Dwaine Pretorius – Bulletproof Truth

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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Pretorius, Klusener reflect state of South African cricket

South Africans who bemoan their compatriots giving up national honours should rather ask why players stay in the system despite better options.

Telford Vice / Cape Town

IT says much about the state of South African cricket that a middling mostly white-ball bowling allrounder announcing his international retirement should hit the headlines as hard as Dwaine Pretorius’ announcement on Monday.

Pretorius turns 34 in March. He played three Tests, 27 ODIs and 30 T20Is. He had a Test bowling average of 36.00, and ODI and T20I economy rates of 4.96 and 8.28. He scored 83 runs in six Test innings and a half-century in each of the white-ball formats. He had his moments, taking a South Africa T20I record 5/17 against Pakistan in Lahore in February 2021 — a haul that included the wickets of Mohammad Rizwan, Babar Azam and Iftikhar Ahmed. Who knows how matters might have panned out had he not broken a thumb in claiming 3/26 in a T20I against India in Indore in October, and thus been ruled out of the T20 World Cup that followed.

With his ability to kiss the pitch as consistently and thoughtfully as he hits the ball hard, and his slick athleticism in the field, he remains a whole-hearted competitor and a bona fide matchwinner at franchise level. By all accounts few players in any dressing room anywhere are as popular and respected by their peers as Pretorius.

But a world beater at the highest level he is not. Even so, the news of him hanging up his South Africa shirts sparked curious reactions on social media. It was “a sad day”, a “huge, huge loss”, and “the last thing I expected to read this morning” — comments that would have been more understandable had Pretorius been Jacques Kallis, Shaun Pollock or Lance Klusener.

The latter’s decision, also revealed on Monday, to remove himself from CSA’s shortlist to become the men’s team’s next white-ball coach was greeted either as CSA’s fault or a canny move by Klusener not to involve himself with so dysfunctional an organisation — nevermind that he applied for the job in the first place — or as opposite ends of the same issue.

Klusener was a cult hero of an allrounder whose explosive hitting down the order came within the silliest of runouts of putting South Africa in the 1999 World Cup final. As a coach he is a work in progress. He has thrown himself into a range of franchise jobs and he proved his potential by taking Afghanistan to the 2021 T20 World Cup. At 51, he has many years in team tracksuits ahead of him. Maybe even, sooner or later, a South Africa team tracksuit.

But the way Klusener’s candidature for the South Africa position was heralded — his SA20 franchise, Durban’s Super Giants, tweeted a mocked up photograph of an airport arrivals board captioned “Lance Klusener, head coach, South Africa” — you might have thought he was Bob Woolmer, the master of innovation and forward thinking who looked on in horror from South Africa’s dressing room as the drama unfolded that day at Edgbaston in 1999.

In different ways, the Pretorius and Klusener developments illustrate realities of cricket in South Africa. Even as a CSA contracted player, with an ODI World Cup looming in India in October, and with few clear rivals of his calibre for a bowling allrounder’s spot, Pretorius has made up his mind that serving as a fulltime white-ball mercenary is a better career option for him than continuing to focus on playing for South Africa. Klusener has made a similar call: rather life as a franchise coach than flying a national flag.

Pretorius and Klusener are both white, and already the conspiracy theory that that is why they have done what they did has grown legs: damn those fools at CSA and their obsession with race. Except that Pretorius played in more than a third of all South Africa’s white-ball games from his debut, and that the closest competitor for his place, the freshly arrived Marco Jansen, is also white. And that Klusener made it onto a shortlist of six that features four white coaches.

Closer to the truth is that the game in South Africa has shrunk in stature, stability and prospects — exponentially since Klusener played his last international in September 2004 and significantly since Pretorius made his debut in November 2016. The same is true of South Africa’s wider society, a consequence of the collision between centuries of inequality and decades of rampant corruption. Cricket and cricketers are part of that society, and undeniably subject to its pushes and pulls. The opposite certainty is that T20 leagues offer players and coaches a new world of positive possibility; a safer zone in which they don’t have to deal with weak currencies, rabid nationalism, and the artificially created pressures of the international game.

South Africans who bemoan their compatriots giving up national honours to pursue pure professionalism should turn that equation around. Ask not why they are leaving the Proteas system but why so many stay considering the clearly better alternatives at their disposal. Tristan Stubbs and Dewald Brewis do not need South African cricket, but they do need to make a living. Be grateful that, for now, they are willing to include the national team in their portfolios. If that changes, do not be surprised.

It should also be asked whether, along with the growing cancer of unjust inequality, a terminally fractured society, failing infrastructure, a dwindling economy, and a hopeless acceptance of all that, the fans are part of players’ problems. South Africans don’t take to the streets in their millions to protest their list of woe in order to force change, like people do in similarly dismal situations in other countries. Instead they put up physical, mental and emotional walls and vent their spleens by posting poisonously about the few who find a way to a better life.

Some of this is justified, because invariably it is the unfairly privileged — cricketers among them — who make it out of the mess South Africans of fewer means deal with daily. But some of it comes from a refusal to understand that the world has changed, that international cricket is no longer the pinnacle of the game, and that there is no going back to the flanneled foolery of yore.

You would struggle to find people more South African than Pretorius and Klusener, just as you would struggle to find two more deservedly admired figures in the game. That they will share a dressing room during the SA20 proves they are happy to be part of South African cricket. Just not in South Africa colours. That is about professionalism, not about pride and not about patriotism. It’s about time that reality was recognised.

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The magic number of overs? Maybe 29 …

“Cricket is an interesting game. If you don’t perform you look like you don’t know what’s going on.” – Dwaine Pretorius

Telford Vice / Palermo, Sicily

HOW do you think about winning a match of 29 overs-a-side? It’s not readily recognisable as an ODI, and it’s burst the banks of a T20I. It’s not a sprint but also not a walk. It’s neither breakfast nor lunch, but also not brunch. It’s between and betwixt, simultaneously bigger and smaller — and too big and not big enough — than what is considered a proper game of cricket.

Cricket, for some, is about habit; about doing things in a particular way for no other reason than the fact that they have always been done that way. Those who hold this dear try to explain away their sad obsession with nostalgia by leaning on tradition. Others of their ilk abhor change. Still others fear it.

Fluidity is not for them. They crave certainty, conservatism, and cable-knit jerseys. What might these sorry souls have made of Friday’s second ODI between England and South Africa at Old Trafford, where rain reduced the overs in each innings to the unmagical number of 29? Was this a bird? Was it a plane? Was it the kind of weirdness that would make them change the channel? To bowls, snooker, darts, golf, reruns of Abba concerts, even the dreaded news. Anything.

If they did click away, it was their loss. They missed a good game made better by the fact that enough of the players didn’t seem to be sure how to play it, keeping things edgy and interesting throughout.

England are routinely written up as masters of innovation, but they looked short on imagination and were bowled for the fifth consecutive time in white-ball matches with Dwaine Pretorius surgically accurate and full of ideas to take a career-best 4/36 — three of them for nine runs in his first 10 deliveries.

Even so, Sam Curran’s straight six off Tabraiz Shamsi followed by Liam Livingstone launching the next three deliveries, bowled by Anrich Nortjé, over the on-side boundaries for a hattrick of maximums — all in the throes of a 21-ball stand of 43 — kept the home side in the contest and helped take the total to 201: a touch under seven runs to the over.

England had recovered decently after slumping to 72/5. So there was a touch of mathematical poetry in South Africa crashing to 27/5 in less than nine overs of their reply. They had lost Janneman Malan, Rassie van der Dussen, Quinton de Kock and Aiden Markram — who was run out without facing a ball — with the score stuck on six.

Maybe England’s left-arm pace trident of Reece Topley, David Willey and Curran had done the visitors’ heads in. Maybe they also didn’t know how to pace a 29-over innings, despite being able to focus on reeling in a target.

How’s that for a theory? “All our players are very experienced, and I don’t think it was a difficult situation to sum up,” Pretorius told a press conference. “We’ve played really smart and brave cricket in the last few games, but all our options when we wanted to take a risk didn’t come off. England, whenever they took a risk, sometimes it went their way. Cricket is an interesting game. If you don’t perform you look like you don’t know what’s going on.”

Heinrich Klaasen knew what was going on. When South Africa were 39/5 after 10 overs, you couldn’t blame him for getting creative in a bid to slow down the game. Another 10 overs would need to be bowled to constitute a match. The rain that had delayed the start of the proceedings for 15 minutes short of three hours had returned — not heavily enough to stop play, but steadily enough to prompt the groundstaff to clear part of the straight boundary of advertising boards. That created a path for the covers to be moved onto the ground as quickly as possible, should they be required.

But the removal of the boards also put the covers in the batter’s eyeline. The sightscreen was, of course, black. The covers were white. So Klaasen was within his rights to argue that he would lose sight of the white ball as it reached the level of the covers close to the ground, which he did. England’s players, no doubt feeling the drizzle on their skin, were reaching apoplectic levels of annoyance with the delay by the time the groundstaff caught on and moved the advertising boards back in place.

The rain did not interrupt play, and it was clear it would need more than cleverness to engineer victory for the South Africans. They could put together only two double-figure partnerships, both of them featuring Klaasen, who crafted a knock of 33 before he advanced down the pitch to Moeen Ali and was easily stumped — reducing his team to a biblically ominous 6/66 in the 15th. Then Adil Rashid snuffed out the innings and the match with bowling that was way too good for the likes of Pretorius — on the night — and Lungi Ngidi and Nortjé to claim 3/29.

Three days after South Africa had piled up 333/5 in the first match of the series in Durham, their highest total in their 55 ODIs in England, they spiralled to 83 all out — which equalled their lowest total in England and is their third lowest overall. They have been dismissed in 132 of their 643 ODIs, but never in as few as the 124 deliveries it took to bowl them out on Friday.

“Teams are allowed to play well, and England played well; they definitely outskilled us,” Pretorius said, safe in the knowledge that South Africa will have the chance to reverse those roles when the series ends at Headingley on Sunday. Safe for now, at least.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Van der Dussen goes where Stokes doesn’t

“Bloemfontein, size-wise; about the same temperature with a little more wind.” – Rassie van der Dussen on Chester-le-Street and the Riverside.

Telford Vice | Palermo, Sicily

ONE moment Ben Stokes was acknowledging an adoring crowd as he loped onto his home ground in splendid isolation to mark his arrival at the scene of his 105th and last ODI. The next, five balls into the match at the Riverside on Tuesday, he was haring after Janneman Malan’s crisp drive off Sam Curran.

Cricket has changed in important and irrevocable ways even since Stokes, who has been an international for less than 11 years, became one of its brightest stars. But the game still expects even the stars to do their fair share of the hard work. Some of them have brought such supreme athleticism to the game that they make what is, for the rest of us, impossible look nothing more than routine.

Stokes sped smoothly across the vast, slick outfield in the 37-degree Celsius heat, having shortly before wiped from his eyes what might have been sweat or perhaps tears of appreciation for the heartfelt ovation he had received. He caught up to the ball as the cover boundary loomed, fell on it like a blanket on a puppy, bounced back upright and turned with liquid elegance, and, having done all that to save a solitary run, rifled a perfectly fine throw to the middle. Allegedly, he is struggling with a knee injury.

Weekend cricketers, mortals all, know what it feels like to have to do what Stokes did so apparently effortlessly. And what it feels like knowing they have no chance of emulating him. What they don’t know is what it feels like to be Stokes, to have all of the talent and skill to play at the highest level but not enough of the time required to do so as frequently as the suits require. Weekend warriors of all kinds are also time poor, but not like this. Most of them, unlike Stokes, do not have the choice to give up a chunk of what they are paid to do to enable them to better keep up with the rest of their jobs.

Rassie van der Dussen is no-one’s idea of a weekend warrior. Neither is he Stokes. Nobody is. But only Babar Azam and Quinton de Kock have scored more runs in fewer ODI innings than Van der Dussen since he made his debut in January 2019. His career-best 134 on Tuesday, his third century in 14 innings that have also featured four half-centuries, was a thing of discipline and dedication that anchored South Africa’s 333/5 — their highest total in the 54 ODIs they have played in England, and second-highest in the 22 played at this ground.

Even as England rotated players in and out of furnace that Durham became as the day itself wilted and the queues for water curled around corners, Van der Dussen, his sleeves long, his collar turned up, his head helmeted throughout, batted on and on and on for three minutes short of three hours. He took guard in the seventh over and was bowled in the 46th trying to muscle Liam Livingston over midwicket. He shared stands of 109 with Janneman Malan and 151 with Aiden Markram — a record for South Africa’s third wicket against England — faced 117 balls and looked like he needed a holiday when he got out.

So did the English, who were in the field for three hours and 49 minutes in their striking but dark blue kit. ODI debutant Matthew Potts didn’t last that long, bowling just four overs before being removed from the equation because of the heat. But only one of South Africa’s recognised bowlers, Andile Phehlukwayo, was called to the crease, and for just three minutes at that. De Kock batted for only 29 minutes at the top of the innings and then had nearly four hours to recover before he had to go out and keep wicket. Understandably, Van der Dussen didn’t reappear at the start of England’s reply. He was off the field until the 20th over while medics “managed” his “hydration and secondary muscle cramps”, the dressing room said.

Did the extreme weather affect England’s batting? They were eight runs and a wicket behind the South Africans in the powerplay comparison, but the 54/1 they reached was better than in two of their recent three ODIs against India. Even so, Jonny Bairstow survived dropped catches when he was 18 and 50, and he and Jason Roy might have been run out early. Instead they shared 102 for the first wicket and Bairstow made 63.

Keshav Maharaj had additional thinking to do in the 18th over after he collided with Phehlukwayo as they converged on a batted ball, resulting in the seamer gashing his chin on his captain’s shoulder and having to leave the field. He was later described by team management as “displaying features of a concussion” and replaced by Dwaine Pretorius.

Phehlukwayo’s immediate stand-in, Markram, struck the key blows by trapping a sweeping Bairstow and a reverse-sweeping Stokes in front four overs apart. Bairstow reviewed, surely more in hope than conviction. Stokes consulted briefly with his partner, Jos Buttler, before shaking his head in disappointment and taking his leave; gone for five in his last hurrah.

When Tabraiz Shamsi, in his follow through, pounced on Buttler’s leading edge that looped off his pad, England needed 9.44 an over with Joe Root the only survivor from their top four. The calm, composed Root could only watch from the other end when Livingston and Moeen Ali went in the space of seven deliveries as England shambled to 199/6 in the 38th.

But even rock steady Root couldn’t win a staring contest against a team who had come to play their own game — not Test coach Brendon McCullum’s Bazball nor India’s nor anyone else’s. On social media there was churlishness from some England supporters about South Africa’s apparently archaic approach. It seems they played more like a team from way back when in the deep, dark long gone age of 2015 than a modern side. How dare they.

But the fact that a team whose fans fancy them to be on the cutting edge of innovation couldn’t do much more than flap and flail their way to 271 all out in 46.5 overs against a side who batted with gumption and grit, bowled intelligently and were captained with nous and authority poses awkward questions for England.

It also reveals something about their opponents. Van der Dussen showed a keen understanding of his own game and stayed true to it. Only part-timer Markram and emergency entrant Pretorius went for more than a run-a-ball, and Anrich Nortjé took four wickets for just the second time in his career. Maharaj, a stand-in skipper, mind, led like a natural, making the right changes at the right time and never looking flustered. There was an unvarnished but not simplistic honesty about the way South Africa played, and it paid off. As Maharaj said in his television interview: “Rassie set the tone with the bat, and the bowlers stuck to their task with the ball.”

Van der Dussen acknowledged that “it was pretty hot” but declined to add to the hype about the conditions. He likened the ground to “Bloemfontein, size-wise; about the same temperature with a little more wind”. South Africa’s biggest ground, measured in surface area, is in Bloem — where summer highs soar past 30 degrees more often than not.

But the more relevant truth in the second half of South Africa’s 62-run win was, as Van der Dussen said, that “England couldn’t get to the required rate. You could see they were trying different things.” And not getting anywhere. Van der Dussen tried the same things — half of his 10 fours were either driven through the covers or reverse swept — and he went everywhere he needed to go.

England are sometimes accused of over-thinking. South Africa are sometimes criticised for not thinking enough. Sometimes, as we know from the way Stokes and Van der Dussen play, less is more.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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India arise to keep series alive

“With the bat, we just didn’t pitch up.” – Temba Bavuma

Telford Vice | Cape Town

FOR a while there in Visakhapatnam on Tuesday, Anrich Nortjé had equalled his most expensive over in T20Is. Then the message came from on high to the umpires that the third delivery, a vicious bouncer, had screamed to the boundary after ricocheting off the grille of Ruturaj Gaikwad’s helmet. Unlike what had been decided on the field, neither bat nor gloves were involved.

So four runs were chalked off Nortjé’s account, leaving the 20 he conceded to Steve Smith in the last over of the innings at Newlands in February 2020 unmatched as his biggest hiding yet in the format. Not that Gaikwad’s assault was far behind qualitatively as well as quantitatively, what with him slamming fours through point, mid-on, midwicket and third. That the last ball of the over eluded Gaikwad’s horizontally slung bat and earned not a run only cast what had gone before in stark relief.

Gaikwad and Ishan Kishan were rampant in their 60-ball stand of 97, India’s highest opening partnership of the series and their highest in the 18 T20Is they have played against South Africa. Only eight times in the 64 games in the format they have played at home have their first-wicket pair scored more runs. Thus their total of 179/5 would have disappointed them.

Gaikwad and Kishan took 10 or more runs off an over four times. After they were separated, in the 10th over, India reached double figures in an over only three more times — two of them in the throes of the slog at the end of the innings.

India were 48 without loss after the first five overs. They scored 49/1 in the next five, then 41/2 and another 41/2 to finish. Somehow, we saw 15 fewer runs in the last half of the innings compared to the first. And that despite first David Miller and Rassie van der Dussen, the owners of two of the safest pairs of hands in the game, putting down catches five balls apart in the 14th and 15th overs. Without Hardik Pandya’s late blast of 31 not out off 21, the home side might not have escaped the 140s.

South Africa reeled them back with canny bowling. Kagiso Rabada went for a dozen runs in his second over and 11 in his last, the penultimate of the innings. But the other two cost just four each. Wayne Parnell was hit for a dozen off the last, but only 20 in his other three. Dwaine Pretorius’ first two overs, both in the first half of the innings when Gaikwad and Kishan were going strong, yielded nine runs each. His other two went for 11. Nortjé bounced back from his 16-run mauling to limit the damage to seven in the only other over he bowled. South Africa’s spin suit wasn’t as strong. Tabraiz Shamsi and Keshav Maharaj had a combined economy rate of 10.00. The seamers banked a rate of 8.21.

But, not for the first time, the bowlers were let down. Or was it that India, having lost their way with the ball and crumbled when faced with the South Africans’ determination at the crease in the first two games, found a way to not only survive but prosper?

With Bhuvneshwar Kumar all but unhittable in his first two overs, when he had the ball zigging and zagging at will and went for only seven runs, and Yuzvendra Chahal doing much the same, albeit noticeably more slowly, in his haul of 3/20, the visitors had nowhere to go but to Rajkot for Friday’s match with bloodied noses. None of their partnerships reached 30. Neither did any of their batters. Maharaj’s strike rate — 137.50 for his eight-ball 11 — was their highest and the only one of 130.00 or more. The tone was set in the first 10 overs of their reply, when they slumped to 63/4 — 34 runs and three wickets worse off than their opponents were at the same stage of their innings. They were hemmed in by intelligent bowling and cleaned up by a flawless display of catching.

“With the bat, we just didn’t pitch up,” Temba Bavuma said in his television interview after his team had been bowled out for 131 to earn India victory by 48 runs, their biggest victory over South Africa in the format. “We didn’t get the partnerships and we didn’t have momentum.”

At the Kotla on Thursday, Van der Dussen and Miller were key to the successful chase of a record target of 212. In Cuttack on Sunday, Heinrich Klaasen stood tall with his career-best T20I score to reel in another win. Indeed, going into Tuesday’s match, India had lost five of their six completed T20Is against South Africa at home.

Even so, an India team without Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Jasprit Bumrah — who have been rested — and Ravindra Jadeja, Deepak Chahar and Suryakumar Yadav — who are injured — and under the guidance of first-time captain Rishabh Pant remain an India team. As South Africa have proved, they are beatable. But rarely easily. Therein lay the kernel of a series that remains rudely alive with two games to play.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Klaasen king in Cuttack

“A lot of people were gunning for my head and a lot of staff members have backed me. This is one way to say thank you to them.” – Heinrich Klaasen

Telford Vice | Cape Town

UNTIL the last two overs of India’s innings on Sunday, it seemed South Africa were set to continue their brief but charmed relationship with Cuttack’s Barabati Stadium. The visitors had played there only once before — in a T20I in October 2015 — but their six-wicket win was India’s only loss in their last nine completed games at the ground going back to January 2007.

Here we go again, the South Africans might have been thinking after 18 overs. India had dwindled to 118/6, and Dinesh Karthik had faced only 14 balls and Harshal Patel just four. Anrich Nortjé and Dwaine Pretorius, who would bowl those last two overs, had taken 3/46 in the six overs they had sent down between them: an economy rate of 7.67 and a strike rate of 12.00.

The full house of 45,000 were restless with unease. India have played on 49 grounds at home. Only on nine of them do they have a better win/loss ratio than at the Barabati. But the national team had last visited the ground in December 2019 for an ODI against West Indies, and before that in December 2017. Were the crowd’s lesser spotted guests to let them down? Only three of India’s first 18 overs had yielded 10 or more runs each, and eight had gone for five or fewer each. Was something not much better than the 92 all out — India’s total in that 2015 T20I against South Africa — on the cards?

The nervous murmuring in the stands only grew as Nortjé limited Harshal and Karthik to singles off the first four balls of the 19th. Karthik pulled and cut fours off the last two deliveries, which were separated by a wide. Pretorius began the last over with an off-side half-volley, which Harshal duly clubbed through mid-off for four. Harshal missed a big-eyed slash at a widish leg cutter, and took a single to cover off another. That allowed Karthik into the frame to launch consecutive sixes over mid-off and down the ground, mighty blows that flew far into the suddenly giddy crowd. A mere single trickled off the bottom edge of Karthik’s bat to end the innings, but he had done his bit with a 21-ball 30 not out. Those last two overs had gifted the total 30 precious runs.

Considering India had lost 4/50 from the seventh to the 14th overs, showing the wisdom of Temba Bavuma not deploying a spinner until the ninth over and for only four overs in all, their 148/6 represented a significant recovery. The fans seemed if not happy then at least satisfied that their team were putting up a fight. They probably hadn’t factored in that only in a dozen of India’s 62 T20Is at home have their recorded lower totals.

The odds were surely tilted in India’s favour by a pitch that wasn’t ill-suited to the occasion, but which did demand the full attention of all who batted on it — a surface that required perfect timing and steady application; qualities that aren’t always apparent among batting successes in this format. As David Miller said in his television interview: “If it’s keeping low every now and again, it does get into your head. You’re never sure whether to go forward or back.” Quinton de Kock’s absence because of a wrist injury further complicated South Africa’s task, and was keenly felt when masterful swing bowling by Bhuvneshwar Kumar did for Reeza Hendricks, Pretorius and Rassie van der Dussen inside the powerplay with only 29 runs scored. Bhuvneshwar “got the ball to talk” Bavuma acknowledged on television.

Enter De Kock’s replacement behind the stumps, Heinrich Klaasen, to play perhaps the innings of his life and certainly his first for South Africa since October 2021. Invariably a cool head under pressure, Klaasen went several degrees cooler still in a stand of 64 off 41 balls with Bavuma and an effort of 51 off 28 with Miller. That the cussed, curatorial Bavuma should have scored only 15 runs with Klaasen is no surprise for a selfless soul who is content to get the job done without fanfare. But it takes some doing to overshadow the marauding Miller, who faced just six deliveries fewer than Klaasen while they were together but contributed exactly half as many as the wicketkeeper-batter’s 32 runs to the partnership.

The sweat shook off Klaasen as his innings wore on, and some of his singles were hobbled rather than run because of cramp. But he kept swinging sweetly and connecting crunchily, hitting seven fours and five sixes in his 46-ball 81 — which was ended just five runs away from victory when he holed out to Harshal to end the 17th. Had being able to study the pitch at close quarters during India’s innings helped him come to terms with how to bat on it, he was asked on television. “It always gives you an indication, but that didn’t make it easier.”

Klaasen has played 54 matches for South Africa in all formats, always done a solid job in the gloves and pads, and made a white-ball century along with seven half-centuries. But, in a cricket culture that is frequently dazzled by the emphatic and that doesn’t often appreciate the understated, Klaasen is the kind of player too readily deemed expendable. “A lot of people were gunning for my head and a lot of staff members have backed me,” he said. “This is one way to say thank you to them.”

The gratitude to Klaasen for this win, nailed down by four wickets with 10 balls to spare, and meaning South Africa need only one more from the three remaining games to claim the series, should go a lot further than the dressing room.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Pretorius, Miller, Van der Dussen (Pty unlimited)

“Sometimes it’s the strangest things that maybe make a difference.” – Rassie van der Dussen on having to change to a broken bat.

Telford Vice | Cape Town

DWAINE Pretorius at No. 3! Settle down sportslovers: it’s happened before. Just as he did in the first T20I at the Kotla on Thursday, and in 10 innings in the format at domestic level, Pretorius came out at first drop against Sri Lanka at the Wanderers in March 2019.

Then, he was playing his 23rd match for South Africa. But it was only his ninth innings and his first in four T20Is – he wasn’t required to bat in his initial three. He was at the wicket in the sixth over and hit an attack that included Lasith Malinga and Suranga Lakmal for an unbeaten 77 off 42 balls, hoisting three sixes and crashing seven fours. And all with the understated muscularity and singularity of purpose that makes batting, even at international level, look easy for a select few.

On Thursday, Pretorius took guard 14 balls into the innings, and hammered the second delivery he faced — short and rising outside off from Bhuvneshwar Kumar — through extra cover for four. He hit the last two balls of that over to point for no run, but then sent Yuzvendra Chahal arching over midwicket for six with a mighty, meaty slog sweep. There was more where that came from in the next over, when Pretorius crunched Hardik Pandya for three sixes; one to fine leg, the others into the night beyond midwicket.

Another breathtaking masterclass in swinging the bat with confidence and intent looked on the cards. Would Pretorius surpass that 77 not out, his career-best score regardless of the colour of the ball? No. He would face just one more delivery before Harshal Patel flummoxed him with a slower, dipping full toss. Having heard the clunk of his stumps being splayed behind him, Pretorius sauntered off limply as if his spark had been extinguished. The way he dragged himself away, unwilling and unhappy to go, didn’t speak of someone who was batting higher than No. 6 for only the second time in his 30 innings for South Africa, regardless of the colour of the ball.

Pretorius’ 29 had flown off only 13 balls, but it would take more than cameos to overhaul India’s 211/4 — the highest T20I total yet made by opponents batting first against South Africa. Climbing that mountain would need something like what David Miller did, more than once, for Gujarat Titans in the IPL. That and some help from Miller’s friends, and South Africa might just get by. Or at least make a game of it.

Miller clouted a cool, calm 64 not out off 31 balls. So far, so expected. But who would have thought his most valuable partner would be Rassie van der Dussen — who took six deliveries to get off the mark, a dozen to reach double figures, and was 30 not out off 32 after 16 overs. South Africa needed 56 off those last 24 balls. Miller had scored exactly that many runs at that stage, off 26.

What happened next had to be seen to be believed. With the would-be matchwinner marooned at the non-striker’s end, the tall, long-levered Van der Dussen shifted the paradigm and with it the result of the match by sidling towards off before triggering the sweetest strokes. He ripped Harshal for 22 runs in the 17th, hitting sixes over long-on, backward square leg and square leg, and a four through midwicket. That narrowed the equation to 34 off 18, taking the required runrate under two runs a ball for the first time since the end of the ninth over.

Another 22 runs flowed in the 18th, which was bowled by Bhuvneshwar. Miller mowed the first delivery high over midwicket and Van der Dussen went down on a knee to send the fourth screaming over long-on. Then he miscued fours through backward point and wide of a sprawling Rishabh Pant.

Incredibly, South Africa were in search of a dozen runs off the last dozen deliveries of the match. Somehow, what had been a daunting task had been reduced to a doddle. The end was messy, with the review for an unsuccessful lbw shout by Harshal for Van der Dussen’s wicket failing only because impact had been more than three metres from the stumps, and the next delivery ricocheting off Van der Dussen’s shoulder to the boundary for four. Then he arranged his lengthy limbs into a reverse sweep as Chahal delivered what would be the last ball of the night, and swatted it past backward point for four.

“Sometimes it’s the strangest things that maybe make a difference,” Van der Dussen said in his television interview, a reference to him having had to change his bat after it was split by a yorker from Avesh Khan in the 14th over. The same might have applied to South Africa’s wider approach.

Pretorius would likely not have batted as high as No. 3 had Aiden Markram not been ruled out by Covid, which perhaps pushed Van der Dussen — who has had most of his T20I innings at No. 3 — down a spot. Had that not happened, the South Africans might not have registered their highest successful chase in this format and the highest by any team against India, nor ended India’s winning streak after a record-equalling 12 T20I victories. Only two fourth-wicket stands in all the 1,554 T20Is yet played have been bigger than the unbroken 131 Van der Dussen and Miller shared off 64 balls to clinch the most unlikely of victories by seven wickets with five balls to spare. Van der Dussen finished with a 46-ball 75 not out. That’s a strike rate of 163.04, an outrageousness considering the way he started.

Settle down sportslovers. Some of this has happened before — South Africa have yet to lose a bilateral T20I series in India. But that doesn’t mean we can’t stand back and marvel at the magic of how it happened. And to think some people still don’t like T20 cricket.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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When Dwaine met Dhoni

“Anything is always possible.” – MS Dhoni’s gift to Dwaine Pretorius.

Telford Vice | Cape Town

DWAINE Pretorius was 15 when MS Dhoni played the first of his 538 matches for India. Four years later Dhoni made his debut in the IPL, in which he has played 234 games. Six of the latter have featured Pretorius.

What was the fast bowling allrounder’s biggest takeaway from that experience? “Anything is always possible,” Pretorius told a press conference on Monday in Delhi, where he is in the South Africa squad that will begin a series of five T20Is in the Indian capital on Thursday.

Pretorius hadn’t been part of the IPL until this year, when he played for Chennai Super Kings. And felt the MS magic first hand. “I really enjoyed playing under Dhoni and batting with him,” Pretorius said. “Seeing the brand he has in India shows you how big he is and what he’s done for the sport in this country.”

The India icon shared four partnerships with Pretorius. Three didn’t last more than five balls. But, against Mumbai Indians at the DY Patil Stadium on April 21, the pair put on 33 off 21 balls in a crucial stand for the seventh wicket.

“The biggest thing I learnt from him is how calm he is at the crease, and how much he tries to take pressure off himself and put it onto the bowler,” Pretorius said of his up close and personal interaction with Dhoni. “He made me realise that, at the death, the batter isn’t under more pressure. It’s actually the bowler who is under more pressure. You can still lose the match if you have to defend 18 off the last three balls, and as a batter you can actually win it. It was a fresh mindset.

“He doesn’t get too excited. He doesn’t get too down on himself. Anything is always possible. He’s very optimistic. He believes he can do anything. I’m going to try and bring that into my game — the calmness but also the self-belief that, from any position, any game can be won.”

That didn’t happen often for CSK this year. They won only four of their 14 games and were the second team, after Mumbai, to be eliminated from the play-offs. Considering Chennai have reached nine finals and claimed the title four times — second only to Mumbai’s five — and were the defending champions, their performance this year must have generated shock and horror in the dressing room.

“Not really,” Pretorius said. “What’s nice about the CSK team and franchise set-up is that it is very experienced. We all understand that cricket doesn’t always go your way. It’s important to take the positives out of a bad season and try and build for a stronger future; trying to make sure that a bad season is not a complete loss.”

What does Pretorius hope the international game learns from the IPL? “I enjoy the strategic timeout. It makes the game a bit longer, but it splits the match into three parts. It gives each team a moment to assess their strategy and what’s the best way to go forward. You also get the coaches’ view from the outside, the objective opinion, on different situations. It makes the game more liquid, and it breaks momentum. So even if you might be out of it for the first few overs, you can come back into it after the strategic timeout.”

Even so, the IPL doesn’t get the credit it deserves as a finishing school for T20 cricketers. More often it is held up as a prime example of what’s wrong with the modern game, and even as the driving force among cricket’s ills. Pretorius wouldn’t agree: “Playing in my first IPL was a great experience. It was one of my bucket-list items, so I’m very glad I got the opportunity and also for CSK — one of the most successful franchises. It’s a very performance-based set-up, so you get a lot of responsibility as a player. You prepare like you want to, come up with the plans you believe will work, and then make sure you execute your plans.”

Pretorius has taken 23 wickets in T20Is at an average of 19.47 and a strike rate of 15.00, and he has an economy rate of 7.76. He has scored 170 runs at 24.28 and a strike rate of 161.50. Those are decent numbers, but if he puts in an extra special star turn in this series, South Africa’s supporters should know who and what to thank: Dhoni and the IPL, probably in that order.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Indian silver gleams for South Africa

“The confidence that he will bring into the team, we look forward to that.” – Temba Bavuma on David Miller.

Telford Vice | Cape Town

EIGHT trophies gleamed behind Temba Bavuma during an online press conference on Tuesday that was conducted from the Wanderers, home of the Lions in South Africa’s domestic competitions. This was no gratuitous display of unearned accolades: Bavuma has been instrumental in winning those prizes.

He played in the Lions’ successful first-class campaigns in 2014/15, 2018/19 — when he captained them — and 2019/20. Bavuma was also part of the Lions’ teams who won the list A title in 2012/13 and 2015/16, and the T20 version in 2012/13, 2018/19 and 2020/21. He led them in the last two of the latter, and scored a century in the 2018/19 final.

Small wonder that, as Bavuma entered the room on Tuesday, he allowed himself a smug smile and made reference to all that sparkling silverware. He will hope to make a similar deposit in a different trophy cabinet in the coming weeks.

Bavuma will lead South Africa in the five T20Is they will play in India from next Thursday to June 19. The South Africans have won and drawn their only two bilateral series in the format in India — in October 2015 and September 2018 — and are no doubt eyeing another victory. With Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Jasprit Bumrah rested for the series, and Ravindra Jadeja, Deepak Chahar and Suryakumar Yadav out because of injuries, the home side would seem ripe for the beating. Bavuma might want to schedule a detour to CSA’s offices — less than three kilometres from the Wanderers — to drop off the trophy on his way home from India.

If only beating India in India was that simple. KL Rahul, who will captain the home side in Sharma’s absence, was the second-highest runscorer in this year’s IPL, which ended on Sunday with Gujarat Titans beating Rajasthan Royals by seven wickets in the final in Ahmedabad. Hardik Pandya, who turned in an exemplary performance as a captain and a player to engineer Gujarat’s triumph in their first bite at the biggest cherry in cricket, is also in India’s squad. As is Yuzvendra Chahal, the tournament’s top wicket-taker.

Bavuma knows his opponents will not go quietly, even without some of their most prominent players. “Even though India are resting their main players, it will still be a competitive series,” he said. “The guys in that squad can walk into the Indian team.”

South Africa are not giving their stars a break. David Miller, a vital cog in the Gujarat machine, will be in action. As will Quinton de Kock and Kagiso Rabada, who were third among the IPL’s leading run-scorers and wicket-takers.

Miller had his best IPL yet with 481 runs in 16 innings. He is the subject of an enduring subplot in South African cricket discourse that says he has either not lived up to his potential in an international shirt or not been given enough opportunities to shine for the national team.

Gujarat, this theory goes, got the best out of Miller by entrusting him with more responsibility. There is evidence for this argument in the fact that Miller batted at No. 5 in 13 of his innings for Gujarat. That’s in 86.67% of his trips to the crease for them. In his 83 T20I innings for South Africa, Miller has batted at No. 5 only 34 times: 40.96%. Or less than half as often as he filled that position for Gujarat.

Bavuma brings intelligence and sensitivity to the delicate business of captaincy, attributes that could be important in the cause of keeping Miller’s form flaming. “The confidence that he will bring into the team, we look forward to that,” Bavuma said of the lusty left-hander. “He has performed exceedingly well at the IPL and I’m sure that will do a world of good for his confidence and whatever feelings of insecurity that might be there. The conversations that I have had with David, he has never expressed those types of feelings to me.

“David is still an integral member within our team and we trust his performances will continue well into the future. In terms of him batting a bit longer, that has always been the conversation over the years when David has done well. He understands where he fits in within the team. If he feels he can add more value in a different position, a conversation can be had in that regard. There is no way we are going to stifle him or restrict David in any manner. That’s how we try to treat all the players. We try to set them up in positions where they can succeed and make strong plays for the team.”

That 17 players made more runs in the IPL than Aiden Markram, who scored 381 in a dozen innings for Sunrisers Hyderabad, might not seem worth noting. But it is in light of the fact that, in the same number of innings across the formats for South Africa before he went to the tournament, Markram made just 191 runs. Or just more than half his aggregate at the IPL, which may have given him his game back just in time for the T20I series.

But Dewald Brevis, who celebrated his 19th birthday during the IPL and scored 161 runs in seven innings for Mumbai Indians, is not in the squad. Bavuma wasn’t fussed by that: “In all fairness to him, he hasn’t played a first-class game. In terms of expectation but also to allow the boy to grow within his game, it would be fair to allow him to play a couple of first-class games where he can really get an understanding of his game. It will be a lot of pressure to throw him into the international set-up and expect him to make plays. He will be treated like any other exciting young prospect who comes onto the scene. He should be given time and space to hone his game within the system and ease into the international side of things.”

Several of the other players Bavuma will have at his disposal in India will be raring to go, having spent much of the IPL on the bench. Marco Jansen featured in eight games, Anrich Nortjé and Dwaine Pretorius in six each, Rassie van der Dussen in three, Tristan Stubbs in two, and Lungi Ngidi in none at all. Bavuma, Reeza Hendricks, Heinrich Klaasen, Keshav Maharaj, Wayne Parnell and Tabraiz Shamsi — the members of the squad who were not at the IPL — haven’t picked up a bat or ball in anger since April or May.

“From a mental point of view, in terms of wanting to play, I don’t think we will be falling short,” Bavuma said. “As a professional cricketer, you have to find a way to mentally, physically get yourself into the right space to be able to perform. Those guys who went to the IPL and didn’t get much opportunity to play will maybe want to prove something.”

Something that says they know what to do to put another trophy in the cabinet.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Bewildered, beaten, bumped off World Cup path

“We went to sleep.” – Mark Boucher

Telford Vice | Cape Town

CRICKETMINDED South Africans had reason to celebrate on Tuesday night, when Cyril Ramaphosa, the country’s president, relaxed pandemic restrictions. Just in time for Wednesday’s deciding ODI in Centurion, stadiums could henceforth be filled to half their capacity and alcohol would be permitted. Less than 24 hours later, the party was properly pooped.

Bangladesh thrashed the home side, dismissing them for 154 and taking nine balls more than half their allotment of overs to triumph by nine wickets. Not for nothing are the visitors on top of the World Cup Super League standings, where they have now won 12 out of their 18 matches. The other side of that story is that the South Africans were outplayed in all departments and in their own conditions. Worse, they looked resigned to their fate long before it was sealed.

If you had braved the freeways that surround Centurion, which are some of the unloveliest and busiest of their sorry ilk, to support Temba Bavuma’s team in person, you would have been justified in demanding a refund for your time, money and effort. Good thing, then, that the majority of the crowd were cheering themselves hoarse in the cause of Bangladesh’s famous victory. The time, money and effort they spent on being there was worth it many times over — a small price to pay for the reward of a memory to treasure forever.

South Africa have been dismissed for fewer runs 11 times in the 318 ODIs in which they have batted first. But only thrice have they successfully defended smaller totals, and not since February 2000. They enjoyed a stable start to their innings with Janneman Malan and Quinton de Kock sharing 46 in the first 6.5 overs. But the latter’s dismissal started a slide of all 10 wickets for 108 runs in 30.1 overs. The last five crashed for 47 in 12.3. Only David Miller and Dwaine Pretorius, who put on 24 for the sixth wicket, were able to mount a partnership that was more than half the size of the openers’ effort.

The Bangladeshis bowled with intelligence on a pitch of variable bounce, mixing their lengths to great effect. But the South Africans batted as if the surface held no terrors, and seemed bewildered when they paid the penalty for loose strokes. The contrast was as stark as it was strange.

Taskin Ahmed showed on Friday, when he took 3/36, that he was a threat in these conditions. On Wednesday he dialled the danger up a notch or two, tearing into the crease with increasing enthusiasm to claim 5/35. Then Tamim Iqbal and Litton Das sped Bangladesh homeward with a dominating stand of 127 off 125. Tamim’s 82-ball 87 not out will live long as one of the most assured innings yet seen from a foreign player in South Africa.

That the home side had been discombobulated by their shambling batting was plain in the opening over of Bangladesh’s reply. Eight of the nine South Africa wickets had been taken from the Hennops River End. Yet Kagiso Rabada bowled the first over of the second innings from the Pavilion End. Rabada’s fourth delivery might have offered a reason why — Litton slapped the wide, short ball to backward point, where Keshav Maharaj dropped a catch he should have taken. That was the only significant error Bangladesh made on their march to an emphatic win. As Bavuma said in a television interview, “They really showed us how to play with the bat, the ball and in the field. We just weren’t good enough.” Mark Boucher was blunt in the press conference that followed: “We went to sleep.”

Bangladesh have never known this joy. Of their 28 previous matches in South Africa across the formats before this tour, they had won only one: a 2007 World T20 game against West Indies at the Wanderers. They had rarely been competitive in their nine bilateral series in the country before this rubber. All told, of 71 bilateral series outside of Bangladesh they had won only 10. Just four of those — all against West Indies — had been achieved over heavyweight opponents. And now this. Not only did Bangladesh beat more or less the same personnel who routed India 3-0 in an ODI series in January, they beat them all ends up twice in six days to claim the rubber.

Suddenly, South Africa’s path to the 2023 World Cup looks dangerously cluttered. The top eight sides in the Super League standings will qualify for the tournament, and Bavuma’s side are currently ninth. Their remaining Super League fixtures are three games each against India, England and Australia, and two against the Netherlands. On the evidence of the Bangladesh series, only the points on offer in the Dutch matches can be considered safe.

The Bangladeshis can stop worrying about all that. Their presence at the next World Cup is assured, and deservedly so. You could hear as much in the happy clamour of their supporters, who all but drowned out questions to Bavuma and Boucher from reporters in the open-air pressbox.

Centurion wouldn’t have made money on beer sales to the teetotaller Tigers fans. Here’s hoping having been able to turn off the floodlights early helped even things up.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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