s a wonderful cricketer and a strokeplayer. Aiden and I go back a long way, so I know his character. We’ve got to match characters to that to our selections and the type of cricket we want to play. I say emphatically that he will open the batting with Dean.”

And on Verreynne’s axing: “Ultimately I get paid to make certain calls and subjectivity plays a part. That was my conversation with Kyle. He’s done everything that can be expected. But I think ‘Klaasie’ has done more and deserves a full crack. ‘Klaasie’ is, in my opinion, not just a batter that we can stick in the field. I’ve always viewed him as a wicketkeeper-batter, so for me it was a straight shootout as to who I wanted. And that’s ‘Klaasie’. That’s unfortunate on someone like Kyle.”

And on the uncapped Gerald Coetzee’s retention, which came at the expense of Ngidi: “It’s quite simple for me. I think Gerald Coetzee needs a good run. We all know the promise that he holds, and now’s as good a time as ever to unleash him. Without giving too much away, I’d like to think that I’d be in a position to play all our quick bowlers in Centurion. Depending on what the Wanderers throws up, that XI might change. It’s purely Gerald ahead of Lungi right now.”

And on the elevation of De Zorzi, the leading batter in domestic first-class cricket this season with 489 runs at 122.25 in five innings and a best effort of 304 not out: “Tony’s career has gone in one direction, north rather than south. He’s someone I identify as a future captain. The fact that he’s scored a mountain of runs is no surprise to me.”

And on the axed Van der Dussen, Erwee and Zondo: “I don’t think anybody is in a position to say there’s never a way back in. You can never say never. But changes had to be made and I made them. What must they do to come back in? Score lots of runs at domestic level at a good strike rate. If you want to play internationally you’ve got to dominate domestically not only the amount of runs but at the rate at which you score them.”

And on why a squad for two Tests on the Highveld should include three spinners in Keshav Maharaj, Simon Harmer and Muthusamy: “I’m old-fashioned in terms of a batting line-up. I want seven batters. So I want to increase our allrounder stocks. Allrounders don’t only have to be seam bowlers, they can also be guys who bowl spin. In Wiaan and ‘Sen’, we get that balance. If I want to play four quicks because I think the pitch is going to be a certain way, it gives me the option to play ‘Sen’.”

Conrad and Walter will hold a lot of authority, but Enoch Nkwe, CSA’s director of cricket, saw value in the modern idea of giving coaches more clout: “I’ve always believed the coach should have more of a say in selection, as long as it’s in line with CSA’s bigger strategy. It is going to be an interim phase, something we want to trial. But I believe the two coaches are the best positioned people to talk about selection.”

Bavuma is still the ODI captain but he has given up the T20I leadership in the wake of South Africa’s disastrous World Cup campaign in the format in Australia in October and November. His successor in that format has yet to be named.

Conrad deputised in an ODI series against England in Bloemfontein and Kimberley at the end of last month while Walter organised his move back to South Africa from New Zealand, where he has coached since 2016. Conrad said he and Bavuma strengthened their bond during that time: “He knows how I want to do things, and I’ve got a good understanding of how he wants to be involved and run things. Our couple of days in Bloemfontein and Kimberley have gone a long way in consolidating the fact that Temba was going to be the captain. Hopefully his performances will keep shining. I think captaincy sits well with him.”

Among South Africa’s active Test batters, only Elgar has averaged higher than Bavuma’s 34.53 measured from the latter’s debut in December 2014. None have scored more half-centuries than their 20 apiece. But Elgar has made 11 centuries in that time and Bavuma only one.

That was no doubt among the reasons Elgar was appointed in March 2021. He guided South Africa to victory in both Tests in St Lucia in June that year, and helped his team rally from 0-1 to beat India at home in December 2021 and January 2022. They drew the series in Christchurch in February last year after losing the first match by an innings inside three days. Two victories over Bangladesh at home followed in March and April, and Elgar seemed to cement his position when South Africa shocked England by an innings in three days at Lord’s in August — the only Test Ben Stokes’ team lost last year. But that was the last time Elgar presided over a win. South Africa slumped to defeat at Old Trafford — where they made the nonsensical decision to change their XI — and at the Oval. In December and January they lost at the Gabba and the MCG, and drew at the SCG.

Anyone tasked with Test captaincy could do worse than seek the counsel of Graeme Smith. Nobody in the world has had more matches at the helm than his 109, and nobody has celebrated more victories than his 53. Among captains who have been in charge for at least 60 Tests, only Ricky Ponting, Virat Kohli and Clive Lloyd have a better winning percentage than Smith’s 48.62. It was Smith who led South Africa to their most notable achievement in cricket — when they won the series in England in July and August 2012 to take the ICC Test mace off the home side.

At another press conference on Friday, four hours before Bavuma’s appointment was announced, Smith was asked what advice he might have for a new South Africa Test captain. “Depending on who it is — you would have to understand what phase of their career they’re in, and how much experience they have — the important part is for them to understand the strategy of how they’re going to get our team playing well again and dominating the world again,” Smith said.

“All people in these types of leadership positions are going to have a strong buy-in with the key administrators who can help them grow the game and get better — from the selectors to the director of cricket to the chief executive to some of the board members. That support and that structure and the alignment of the strategy is so important. They need to invest in that and take things on. We wish them well and that strategy around how they’re going to take things forward, they need to make sure they get proper buy-in and support.”

How much of that Bavuma has, and how much will come his way in the coming weeks and months, and how much might be lost, cannot be known. But we do know where the buck stops.

South Africa Test squad: Temba Bavuma (captain), Gerald Coetzee, Tony de Zorzi, Dean Elgar, Simon Harmer, Marco Jansen, Heinrich Klaasen, Keshav Maharaj, Aiden Markram, Wiaan Mulder, Senuran Muthusamy, Anrich Nortjé, Keegan Petersen, Kagiso Rabada, Ryan Rickelton.

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South Africa gain Conrad, Walter but Langeveldt another big loss

“All the investment, all the energies, all the focus are going to be geared towards the 2027 World Cup.” – Enoch Nkwe, CSA director of cricket

Telford Vice / Cape Town

SHUKRI Conrad and Rob Walter are indeed South Africa’s men’s teams’ new coaches. But they will have to do without Charl Langeveldt, who has been appointed Punjab Kings’ bowling coach in the latest of a series of blows to the country’s collective cricket competence.

Cricbuzz reported on Sunday that Conrad and Walter would succeed Mark Boucher as the national red-ball and white-ball coaches, which CSA confirmed on Monday. They will take up their roles on February 1 and have been contracted for four years.

The interim coaching structure that has been in place since Boucher left his position after the T20 World Cup in Australia in November — a year early to become Mumbai Indians’ head coach — will be utilised in the World Cup Super League ODIs against England in Bloemfontein on January 27, 29 and February 1.

Langeveldt should be involved for that series, and perhaps also for the first of the two Tests South Africa will play against West Indies, which are scheduled from February 28 to March 12. But, with the IPL said to be starting on March 20 and franchise staff expected to report two weeks earlier, he will then be lost to the game in South Africa.

With Langeveldt will go a level of experience and expertise that makes bowlers’ skills leap upward soon after his arrival in any dressing room. That happened in his first stint as South Africa’s bowling coach, from June 2015 to October 2017 — when former fast bowler Ottis Gibson’s appointment as head coach took away the need for a specialist in the discipline. Since Langeveldt came back on board in December 2019 — after resigning from Bangladesh’s support staff — bowling has been the team’s strongest suit by some distance.

This South Africa attack is blessed with some of the finest bowlers of the age and, particularly in Tests, they have enjoyed lively pitches. But Langeveldt’s intelligence and influence should not be overlooked. He has earned his share of the credit for Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortjé and Marco Jansen becoming fine cricketers.

Now, like Boucher, Langeveldt is in the departure lounge. Last week Lance Klusener pulled out of the running to coach South Africa’s white-ball side despite having reached the shortlist. On the same day Dwaine Pretorius, the country’s best white-ball allrounder at a time when few of quality have emerged, announced his retirement from international cricket. Neil McKenzie, CSA’s batting lead, left the organisation last week. Boucher, Langeveldt, Klusener, Pretorius and McKenzie hold a trove of knowledge and know-how between them, precious commodities that mid-table entities like South Africa can ill afford to lose.

The return of Walter — South Africa’s strength and conditioning expert from 2009 to 2013 who turned his hand to coaching and won three trophies with the Titans’ from 2013/14 to 2015/16 before moving to New Zealand in 2016 — helps balance that equation. He is one of few who have come back. Conrad, who presided over four franchise championships with the Lions and Cobras from 2002/03 to 2009/10 and coached South Africa to seventh place out of 16 teams at the 2022 under-19 World Cup in West Indies, has remained loyal to the game in his home country save for short stints in Uganda. But the trend is firmly in the other direction. Why? “CSA pay peanuts, tie your hands behind your back and expect miracles,” a source with intimate knowledge of the structures told Cricbuzz.

That South Africa have lost 10 of their last 15 matches across the formats won’t help CSA, and by extension Conrad and Walter, hang onto the talent they will need to try and make their teams attractive options for coaches and players who don’t want for other, better offers. The reality is that prospects like Dewald Brevis, who at 19 has become a household name for his exploits in T20 leagues, don’t need South African cricket to forge long, successful and prosperous careers. In his first three innings in the SA20, one of them a duck, Brevis scored 112 runs at a strike rate of 145.45. What are the suits doing about ensuring he plays like that for South Africa?

“There’s a lot of noise around Brevis,” Enoch Nkwe, CSA’s director of cricket, told a press conference on Monday. “We know how good he is. We might have to do the David Warner type of approach. We understand someone like Brevis has a lot of cricket to play. How do we get him to that longer format? We know that he can offer a lot to South African cricket.”

The analogy isn’t perfect. Warner made his T20I and ODI debuts without having played a first-class match, and he had just 11 first-class games under his belt when he turned out in a Test. But by then he had 40 white-ball caps for Australia. Brevis has featured in six list A games and has yet to play at first-class level, nevermind for South Africa at anything higher than under-19 level. If CSA want to give him reason to believe he is in their plans they had better pick him soon, whatever the format. The ODIs against England, and two more WCSL games against the Netherlands in Benoni and at the Wanderers on March 31 and April 2, would seem good opportunities.

Conrad and Walter will be under pressure from the start of their tenures. The Test team must win both games against West Indies to retain a fading hope of reaching the WTC final at the Oval in June. More realistically, Walter’s side are likely to need to win at least three of their five matches against England and the Dutch to be confident of direct qualification for the World Cup in India in October and November. “All the energy and focus is going to be ensuring that we qualify for the World Cup, and then get to the World Cup and do our best without losing sight of the bigger picture,” Nkwe said.

What picture could be bigger, for an ODI side, than the 2023 World Cup? The 2027 World Cup, which will be played in South Africa. CSA have hitched their wagon to that tournament in no uncertain terms, as Nkwe made plain: “It’s a massive goal, a massive milestone for us as a country. It is a must-win. All the investment, all the energies, all the focus are going to be geared towards 2027. We will have opportunities to win T20 World Cups, Champions Trophies, and World Test Championships but the focus is the 2027 World Cup.”

South Africa have never reached the final of a senior World Cup, much less won a trophy. What happens if they don’t triumph in 2027? On a day when CSA were looking ahead with hope for a brighter future, but not that far ahead, it would have been rude to ask.

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Crouch, catch and keep the faith

“I always like to be involved in the game and the reality is I’m not very good at bowling.” – Kyle Verreynne

Telford Vice / Seville

ARE you or have you ever been a wicketkeeper? Several people who were in the Oval’s dressing rooms for the third Test between England and South Africa could answer in the affirmative. There’s Ben Foakes and Kyle Verreynne, of course. But also Brendon McCullum and Mark Boucher. And a fair few more where they come from.

Ollie Pope has kept in 134 matches, seven of them first-class for Surrey, England Lions and England — the latter in a Test in Hamilton in 2019. Ben Duckett’s 162 games as a stumper include 13 at first-class level for Northamptonshire. Jack Leach donned the gloves and pads for Somerset’s under-17 side in 2008. In the same match, he bowled 22 overs, batted at No. 3, and captained. Ollie Robinson didn’t do quite as much for Kent under-13s in 2006, when he kept and bowled four overs. But he kept, bowled 24 and 13 overs, and batted at No. 5 for Surrey’s second XI in 2016. Robinson’s not to be confused with the other Ollie Robinson — Oliver George rather than Oliver Edward — who is also a product of Kent, but a career keeper who has been in gloves and pads for 244 of his 286 games, 39 of them first-class, going back to his under-13 days.

Harry Brook, Zak Crawley and Alex Lees each had a game behind the stumps for the Yorkshire and Kent junior representative teams. Lees bowled two overs during his. Joe Root featured in two games as a keeper for Sheffield Collegiate in 2007 and 2008. England have a wicketkeeping coach: James Foster played seven Tests in the position in 2001 and 2002.

Keegan Petersen has been the designated keeper in 10 first-class matches for the Cobras, the Knights, Northern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal Coastal, and Ryan Rickelton in 24 for the Lions and Gauteng. Aiden Markram kept in two games during the 2014 under-19 World Cup. Wiaan Mulder did so in five games for Gauteng’s under-13 side in 2011. As did Glenton Stuurman for South Western Districts in an under-19 game in 2010, when he also opened the batting, and in a match for Balderton — a Nottingham club — in 2016, when he batted at No. 3 and captained the side.

Were it not for the dangerous game of golf, Jonny Bairstow also would have been in the Oval frame with his 139 first-class appearances as a wicketkeeper, 49 of them Tests. He was removed from the equation for the Oval Test by a leg injury sustained on a course near Harrogate seven days before the start of the match.

That almost half the players in the England and South Africa squads — 15 out of the 31 — have wicketkeeping experience, however removed from the senior stage, is the answer to a stinker of a pub quiz question. Another is whether keepers see the game differently, in the way that baseball catchers do because, as former MLB catcher Jeff Torborg famously said, “There must be some reason we’re the only ones facing the other way.”

The issue was more complex in cricket, as Verreynne told Cricbuzz: “Out of 11 players in the team there are probably 11 different views on how the game is going. As a keeper you probably see things differently, but the slips will have a similar view. From reading the game and seeing where it’s at and how the pitch is playing, what the ball’s doing, what the bowler’s trying to do, how the batter’s setting up; all of those things, as a keeper you’ve got one of the best views of all of that. That allows you to add value.”

Measuring that value isn’t straightforward. According to Rivash Gobind, South Africa’s analyst, Verreynne collected 152 of the 271 legal deliveries that were bowled to England’s batters in the first Test. Seventy of them were left alone, and 82 were played at and missed. The equation changed at Old Trafford, where Verreynne dealt with 108 of 640 balls, 56 of them left and 52 missed. He also took six catches and claimed a stumping. So almost 30% of all the balls bowled to English players in the first two Tests became his responsibility. Without a wicketkeeper to stop those deliveries going to the boundary, England would have scored 1,068 more runs than the 729 they made. Maybe that’s how a keeper’s worth should be calculated.

How Ben Stokes isn’t on the list of once were wicketkeepers in the series is as good a question as any considering the gloves are often worn, particularly at lower levels, by the best player in the side or the best athlete; regardless of keeping aptitude. And Stokes is a freakishly gifted player and athlete.

Too gifted, perhaps, for the working class heroism of keeping wicket. The labour of even the most elite keepers tends to go if not unnoticed then under-noticed. Perhaps that’s because they are seen as batters first and stumpers second. It wasn’t always that way. Of the 285 men who have served as the designated keeper in Tests, 181 have never scored a century at that level. Only seven of the 285 — 3.87% — have played a Test in the 2020s.

Test cricket has fallen out of love with keepers like Wasim Bari, Deryck Murray and Niroshan Dickwella — who have had 112, 96 and 92 innings without scoring a century — and become drawn to the likes of Andy Flower, Kumar Sangakkara, MS Dhoni, Mushfiqur Rahim, Taslim Arif, Imtiaz Ahmed, BJ Watling, Adam Gilchrist and Brendon Kuruppu, who have each scored a double century and made 60 hundreds between them. Dickwella is a throwback in that he is still at it, whereas Bari had his last Test as a keeper in 1984 and Murray in 1980. The trailblazer for the modern trend was Ahmed, who played all of his 41 Tests between 1952 and 1962.

Foakes and Verreynne are members in good standing of the stumpers’ century society. Foakes made 107 on debut in Galle in 2018 and 113 not out at Old Trafford in the second Test against South Africa, and Verreynne scored an undefeated 136 in Christchurch in February. But the England-South Africa series was unusual in that, unlike many of their peers, who came to keeping after making a name for themselves with the bat, Foakes and Verreynne have been there since they were about as tall as the stumps themselves.

“It started for me as an under-10, where it’s all about giving everyone equal opportunity,” Verreynne said. “In my first two or three games of hard-ball cricket, I opened the bowling and the batting. I don’t know how I opened the bowling, but I did. But the coach realised he couldn’t let me do everything. He said he needed to give the other guys opportunities. So I needed to choose if I wanted to bat high in the order and not bowl as much, or bowl and not bat as much. I chose batting. But I found myself pretty bored standing in the field. I asked, seeing as I wasn’t bowling much, if I could keep. He said sure. From the next game I kept, and ever since then I’ve been a keeper.”

Sixteen years on, Verreynne hasn’t changed his mind: “You definitely go through times when keeping isn’t as fun, but I always like to be involved in the game and the reality is I’m not very good at bowling. In the field, you go through phases where you’re standing on the boundary or in the covers, and not much is happening. It’s always enjoyable being on the field, but it’s a lot more enjoyable knowing that you’re in the game every single ball and you’ve got a chance to make a difference and make an impact. Keeping is hard work, but I’d rather have that than standing in the outfield waiting for something to happen.”

Foakes first kept wicket as an under-12, and was proclaimed as “the best wicketkeeper in the world” four years ago by no less than Alec Stewart, who played 303 internationals for England across the formats, 220 of them as a keeper and 51 as a captain and keeper. Besides, Foakes looks the part — all subtle, silky movements and artful crumpling of his lanky frame. That smooths over the fact that, at 1.85 metres, he is taller than many who spend most of their working lives in a crouch. Verreynne is 10 centimetres shorter than Foakes, and consequently has to act more emphatically to haul in more wayward deliveries. “You get guys who are tall who can move a lot better than I can, and you get short guys who can jump a lot higher than I can,” Verreynne said. Still, there was little to separate Foakes and Verreynne in overall effectiveness during the series. Foakes conceded 15 byes in the rubber and Verreynne 14. Each dropped a catch.

Did Verreynne take notes on his counterpart? “He’s tall and has good reach. I’m quite short and I don’t have reach as good as his. So it’s difficult to implement what he does because our styles of keeping are very different and we have different assets. But I have picked up a few things. There’s nothing specific, but I’ve seen that he’s done a lot of work on the wobbling ball and the ball that swings after it passes the bat.”

The Oval Test was Verreynne’s 57th first-class match behind the stumps and his 11th Test, and Foakes’ 104th and 17th, a difference not lost on Dean Elgar, who said of Verreynne: “He’s learning his trade at the toughest level, and he’s getting better every time I see him prepare or play. It’s nice to have a guy who’s young and still pushing the boundaries for himself. You can see he’s doing things that no-one is telling him to do, and his keeping is unreal. He’s a really good team guy and everyone loves him.”

Charl Langeveldt, South Africa’s bowling coach, agreed that bowlers gained confidence from knowing they had a pro behind the stumps: “I’ve seen a lot of keepers come to England over the years and struggle, especially on their first tour. And nevermind the bouncers Anrich Nortjé bowls. I need to get Kyle a ladder! He’s been excellent, especially when the ball has gone down leg and when he has had to dive forward.”

Mark Boucher was a case study in a keeper undone by English conditions. In his first Test series there, in 1998, he dived one way while the ball veered the other after pitching often enough for Jonathan Agnew to lament on commentary, “Poor old Boucher.” The byes mounted to 89 — 8.9 per innings. But keepers tend to be quick learners: when Boucher was next in England, in 2003, he kept the byes down to 37 — 4.63 per innings. In 2008, that shrank to 25 — 3.13 per innings.

Boucher learnt a few things to pass down to Verreynne. Who needs a keeping coach when the head coach has been there for 147 Tests? “His experience in England gives him valuable input that he’s been giving me,” Verreynne said. “I’ve tried to tap into him as much as possible; what worked for him, what didn’t work for him.” But Verreynne understood that the buck — even the ball — stopped with him, physically and mentally: “Coming to England I was aware of what the conditions were going to be like. It’s been about me putting in as much preparation as I possibly can. Something ‘Bouch’ has mentioned quite a bit to me is, you are going to make mistakes. What’s important is that you are able to put them behind you and focus on the next ball.”

Verreynne’s performance was remarkable considering his previous keeping experience in England amounted to a single T20 for North Devon in 2016. How had he made the required adjustment? “I’ve spent more time than usual on my keeping in England. When you’re in South Africa there’s not as much wobble and swing after the bat. I wouldn’t spend as much time on keeping as I have here, where keeping is as much if not more of a focus than batting.”

Like most aspects of fielding, keeping can be learnt. Hence the fashion for turning batters into keepers. Boucher, for instance, was a batter until his penultimate year of high school. But keepers wouldn’t get far without showing, early on, a gift for the role. Which mattered more, technique or talent? “Technically it’s important that you have a few things covered,” Verreynne said. “But keeping is instinctive. You have a feeling for what the pitch is playing like, what the ball is doing. You allow your instincts to take over in terms of where you’re standing and how you’re trying to catch the ball and position yourself. But there’s value in having a good technical base.”

Verreynne didn’t value giving opponents lip: “With stumps mics, the game has moved away from personal abuse and sledging. I’m not going to get engaged in on-field conflicts. I try and focus on having good energy and keeping the team going. I make sure everyone is switched on at all times, and in the right fielding position and aware of the plans. Being noisy and getting in the batter’s face isn’t me.”

He will likely be South Africa’s keeper in their series in Australia in December and January. Given the Aussies’ propensity for verbal violence, Verreynne’s opinion on that part of the keeper’s craft is sure to be tested.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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The thread connecting spiders and fast bowlers

“Eighteen consecutive dot balls gets us a wicket. We’re a new group, so if we can get 16 I’ll be happy. But 18 is the benchmark.” – Charl Langeveldt

Telford Vice / London

SLOWLY and stealthily, but also steadily, a beautiful, black spider made its way, on a single silken thread, downward from the ceiling inside a stand at the Vauxhall End at the Oval on Sunday. Its focus seemed unshakeable, its apparent goal a nice dark spot on the carpet where it could lurk in wait of some hapless insect. It looked, like all spiders do, threatening. But also patient.

Maybe it had been put through its paces by Charl Langeveldt, who, in conversation with reporters at the other end of the ground a few minutes later, delivered what could be called a paean to persistence: “Eighteen consecutive dot balls gets us a wicket, but if you have two or three soft balls you let the pressure go. We want to bowl better from both ends. It’s no use one guy’s bowling well from one end and we’re leaking soft boundaries from the other. That’s how we release the pressure.

“When you play against teams who score quickly you want to restrict the runrate. If you get, more or less, 18 balls in a good area and ask good questions — by bowling dot balls — you’ll get a wicket. We’re a new group and we’ve worked hard on it, so if we can get 16 I’ll be happy. But 18 is the benchmark.”

England faced 1,136 deliveries in the first two Tests, which translates into just more than 63 opportunities for South Africa to have sent down 18 scoreless balls. They didn’t do so once. The closest they’ve come is the 15 scoreless balls Keshav Maharaj and Simon Harmer bowled to the Bens, Foakes and Stokes, during the second Test at Old Trafford last month.

That didn’t deter a pair who had been together for 174 deliveries by the time their dry spell started, and would bat on for another 134 balls before they were separated having shared 173 off 324 for the sixth wicket: the only century stand of the series as well as the longest partnership of the rubber. It was ended by Stokes’ dismissal for 103 when he skied Kagiso Rabada to cover. Foakes made an undefeated 113, and helped squeeze out another 95 runs with Nos. 9, 10 and 11 before Stokes declared.

What difference might another few consecutive dots have made? Who can say, but the partnership was key to England winning by an innings and 85 runs in three days to level the series. Had South Africa been able to apply enough of the right kind of pressure to snuff out the stand early, they might at the least have been carried into the decider at the Oval on Thursday on the cushion of the lead they took by winning the first Test at Lord’s by an innings and a dozen runs inside three days.

Instead, the momentum is with the home side and the pressure is on the visitors. Or is it? Eleven days will have passed between deliveries when the first ball is bowled on Thursday. By then, the South Africans could have found ways to iron out the kinks in a batting line-up that was dismissed for 151 and 179 in Manchester and remembered how to bowl like they did to remove England for 165 and 149 at Lord’s.

Of course, the English could achieve the converse. But their chances would seem to have been dealt a severe blow by the removal from the equation of Jonny Bairstow, who suffered a serious leg injury while playing, of all things, golf. The damage caused by Bairstow’s slip as he approached a tee box at Pannal Golf Club, near Harrogate, on Friday requires surgical repair and could sideline him for a year. “Their middle order is their strength,” Langeveldt said. “I don’t want to speak about Bairstow but … I’m not going to say anything. I hope he recovers quickly.”

Bairstow is the top run-scorer in Test cricket this year, and went into the series having made four centuries and 71 not out in his previous five innings. He has been replaced in the squad by Ben Duckett, who last played a first-class match in July, when he made seven and nought for Nottinghamshire against Sussex at Trent Bridge. But Duckett has scored 1,012 runs at 72.28 in 14 innings in the county championship second division this season. Among his three centuries was an effort of 241 against Derbyshire in Derby, also in July.

Like their opponents, South Africa took to the golf course during the break. Unlike them they have returned unscathed. That’s significant particularly because they will have to replace Rassie van der Dussen, who fractured a finger in the field at Old Trafford. He scored 134 in 37-degree Celsius heat to anchor South Africa’s 62-run win in the first ODI in Durham in July, but has struggled to get going since — making 116 runs in seven international innings. Wiaan Mulder has been summoned into the squad, and Khaya Zondo or Ryan Rickleton could step into the breach.

“We took a few days off and the guys regrouped,” Langeveldt said during Sunday’s training session, South Africa’s first since Manchester. “Yesterday we came back, and it’s back to work. Mentally, we need to be fresh for the next game. They outplayed us in the last game. We didn’t speak much about the game, but the guys could get away from cricket. It’s been a long tour for both the coaches or the players.”

It started in the second week of July, and the South Africans have proved several times since that they have the bowling resources to hold their own against opponents who have built their game on overtly aggressive batting. When the visitors have come unstuck, batting has been their main problem.

Langeveldt was a fine fast bowler and is an excellent bowling coach. But he never batted higher than No. 9 in his 28 innings across the formats for South Africa. He took guard at No. 11 16 times, and reached double figures only thrice. Did he think it odd that he should be wheeled out to explain South Africa’s batting failures?

“No. It’s nothing like that. I just think that whatever score we get gives our bowlers something to bowl at. I’m not a batting coach, but we’ve come a long way with our batting. Whenever we get the runs on the board, we’ve got the bowlers to put opponents under pressure.”

But he was on more solid ground talking about bowling and bowlers, including England’s: “They’re relentless. They give you nothing and ask good questions. Ollie Robinson’s got bounce, he’s got good control. With the new ball he asked a lot of questions. If you don’t have the right answers he will expose you. I can’t comment on Stuart Broad — the man’s taken a lot of wickets.” What of 40-year-old James Anderson? Might he keep bowling forever? “Definitely in England.”

In Langeveldt’s own dressing room, Lungi Ngidi has stuck out for the intelligence and insight he has brought to the role of keeping it tight in a pace attack that bristles with Rabada, Anrich Nortjé and Marco Jansen. “Lungi’s impressed me,” Langeveldt said. “He went to the IPL, and I told him to work on his fitness and on getting his action repeatable over and over — try to get the release point right. Some days we need him to attack, but his control gives us another option. If you’re not getting wickets you’re keeping the runrate down. His pace has been up and he’s really bowled well for us.”

Ngidi came back from the IPL with a slower ball that has flummoxed most of those who have faced him. Was that Langeveldt’s doing? “He spent a lot of time with Dwayne Bravo and he’s really worked on that slower ball. We’ve been working on his wide yorker, his straight yorker and his slower ball bouncer. But he’s come a long way with his slower ball. People really struggle to pick it up.”

Ngidi was in Delhi Capitals’ squad in this year’s IPL but did not feature in a single match. Bravo played 10 games for Chennai Super Kings. Even so, the silken thread that connects all threatening but patient fast bowlers held strong.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Covid rejigs South Africa XI

“The two players are currently in quarantine at the team hotel and are under the care of the team’s medical staff,” Shuaib Manjra, CSA chief medical officer

Telford Vice | St George’s Park

COVID-19 has taken a further toll on the second Test between South Africa and Bangladesh in Gqeberha, with Sarel Erwee and Wiaan Mulder contracting the disease. They have been replaced in the home XI for the rest of the match by Khaya Zondo and Glenton Stuurman.

A CSA release on Monday quoted chief medical officer Shuaib Manjra as saying: “This is an unfortunate situation, but not unexpected after the decision was made to have this tour under the managed event environment protocol, rather than the strict bio-safe environment protocol as was previously the case. This is in line with the country’s policy in revoking the Disaster Management Act with reference to the pandemic, as well the huge mental strain that a bubble environment induces.”

Erwee and Mulder reported feeling ill, and tested positive on Monday. “The two players are currently in quarantine at the team hotel and are under the care of the team’s medical staff,” Manjra was quoted as saying.

Bangladesh head coach Russell Domingo, who lives in Gqeberha when he is not with the team, is not at St George’s Park because he has come down with coronavirus. South Africa bowling coach Charl Langeveldt and Zunaid Wadee, the team’s security officer, caught Covid during the first Test in Durban and are also not at the current match.

Zondo, who has played six ODIs, makes his debut in the format while Stuurman, who played his first Test in Christchurch in February, earns a second cap. With the match in its fourth innings and Bangladesh at the crease, batter Zondo is unlikely to have much to do. Fast bowler Stuurman, too, might not see much action considering the amount of turn on offer.

The St George’s Park Test is South Africa’s last engagement of the summer, which should help allay fears over the virus spreading through the camp.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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What happens when coaches are absent?

“Everyone shares knowledge among each other.” – Sarel Erwee on how South Africa are coping without their bowling coach.

Telford Vice | St George’s Park

WHAT difference does a coach make at elite level? It’s one of sport’s more unanswerable questions, and more so in cricket — where at least as many decisions are made on the field as in the dressing room. Given how prominent statistical analysis is becoming in the game, we may yet be able to measure that part of this piece of string.

For now, all we have are theory and supposition. So the segue on the subject offered by the curious circumstances of the St George’s Park Test is intriguing: what happens to teams when coaches are absent? Russell Domingo, Bangladesh’s head coach, isn’t at the ground. Neither is Charl Langeveldt, South Africa’s bowling coach.

Domingo, a Gqeberha native who still lives in the city when he isn’t in a Tigers tracksuit, travelled here from Durban the day before the squad to visit family and friends. And a good thing, too: he tested positive for Covid-19 on Friday, and might well have taken a few players or other members of the support staff down that path with him had they been sat next to them on a plane on a flight of 90 minutes.

Confirmation that Langeveldt had contracted the same disease, along with Zunaid Wadee, South Africa’s security officer, was also had on Friday. Their symptoms were not serious, and they chose to drive together from Durban to their homes in Paarl and Cape Town. They were involved in a crash near their destinations, but were not badly injured.

Domingo, Langeveldt and Wadee are resting and recuperating at their respective homes, and expected to make full recoveries. Their experience triggered the more relaxed coronavirus protocols agreed between CSA and the BCB before the series, but no rules appear to have been broken. Less certain is whether the teams have been affected by the absence of their coaches.

Mominul Haque ignored Domingo’s advice to bat first at Kingsmead, a decision that doubtless led to Bangladesh’s dismissal for 53 in the fourth innings. This time, the choice was taken out of Mominul’s hands because Dean Elgar won the toss. But it would have been Mominul who decided to station himself at the unusual position of short mid-on on Sunday, when he took the catches that did for Sarel Erwee and Ryan Rickelton in South Africa’s second innings.

Langeveldt often has a noticeable positive effect on the bowlers he coaches, usually in a skill sense. When he comes on board, his charges are soon equipped with new deliveries and subtle variations to their existing repertoires. South Africa’s attack are unlikely to lose what Langeveldt has given them in the space of one Test, but his keen eye for detail wouldn’t have gone amiss.

How have South Africa made do without him? “We’ve got experienced guys in our team, experienced coaches as well,” Sarel Erwee told a press conference. “So everyone shares knowledge among each other, especially the bowling unit. Yes, we’re missing our bowling coach and we wish him well. But we’ve got other guys helping out and it’s going well so far.”

In contrast to Langeveldt, Allan Donald, his Bangladesh counterpart, tends to emphasise aggression, an argument that isn’t difficult to make on the evidence of the attitude the visitors’ fast bowlers have brought to this series.

Not that it’s helped the visitors much. Maybe coaches matter more when teams are well-matched, when the smallest advantage could be what wins games. That isn’t the case this time, with South Africa steaming towards a 2-0 series win.

Going into the fourth day, Bangladesh need 386 more runs to reach their target of 413, which would be the highest successful chase in a Test in South Africa and the third-highest in history. The most runs yet reeled in to win at St George’s Park is the 271/8 Australia made in March 1997. South Africa’s 215/5 against New Zealand in February 1954 is the only other instance of a target of 200 or more being overhauled in Gqeberha.

South Africa reached this happy place by piling up 453 — only their second effort of 450 or more in their last 19 Tests — and then keeping the pressure on to dismiss Bangladesh 236 runs behind. The follow-on was not enforced, and South Africa batted into the second hour after tea before declaring. Then, with Keshav Maharaj and Simon Harmer sharing the new ball, as was the case at Kingsmead, they sent the visitors spiralling to 27/3 in the 9.1 overs they faced before stumps.

Ripping turn from both ends to tentative batters under the glowing floodlights as the sunset draped itself over the sky to the west made for a dramatic spectacle. How did openers feel about that scenario? “We experienced it last week in Durban, and it makes your heart flutter,” Erwee said. “It’s not a nice period. We’ve got two world-class spinners, and it makes it even worse if you’re got to go face them.”

Erwee’s burgeoning partnership with Elgar is having a significant impact on South Africa’s performances. They have opened the batting only eight times, but already they have mounted two century stands and two more of more than 50. Six of the side’s other first-wicket pairs never scored as many as the 397 runs Elgar and Erwee have made together despite having as many or more opportunities to do so.

“We share a good relationship off the field, so you get to know each other and what makes each other tick,” Erwee said about Elgar. “Taking that off-field relationship onto the field makes you understand your partner better.”

Good coaches know better than to get in the way of the development of that kind of healthy bond. Maybe that’s the key to their role at this level: understanding when to get out of the way.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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No Taylor, Williamson, Boult. No worries?

South Africa would be well advised not to expect a lesser examination in the absence of the supernova stars.

Telford Vice | Cape Town

TWO New Zealanders walk into a bar. One sits down at a table near the door, and says to the other, “Get us a beer, will ya?” The other replies, “Mate, your legs aren’t painted on.” Translation: what makes you so special that you don’t have to walk to the counter to order your own drinks?

Kiwis seem to be born with an innate sense of equality. We’re all the same, mate. No-one is better than anyone else, and we’ll bloody-well make sure they know it. No-one is spared. Martin Crowe, for instance, was a victim of “tall poppy syndrome”, which demanded that prominent figures be taken down a peg or two. That happened because, along with his specialness as a cricketer, Crowe was unusually and unapologetically unorthodox in his way of being part of the wider world. Can’t have that, mate. The corrective action involved slurring Crowe with the term used by New Zealanders who don’t live in the country’s biggest city to denigrate those who do: “Jafa”. It stands for “just another fucking Aucklander”.

Happily, this unhealthy tendency has diminished. New Zealanders seem to have come round to the idea that while stars shouldn’t be polished beyond their deserved lustre, they should be allowed to shine their natural brightest without being cynically tarnished. Recalcitrants will be tested during the Test series against South Africa in Christchurch, which starts on Thursday. Because Ross Taylor, Kane Williamson and Trent Boult, the supernova stars of this generation of New Zealand’s players, will not be in the XI. Taylor has retired, Williamson is nursing a chronic elbow injury, and Boult is about to become a father and will miss the first of the two matches.

Since Taylor, the senior among those three, made his debut in November 2007, he and Williamson have scored more than a quarter of their team’s total runs. Williamson’s 7,272 and Taylor’s 7,046 allow them to tower over the third name on the list, Brendon McCullum, who made almost three-quarters of his career aggregate of 6,453 once Taylor’s career had begun. Taylor and Williamson are, in that order, New Zealand’s all-time highest run-scorers. New Zealand haven’t played a Test without both of them since January 2008. That’s 117 Tests ago, of which Taylor has featured in 110 and Williamson in 86.

No New Zealander has taken more wickets than Boult’s 301 — more than a fifth of the Kiwis’ total during his career — since he made his debut in December 2011. Boult is behind Richard Hadlee, Daniel Vettori and Tim Southee on New Zealand’s all-time list of wicket-takers, but he has bowled between 11,963 and 2,137 fewer deliveries than them. Remarkably for a fast bowler, Boult has missed only 11 of the 86 Tests New Zealand have played since he earned his first cap.

New Zealand have won 44 and lost 41 of Taylor’s Tests. Those figures become 37 and 28 for Williamson and 38 and 23 for Boult. But it’s as part of a united force that the three players’ worth is most apparent: the Kiwis have won 35 and lost 17 of the 64 matches in which their XI has been studded with Taylor, Williamson and Boult. That’s a winning percentage of 54.69. Before the Taylor-Williamson-Boult era, New Zealand won just 18.76% of their Tests. In before and after terms, they are 36.02% more successful when the trio have been in action compared to previously. Pertinently, they featured in seven of the nine victories New Zealand earned in the 16 matches they have played in the World Test Championship (WCT). With weird symmetry, Taylor and Williamson are both sixth on the list of run-scorers worldwide measured from their debuts, and Boult is sixth among the wicket-takers.

Whichever way you spin the numbers, the three Kiwis are giants of the modern game. But New Zealand are hardly pushovers when those players don’t make their presence felt more strongly than their teammates. That much was made plain during the inaugural WCT final in Southampton in June last year. Boult was tight but not especially successful in taking 2/47 in India’s first innings of 217, in which Kyle Jamieson claimed 5/31. Williamson and Taylor made 49 and 11 in their side’s reply of 249, which was led by Devon Conway’s 54. Boult took 3/39 in the second innings, but Southee banked 4/48. Even so, Williamson and Taylor did show their class in chasing down the target of 139 with an unbroken stand of 96. Williamson made 52 not out and Taylor was unbeaten on 47.

So the South Africans would be well advised not to expect a lesser examination on Thursday. By the sound of bowling coach Charl Langeveldt’s rumination on Hagley Oval’s famously green and grassy pitch, the visitors are indeed wise to the subtleties of the challenge ahead of them: “It can be misleading. That’s how New Zealand wickets are. It looks green, and probably with the new ball it will swing and seam. But it gets easier once the ball gets old. We spoke long and hard about it when we got here. The discussion was about getting used to the overcast conditions, too. When the sun is out, it’s easier [to bat] — the ball doesn’t swing and nip, the colour of the grass changes. But we will focus on bowling fuller. We need to make them play with the new ball. It’s all about being adaptable.”

Even the fact that Tom Latham has presided over only three wins in his six Tests as Williamson’s understudy as captain shouldn’t be taken as an obvious chink in the home side’s armour. In January, six days after Latham had scored one and 14 in Bangladesh’s shock eight-wicket win in Mount Maunganui, he led his team to victory by an innings at Hagley Oval, his home ground. Latham made 252, his sixth century and second double hundred in his last 39 Test innings. Clearly, his legs aren’t painted on.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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SA cricket: febrile, dishonest, sad

“I couldn’t be bothered with all this stuff. It’s bullshit that CSA want to do all this years later.” – a former South Africa player, who is not white, on the SJN.

Telford Vice | Cape Town

PAUL Adams played Test cricket with 37 different teammates and ODIs with 41 in an international career that lasted from December 1995 to March 2004, during which he said he was referred to as “brown shit” in a dressingroom song.

Mark Boucher, who played with Adams in both formats, has admitted joining in the singing of the song, which was part of fines meetings. Consequently Boucher has been slammed for his role in maintaining South Africa’s previous team culture, which testimony at CSA’s Social Justice and Nation-building (SJN) hearings has exposed as divisive and racist.

No-one else has acknowledged their involvement, perhaps because no-one else has come under pressure to do so. Boucher’s name was raised at the hearings in connection with the song because he is currently South Africa’s coach. Outrage duly followed: should the national team be entrusted to someone with that kind of skeleton in their closet?

In a detailed 14-page affidavit given to the SJN and made public, Boucher has apologised. Whether he did so in the interests of keeping his job is moot. What matters is that this is the first submission from those implicated at the SJN to see the light of day. Finally, we have a breakthrough. And a conversation. Previously we had a succession of disturbing claims of experiences of racism. The SJN can make no progress in helping to resolve South African cricket’s deep, damaging and ongoing problems with race if it is an echo chamber.

So, what of the other players with whom Adams shared a dressingroom, particularly those who are also in CSA’s systems and should thus be under the same imperative as Boucher to explain themselves? They are board member Andrew Hudson, director of cricket Graeme Smith, convenor of selectors Victor Mpitsang, batting lead Neil McKenzie, and South Africa’s bowling and fielding coaches, Charl Langeveldt and Justin Ontong. Adams was also part of South Africa teams that included Allan Donald and Robin Peterson, the Knights and the Warriors head coaches.

Of those eight, only Ontong seems in the clear unequivocally. Fines meetings are usually held after a team have won a match or a series, and Ontong and Adams never played a Test together and were part of only one ODI XI — against Sri Lanka in Tangier in August 2002, when South Africa lost. Cricbuzz attempted to contact the remaining seven former players to ask whether they had also sung the offensive song.

Mpitsang, whose only mutual selection with Adams was for an ODI against Kenya in Nairobi in September 1999, when South Africa won, said: “I was only part of the Proteas squad for a short time, so no.” Langeveldt, who also played a single ODI with Adams — against Zimbabwe in Cardiff in July 2003, when South Africa also won — said: “Me, personally, I’ve never called him ‘brown shit’.”

Four of the remaining five did not respond. The one who did talk declined to be named. He said: “It was such a long time ago and a lot of good things happened in our dressingroom back then. I cannot recall ever calling anyone ‘brown shit’. There is a lot of stuff coming out that is really damaging to our game at this time. I’m deeply saddened by all this. It’s ripping our game apart every day.”

How do you rip apart what was never together? It’s an indictment that as many as 33 of Adams’ 37 Test teammates were white, as were 35 of his 41 ODI comrades. Were the dressingrooms of his era darker the team culture would surely have been healthier, at least in racial terms. Instead, the only other black or brown players who turned out for South Africa alongside Adams were Herschelle Gibbs, Makhaya Ntini, Ashwell Prince, Robin Peterson and Roger Telemachus. The were all part of winning teams with Adams, and so should have attended fines meetings.

Whites can only imagine the trauma that would have been caused to black and brown players who were expected to sing a clearly racist, offensive, abusive song, and fearing that refusing to do so could mean losing their place in the team or even the squad.

Asked if they had been part of this nightmare, four of those five black and brown former players above did not respond or did not want to comment on the record. The only one who did said: “I couldn’t be bothered with all this stuff. It’s bullshit that CSA want to do all this years later.”

Say what you like about that, it’s honest. Cricket in South Africa has sunk into a febrile, dishonest, terrifying place. It stinks with lies, damned lies, statistics and an apparently bottomless pit of rabid opinion informed by little more than prejudice on all sides of every debate.

And that while Boucher and his squad are on their way to Sri Lanka to play six white-ball matches. They are without Enoch Nkwe, who was the team’s assistant coach until CSA announced his resignation on Tuesday night. “The board engaged with Enoch to explore whether there was a way to retain his services but this was unsuccessful,” a release said. “During these discussions he also raised concerns about the functioning and culture of the team environment.”

There’s that word again: culture. But not that other word: racism. Nkwe is a highly qualified, insightful, cerebral asset who — like Boucher — was successful at domestic level before he joined South Africa. He is also black, which has been enough for some to conjure a narrative that issues of race were part of his unhappiness. Nkwe has yet to say why he left, but it appears he was dissatisfied with the relatively minor role he played in the set-up and with aspects of team discipline. Crucially, Nkwe tended his resignation at the weekend — so probably not as a result of Boucher’s SJN submission, which was released on Monday.

All South Africans should be angry that a team that purported to represent them was riven with racism. Those who are not upset will struggle to avoid being labelled racist themselves, even if they argue that the current team has, under Boucher, done much to overcome their challenges.

Adams and Boucher both walked into a toxic team culture, but only the white players of that era had the power to change it. Sadly, they did not see the evil for what it was and work to eradicate it. That is their greatest failure.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Riots rip up SA’s script in Ireland

What do you represent, in this of all weeks, if your shirt reads “South Africa”?

Telford Vice | Cape Town

IT doesn’t take much for supporters to become unhappy with their teams: South Africa’s performance at Malahide on Tuesday gave their fans umpteen reasons to wonder whether the sky was falling. But teams aren’t often disturbed by the actions of their supporters, or of the people they purport to represent. South Africa are that rare team going into Friday’s third ODI against Ireland.

For days now riots have wracked Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal, the two most populous of the country’s nine provinces. At last count, more than 100 people had been killed and upwards of 2,000 arrested. The unrest was sparked by the jailing last Thursday of Jacob Zuma for contempt of court in the wake of his refusal to comply with a court order to testify at a judicial inquiry investigating state corruption from 2009 to 2018, when he was president.

Looting began with the poor breaking into shops to steal food and clothing, hardly surprising in the most unequal and one of the most unjust societies in the world. Soon people were rampaging through shopping malls in search of all manner of booty, including the kind only the affluent can afford. Matters took a darker turn when major infrastructure was targetted for destruction.

Food stores have been destroyed and medical facilities attacked, impacting South Africa’s already faltering attempts to combat Covid-19. Trucks taking vital fuel from South Africa’s major port in Durban to the economic engine of Johannesburg have been hijacked and set on fire. Many roads in those two cities are strewn with so much debris they are unusable by regular traffic.

Armed vigilante groups have formed to control access to their residential areas. They don’t hesitate to shoot at those who do not do their bidding. A mother was forced to throw her baby off a burning building, into the arms of bystanders. Mercifully, they caught the child. Other South Africans are holed up at home, terrified and praying the savagery doesn’t reach them. The most abhorrent racism is rampant on social media.

The police have proven themselves at best inept and at worst complicit: their vehicles have been seen, live on television, driving away from active crime scenes. On Monday Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa’s current president, announced the deployment of the army to quell the chaos. Not until Thursday did the havoc begin abating. But supermarket shelves are bare, petrol shortages loom, much needed facilities have been razed, and thousands of jobs are gone.

The latest published explanation is that powerful figures tried to use Zuma’s imprisonment to exploit South Africans’ crippling tribal and racial divides, and their toxic relationship with social media, to stoke insurrection. And that the blaze they ignited exploded beyond their control.

The rolling storm of violence has been at or near the top of international news bulletins, and so beamed in often graphic detail to Temba Bavuma and his squad in Dublin. If you were them, would you be proud — or even willing — to walk onto a field wearing a shirt reading “South Africa”? What, exactly, would you be representing? Should you be there at all, sheltered in a comfortable hotel and playing a mere game on a lush, manicured field, while swathes of your country are in flames lit by your compatriots? Who could think of cricket while that is happening, perhaps to people dear to you? Or being perpetrated by people you know?

Word from the South Africa camp is that the players and management are “extremely concerned and anxious”. Some have apparently been directly affected or have family that have been affected. Who are they and how had they been impacted? They won’t say, not least because that would be construed as an excuse.

It’s not difficult to understand why, because at times at Malahide on Tuesday it did seem as if the sky was falling on the South Africans. Asked during an online press conference on Thursday whether management were laying awake in their beds wondering what to do about the team’s poor showing, bowling coach Charl Langeveldt said: “Do you mean sleepless nights about the batting, the bowling or the fielding? … We have to get better in all three disciplines.”

He was more equivocal when asked if events at home had distracted the players, giving an answer that veered from references to bio-bubbles to changing time zones. But he also managed to say: “We’ve got families as well. It’s not an excuse. We still need to focus on the game.”

The contrast between the way South Africa played in the Caribbean in the preceding weeks — they won both Tests and prevailed in a decider to clinch a T20I series they started as underdogs — and the shambles of their 43-run loss on Tuesday, their first ever defeat by Ireland, is stark.

And that even though batting conditions are better at Malahide than they were in St Lucia or Grenada and that West Indies made for stronger white-ball opposition than the Irish. Might the crash in the visitors’ performance be ascribed to the fact that South Africa’s streets weren’t on fire while their men’s team was in the Caribbean? It’s hard to see how that is not the problem: not since the Soweto massacre of 1976 — before any of the current players were born — has their country seen this level of self-inflicted civil catastrophe.

That’s not to take away from Ireland’s clear superiority in all departments on Tuesday. They played an old-fashioned style of ODI cricket, following slow-burn batting with steady rather than spectacular bowling. The catches that came their way weren’t especially difficult, and they held them. No-one could have asked more of Andy Balbirnie’s team.

But they will ask for more on Friday. Another win and Ireland will have an unprecedented series victory over a team from a major Test-playing country. That would mobilise masses in other ways and other places: to celebrate in pubs all over the Emerald Isle.

When: Friday July 16, 2021. 10.45am Local Time

Where: Malahide, Dublin

What to expect: Decent weather, a touch of seam movement, some spin, and an Ireland team bent on making history.

Team news

Ireland: Changes? Whatever for?

Possible XI: Paul Stirling, Andy Balbirnie, Andy McBrine, Harry Tector, George Dockrell, Mark Adair, Curtis Campher, Lorcan Tucker, Simi Singh, Josh Little, Craig Young

South Africa: Quinton de Kock, who was rested for the first two ODIs, is set to return; probably at the expense of Aiden Markram. Not before time, Lizaad Williams seems set to get a game, maybe ahead of Andile Phehlukwayo.

Possible XI: Quinton de Kock, Janneman Malan, Temba Bavuma, Rassie van der Dussen, Kyle Verreynne, David Miller, Keshav Maharaj, Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortjé, Lizaad Williams, Tabraiz Shamsi

What they said

“It’s our first win against South Africa and it would be unprecedented to get a series win, but that will be our target on Friday. The guys have worked hard over the last 10 days and I’m excited to see what the confidence of this win can do moving forward.”— Andy Balbirnie dreams big, and why not.

“One of the things in the life of a sportsman is to quickly get stuff like this out of your head and look forward to your next challenge.” — Janneman Malan on South Africa’s performance on Tuesday, but the same applies to what’s been happening at home.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Lemonade, losses and lies: behind the Boucher brouhaha

“If I had to worry about public opinion I probably would have hanged myself a long time ago.” – Mark Boucher

Telford Vice | Cape Town

THERE’S a reason the breadless sandwich never caught on. And the perforated umbrella. Same applies to the square-wheeled bicycle. Similarly, the team South Africa were able to field against Pakistan is in the league of ideas whose time have yet to come.

As if sacrificing five key players to the Indian Premier League (IPL) after two of the seven matches wasn’t handicapping enough, they lost their captain to injury for the last four games and their most in form batter for two of them.

You can measure your depth in such circumstances but you cannot expect victory. So played seven, won two is a fair and predictable reflection against a side bristling with threats like Babar Azam, Fakhar Zaman, Mohammad Rizwan, Hasan Ali and Shaheen Shah Afridi. Take those players out of Pakistan’s XI and see how they fare.

Even so, it’s Mark Boucher’s job to make lemonade from the lemons he has been given. And they aren’t bad lemons. Aiden Markram reeled off a hattrick of half-centuries in the T20Is, where Lizaad Williams took seven wickets and added plenty of zest, and George Linde burnished his allrounder credentials. But the lemonade they made, now that’s another matter.

“Although we lost as a team there were some fantastic individual performances we can be very proud of,” Boucher told an online press conference on Friday after Pakistan clinched a T20I series in South Africa for the first time. “We can see the next group of players are a little bit rough around the edges. They perform well in certain pockets of the game. But in international cricket you’ve got to have more of an allround, polished game in order to win.

“We’ve lost a couple of series. There’s been reasons for that. I’m not going to make any excuses. We’ve still got to try and win with whatever side we put out on the park. It has been quite tough but there’s a lot of positives. I’ve got a fair idea of the enlarged squad we can look at. I’m pretty sure every player in that squad will be able to match international standards.”

All well and good, but this goes deeper than that. South Africa were in trouble long before Quinton de Kock, David Miller, Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi and Anrich Nortjé left for the IPL, and before Temba Bavuma and Rassie van der Dussen were injured.

There’s a narrative seeping through South African cricket that this is chiefly Boucher’s fault. Since he was appointed coach in December 2019 his team have lost eight of 11 series across the formats. That is an unimpeachable fact, but the bigger truth is that South Africa have been on the skids since the 2019 World Cup. Including that tournament, they have won only 16 of their last 45 completed matches. Or two of 14 series, if we include the World Cup.

And who has been the coach who has presided over those victories, South Africa’s sole successes in almost two years? Boucher. You won’t hear that, or any objective view of the performance of Ottis Gibson and Enoch Nkwe, the coaches who came before him, in the deluge of dishonesty that is being poured, disingenuously, over Boucher’s head. That wouldn’t fit the conspiracy theory that he was appointed solely because Graeme Smith is his big mate, and is being exposed as unfit for the job. Indeed, Boucher is the worst thing to happen to South African cricket since forever. It might be worth asking these people who really killed JFK, or who stands to gain the most from vaccinating the global population against Covid-19. Then again, maybe not. They would shout only one answer: “Boucher!”

The flags were flying at half-mast from these faulty ivory towers again on Friday, when Boucher’s press conference — publication of which was originally embargoed to 9.30am (IST) on Saturday — was pushed back to 8.30pm (IST). This was done at the request of reporters writing for Sunday newspapers, who hoped to have something fresher for their publications than comments that would be stale by the time their papers hit the streets. But no sooner had the embargo been changed than the reason for that happening was fictionalised on social media as some sort of official attempt to shield Boucher from criticism. The post was taken down, though without apology or explanation. And an untruth made it halfway around the world before the truth got its pants on.

The hate — and it is nothing short of hate — directed Boucher’s way is entwined with South Africa’s poisoned race politics. He is white, as is Smith. Most of the criticism coming their way emanates from black and brown quarters. South Africa have been poor in all three disciplines against Pakistan, but it seems only Boucher is to blame. Charl Langeveldt and Justin Ontong, the bowling and fielding coaches, have somehow escaped having their abilities questioned. Both are brown.

Other South Africans regards themselves, wholly erroneously, as the start and end of the game’s authentic establishment. They do so in much the same way as the MCC used to think it owned cricket. They are, in their own lunchtimes, gatekeepers pushing back against barbarian tendencies. They look straight past the losses South Africa have racked up under Boucher — maybe because it’s difficult to see straight when you’re rolling your eyes at the noisy infidels — and will not abide any questioning of Smith’s suitability as director of cricket. They are white.

Boucher is caught in this colour coded crossfire. “If I had to worry about public opinion I probably would have hanged myself a long time ago,” he said. “The pressure is going to be there no matter what. When you get to this level you must expect that. If you can’t handle it maybe you get out of the kitchen.”

So it serves him well that he is two steps ahead of both his haters and his hero worshippers: no-one is harder on Boucher than Boucher. “I take a massive amount of responsibility, and I should,” he said. “I don’t shy away from it. I’m extremely hurt at the moment, as is the rest of my management and coaching staff. We’ve put in a lot of hard work. But there’s no panic for me yet. I do understand we have been given some trying circumstances, and we will continue to put in the hard work. I’ll go back home now. I’ll sit around with my family for a while. After a week or so I’ll get back into it and be training with the guys and try to get them better.”

Boucher should use some of his break to find a better answer to why Kyle Verreynne isn’t getting more gametime despite the batting unit’s struggles. Verreynne was part of both the ODI and T20I squads but he played in only one ODI, and scored 62. In his two innings before that, for the Cobras in first-class matches, he made 216 not out and 109. To explain his omission with “he was selected as a back-up wicketkeeper”, as Boucher has done, is not good enough. It’s also unacceptable that the absence from the attack of Andile Phehlukwayo, who played in all four T20Is but bowled only four overs, is ascribed to a lack of confidence. How does it help his confidence that he is on the field but not bowling? Questions like these need to be asked and answered honestly, not through prisms of prejudice.

South Africa will gather again on May 28 for a three-day camp before they depart for the Caribbean to play two Tests and five T20s. Dates have yet to be confirmed, but by then the IPL will be out of the way and all existing injuries should be resolved. “We always earmarked this West Indian trip as when our full squad needs to be together and when we start learning how to play with each other, and learning different aspects of each others’ games.”

They should teach each other to juggle. That’s something else you can do when life gives you lemons.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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