Knights, Warriors win, Migael Pretorius heads for Centurion

Raynard van Tonder’s 200 was his sixth century in 58 first-class innings, his fourth score of 150 or more, and his third double century.

TELFORD VICE | Cape Town

WHEN the latest round of first-class matches in South Africa started on Sunday, Migael Pretorius might not have been thinking too far beyond the next four days. When the round ended on Wednesday, he was probably trying not to think about making his Test debut against Sri Lanka at Centurion on December 26.

Fast bowler Pretorius was added to South Africa’s ranks on Wednesday in the absence of Kagiso Rabada, the victim of a lingering groin strain who CSA say has “not yet been medically cleared” to play in the Test series. With Lungi Ngidi, Anrich Nortjé, Beuran Hendricks and Glenton Stuurman also in the squad, Pretorius looks unlikely to crack the nod even if South Africa field an all-pace attack. But, having taken 20 wickets at 20.65 in five first-class matches this season, he has earned recognition.

Pretorius didn’t have too much to do with the Knights beating the Lions by nine wickets in Bloemfontein on Wednesday: he took 3/102 in the match. The tone of the contest was set in its opening hour, when Raynard van Tonder walked to the crease at the fall of the Knights’ first wicket. When he was dismissed more than seven-and-a-half hours of playing time later, Van Tonder had scored 200 — his sixth century in 58 first-class innings, his fourth score of 150 or more, and his third double century. Van Tonder hit 112 of his runs in fours and sixes, no mean feat on South Africa’s biggest ground in area terms.

But Ferisco Adams’ 96 was the Knights’ only other effort of more than 30 in a total of 472 in which the biggest partnership was the 111 shared by Van Tonder and Shaun von Berg, who faced 83 balls for his gritty 21. Leg spinner Von Berg increased his share of the spotlight by taking 5/93 in the Lions’ reply of 262, which would have been significantly smaller had Rassie van der Dussen not stood firm for an unbeaten 107. 

The Lions followed on 210 runs behind, and this time opener Dominic Hendricks kept their heads above water until he was last out for 98. But, with Von Berg sharing the new ball and taking 4/68 — completing a match haul of 9/161 — left-arm fast bowler Duan Jansen claiming 4/44 on his franchise debut, and the visitors losing their last eight wickets for 85 runs, the Knights needed only 18 to win. They got there in six overs.

The Warriors beat the Cobras by 80 runs at St George’s Park despite the visitors taking a lead of 61 into the second innings. That happened because the Warriors crashed to 194 all out in two sessions with Rudi Second’s 55 — all but nine of them in boundaries — their only highlight and George Linde taking 4/52. Kyle Verreynne hit 80 of his 97 in fours to help the Cobras reply with 255. Marco Jansen and Jon-Jon Smuts took three wickets each.

There were more runs left in Second’s bat, 114 of them, and Yaseen Vallie’s 57 — and the 167 they put on for the third wicket — seemed to have established the Warriors’ dominance. But Vallie and Second were dismissed by consecutive deliveries, the start of a slide that would net eight wickets for 90 runs with Calvin Savage taking 4/81. The Cobras chased 265 to win but were dismissed for 184 with Smuts snapping up 3/47. Opener Janneman Malan, who scored 65, was the only Cobras batter to reach 20.

The other match of the round, between the Titans and the Dolphins at Centurion, was called off after the first day because one of the Dolphins’ players was confirmed to have contracted Covid-19. By then, Aiden Markram and Dean Elgar had scored half-centuries in the Titans’ first innings of 269/9, and Ruan de Swardt and Keshav Maharaj had taken 4/41 and 3/48.

Negative tests for Covid permitting, Markram and Elgar will open the batting for South Africa against Sri Lanka, while Maharaj is the only specialist spinner in the squad. Ngidi, Sarel Erwee and Keegan Petersen, who were involved in the match but didn’t get the chance to show what form they’re in, are also in the mix for the Test series.

Of the other players in the Test squad whose performances aren’t mentioned above, Beuran Hendricks took 1/77, Wiaan Mulder scored 26 and claimed 2/68, and Stuurman took 4/101 and made 30. CSA said Quinton de Kock and Anrich Nortjé were rested for this week’s matches while Faf du Plessis was granted time off to be with his family before South Africa’s busy summer resumes.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Stay off the couch, Boucher warns players

“There’s no sport on TV, so there’s not much TV to watch.” – Mark Boucher reveals apparently limited viewing habits.

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

GARAGE? Cleaned. Workout? Done. Now what? For many South Africans, the lockdown forced by the global coronavirus pandemic means finding ways to fill hours that would normally be spent commuting, shopping and socialising. 

Mark Boucher, South Africa’s coach since December, is different from most of his compatriots in many ways. But the virus is nothing if not democratic. “I’ve cleaned up my garage and tried to stay fit,” he said in an audio file released by Cricket South Africa on Tuesday. “I made plans to get away, take the family somewhere and maybe play a bit of golf and go to the bush. That hasn’t been possible. We’re biding our time. I’ve got a just under two-year-old, so he’s been keeping myself and my wife pretty busy running around the place. There’s no sport on TV, so there’s not much TV to watch.”

Maybe Boucher isn’t keen on watching news broadcasts that seem stuck, 24/7, on the only story that matters. South Africa became part of the saga last month when their tour to India, comprising three ODIs, was called off after the first game was washed out because of concerns over the spread of the virus. “That was unfortunate because it would have been nice to judge ourselves, as a young side, against [India],” Boucher said.

But he and his players count themselves among the more fortunate members of the worldwide cricket family: “I don’t think it’s really disrupted our plans. We were quite lucky in the fact that we were always going to be having a break at this time. It may be a chance [for the players] to get rid of a few niggles their bodies have picked up. The key is going to be to rest for the first two or three weeks and refuel yourself mentally as well as physically. We have put in some programmes on how to keep yourself fit and strong around your household. They need to keep their discipline. They will be tested after the lockdown period.”

Boucher said that went not only for those currently in the national squad, but for the “30 or 40” who could be involved at senior and A team level when cricket resumes. There is good reason for him to be taken seriously, what with Sisanda Magala, Jon-Jon Smuts, Tabraiz Shamsi and Lungi Ngidi sent on a camp to improve their conditioning last season. Magala and Smuts were denied chances to play for South Africa because they fell short of the required standard. “Because of all the new fitness clauses we’re going to be putting into contracts, you need to be fit,” Boucher said. “We’ve seen in the recent past that players who aren’t fit enough don’t get selected. Players are professionals and they need to do what they need to do.”

Those who put in the work and perform would be rewarded regardless of any other factors. Boucher has already proved that, with the help of the selectors. Rassie van der Dussen, Dwaine Pretorius, Pieter Malan, Dane Paterson and Beuran Hendricks all made their Test debuts in the series against England, who were also the opponents for the first taste of ODI cricket afforded Smuts, Lutho Sipamla and Bjorn Fortuin. Against Australia, Pite van Biljon made his T20 bow and Janneman Malan, Kyle Verreynne and Daryn Dupavillon all cracked the nod in the ODIs. In age terms the dozen players range from 21-year-old Sipamla to Van Biljon, who is 33.

The steady stream of new personnel needed careful management, as Boucher explained: “You don’t give six or seven youngsters an opportunity. You give one or two of them an opportunity and you get some senior players around them. No senior player in the franchise system is being overlooked. I’m not too worried about age at the moment. If you perform at franchise level you should be able to get a chance if we rest a few players.”

Boucher said his message to players coming into the team was: “You’re going to get given opportunity. We are resting a senior player. It is his position that he holds. So when he does come back, no matter what performances you’ve put in, he rightfully owns that position.”

The results of all that tinkering were mixed. South Africa won seven of their completed matches in 2019-20 and lost their other eight. They went down in the Test and T20 series against England and drew the ODI rubber, and Australia won the T20 series. Going into the ODIs against the Aussies, South Africa had won only four of their dozen completed games. They reeled off a hattrick of successes to soften the blow of what remains a losing campaign.

“It was disappointing, especially against England,” Boucher said. “We didn’t perform like we wanted to. We asked some questions and we got some answers — some good, some bad. We’ve got a lot of work to do with our Test cricket, a lot of rebuilding with our team. The exciting thing for me was to see the guys grow in white-ball cricket. We gave quite a bit of opportunity to youngsters, and they started to gel together as a team and not rely on one guy to carry them through. Our performance against Australia was the light at the end of the tunnel, but there’s still a hell of a lot to do.”

At least, there will be a lot to work on once cricket is again part of Boucher’s reality. “There’s not much you can do as a cricketer. We’re just waiting to see when we can get involved physically. We’ve done enough talking.” 

First published by Cricbuzz.

Giants’ exit marks end of an era

How do you replace Hashim Amla? You don’t. You hope the rest of the batting order can play far enough above themselves to minimise his loss.

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

TO everything else that’s being taken away from us at this awful time, add names as household as toothpaste. Hashim Amla and Dale Steyn have been among Cricket South Africa’s centrally contracted players for long enough to serve the national team under the country’s last three presidents. Vernon Philander has one fewer head of state in his collection but he is no less a member of this club of dependables. None were on the list of 16 players CSA announced on Monday for the 2020-21 season.

Philander was originally contracted in January 2012. Amla and Steyn have been on the books since May 2007, and a glance at the rest of that intake puts their stature into perspective: Graeme Smith, Shaun Pollock, Jacques Kallis, Mark Boucher, Makhaya Ntini, Herschelle Gibbs, AB de Villiers, Boeta Dippenaar, Andrew Hall, Justin Kemp, Charl Langeveldt, André Nel and Ashwell Prince.    

It’s not news that Amla and Philander have called time on their international careers, and that Steyn remains available only for white-ball selection. But those players’ now formalised absence from South Africa’s core group is the stark truth of the end of an era writ ominously large. It wouldn’t loom quite so large and ominous had it not followed the retirements of AB de Villiers and Morné Morkel, which came in the wake of Kyle Abbott going Kolpak. Similarly, were there players to fill the holes that now gape wide, even after a season or two of finding their feet, the situation wouldn’t seem so serious.

Fast bowling prospects have South Africa many, although none that promise to become finished articles of the class of Steyn and Philander. But how, exactly, do you replace Amla? You don’t. You hope the rest of the batting order can play far enough above themselves to minimise his loss. So far, that hasn’t happened. South Africa have lost six of seven Tests since Amla retired. His last seven Tests? They won three, all against Pakistan, and only Quinton de Kock scored more runs for them in that series. That’s not to suggest Amla retired at the top of his game. In those final 14 innings, all but one of them completed, he made 300 runs for an average of 23.08. That’s less than half his career mark of 46.64. For a player who suffered only 13 ducks in his total of 215 innings to have accumulated two of them in his last 14 trips to the crease — one of them his only first-baller — said plenty. Even so he remained to the end a massive presence in a team that struggles to articulate such important intangibles to themselves.

That Faf du Plessis has been retained in the contracted ranks despite relinquishing the captaincy will stoke the ire of his detractors. He attracted an unfairly large amount of the blame, some of it fuelled by race politics, for what went wrong for a team who won only four of the last 16 games they played under his leadership across the formats. It didn’t help that this painful period included last year’s World Cup. De Kock has replaced him as the white-ball skipper, and has won one of his five series. Now for the hard part: finding a Test captain for the rubber in the Caribbean in July and August, if it still happens in these days of coronavirus über alles. The names of Rassie van der Dussen, Temba Bavuma, Aiden Markram and De Kock have been mentioned in this discussion. All merit consideration. None is anywhere near as assured and followable a leader as Du Plessis was for most of his time at the helm.

Neither of the Malans, Pieter and Janneman, who made excellent debuts last season, have cracked the contract nod. Zubayr Hamza, Jon-Jon Smuts and Heinrich Klaasen are also still singing — rather than playing — for their supper. They will take heart from Anrich Nortjé, Dwaine Pretorius and Van der Dussen, along with Nadine de Klerk and Sinalo Jafta among the women, all being elevated to that status during the 2019-20 season. They same may happen for them in the coming months. If, that is, there’s cricket to be played. If not, 16 men and 14 women will be paid to keep themselves ready for when the all-clear is given.

The world, nevermind the game, has never known days like these. If they’re good for anything, they might help South Africa get used to the emptiness left behind by giants like Amla, Steyn and Philander. Not forget them, mind, for that will never happen. But, after all this, nothing that isn’t about life and death will matter as much as it did.

First published by Cricbuzz.

Questions for Quinton are others’ to answer

“It starts getting tough when you ask the boys for something and it just doesn’t happen.” – Quinton de Kock feels the cares of captaincy.

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

TWO hours before the start of the third T20I between South Africa and Australia at Newlands on Wednesday, Steve Smith was in the nets; fidgeting and jerking and bobbing and weaving and itching and scratching his way through a session of throwdowns from Michael Hussey, whose arms gleamed with sunshine and sweat as he let fly with grooved grace. How Smith manages to middle the ball so often and with such pointed power despite looking as if he is facing grenades lobbed at him from the other side of a busy highway is a miracle of the modern game.

Simultaneously, two nets away, Robin Peterson provided the same service to Faf du Plessis, who seemed happier than he has been in weeks. Calm at the crease is at the core of Du Plessis’ game. The storm after that calm is a tautly controlled explosion of mind and muscle, and all over in an eyeblink. With Du Plessis’ every emphatic dismissal of the flung offerings into the roof of the net, Peterson smiled the smile he couldn’t smile while Brian Lara was taking 28 runs off one of his overs, the last of the day, at the Wanderers in December 2014. Watching Smith and Du Plessis separately from the distance of the boundary cannot capture the vast contrast between their approaches. Watching them at close quarters and separated only by the width of a net is as close to sensory overload as cricket should be allowed to get.  

Once Smith and Du Plessis were opposing captains, steering two of cricket’s greatest ships. Now they are opponents only, each looking to do their best for their team.

Smith got that right on Wednesday after coming in with 30 balls left in the innings. He faced half of them and hit an unbeaten 30 — all of 20 in a last over bowled by Anrich Nortjé, whose economy rate for the match boomed from 8.67 to 11.5 in the process — that took Australia to 193/5. Du Plessis’ boundaryless five off seven balls was far from the only failure in a gutless batting display that was put out of its misery at 15.3 overs with only 96 runs scored — the second time in three games that South Africa have been shot out for fewer than 100. The team who had fought back from nowhere to win at St George’s Park on Sunday had vanished. Instead South Africa were again the side who were utterly without fight at the Wanderers on Friday. Why had they chosen to field first, like they had in Johannesburg, when they were so much better at defending in Port Elizabeth? Did the fact that they had beaten England in the first ODI at Newlands despite batting under lights at a ground were that is famously difficult — only nine sides have won batting second in the 33 day/night ODIs there — influence their thinking too much? South Africa were able to bat for two hours before sunset against England and for less than half-an-hour against Australia. When darkness descended fully against England, South Africa had nine wickets in hand and needed only 94 more runs off the remaining 20 overs: an asking rate of 4.7. Against Australia, night arrived with the South Africans two down and requiring 153 off 15: 10.2 an over. Crucially, by then Quinton de Kock was out. Against England he batted into the 36th over for his 107. The comparisons only become more painful — at the Wanderers on Friday, De Kock was bowled by the third ball of the innings, a sniping outswinger from Mitchell Starc. At Newlands on Wednesday, De Kock was bowled by the fourth ball of the innings, another sniping outswinger from Starc.

But it would be unfair to pick on South Africa’s captain, even if it is his job to explain what had gone so wrong for his team for the second time in six days: “I’m not really sure because I’m not in the other batsmen’s minds.” Was that anger? No-one has scored more runs than De Kock in five of South Africa’s last six series across the formats. And they haven’t won any of them. Who could blame De Kock if he was growing resentful at doing more than his fair share of the batting and, despite that, the team having nothing to show for his efforts? Can the rest of you pull your weight already, dammit? But players aren’t supposed to ask those questions, and certainly not when they’re also the captain. Or are they? “It starts getting tough when you ask the boys for something and it just doesn’t happen,” De Kock said.

He had arrived for his press conference looking like a country song: his truck had been stolen, his dog had died, his wife had left him. Surely. Six minutes later he sauntered out, still sad-eyed. Aaron Finch swanned in fresh from a Broadway musical, sat down and immediately made himself useful. “Do you want that up a little bit, mate,” he asked a camera person in the scrum whose microphone on the top table had drooped. “Yeah. Thanks mate,” came the reply. Finch duly did the needful. Then he provided a sound check: “One, two, three, one, two three … hello?” He was even of service explaining the South Africans’ failure to launch: “Anytime you’re chasing 10s from the start, it’s so hard. When [the pitch is] going to get slower and slower and our spinners have been super accurate … whether you lose by one run or a hundred doesn’t make much difference. It’s all about risk and reward, and when that runrate goes up it’s so hard. You know you’ve got to try and preserve a couple of wickets but if you have two bad overs the rate goes to 15.”

Nice try, Mr Finch, but South Africa’s problems have leapt from the physical to the metaphysical. Why did dangerous players like Andile Phehlukwayo and Jon-Jon Smuts get only one game against the Aussies? Why did the consistently underwhelming Dwaine Pretorius play two? What has happened to South Africa’s technique and temperament against spin? They averaged 9.62 facing Ashton Agar and Adam Zampa, who took 13 of the 24 wickets that fell to Australia’s six bowlers. Where has the bowling and fielding discipline gone? After the first six overs of Australia’s innings on Wednesday, Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortjé, Lungi Ngidi and Pretorius were all sailing at two runs per ball, not least because their support in the field reduced them to trying to catch water in a colander.

Deep in the darkness of Wednesday night at Newlands, long after the match had been won and lost, two starkly different figures, as players and as people, would have been united on one front: the relief that they no longer needed to explain the why and wherefore of poor performances by the teams they play for to themselves, the press or anyone else. 

Freed from that yoke, Smith and Du Plessis have better things to with their time. Like take to the nets hours before the start of a game. And bat as if their lives do not depend on it.

First published by Cricbuzz.

Yes! No! Wait! Sorry: Between a run and a hard place

Fact: Inzamam-ul-Haq was less likely to be run out than Jonty Rhodes.

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

IT’S cricket’s overlooked discipline. The critical skill that, more than batting, puts runs in the scorebook. And that, done well, offsets anything the opposition might achieve with bat, ball or in the field. Without it only fours, sixes and extras would count. With it ordinary totals become extraordinary. It’s running between the wickets, and poor levels of it cost South Africa at the Wanderers on Sunday — not only victory in the match, but also in the series.

Quinton de Kock batted through his team’s first four partnerships, and when he was dismissed in the 31st over David Miller took over for the last four stands. Both scored at a decent lick for their half-centuries, De Kock at a strike rate of 85.18 — the second-best of the innings, no mean feat for an opener — and Miller at 130.18. Yet South Africa still came up nine runs short of the average first innings total in Wanderers ODIs. And that with three wickets standing. Or, you might say, three partnerships wasted.

Maybe that happened because Miller faced only 16 of the last 30 balls of the innings. Was that the upshot of the big-hitting left-hander’s significant role in the runouts of Jon-Jon Smuts and Beuran Hendricks, which followed several questionable judgement calls in which Miller was also implicated? Perhaps his running radar was set to a more cautious level than it would have been had the innings unfolded less anxiously, and so fewer ones, twos and, perchance, threes were taken while he concentrated on trying to pepper the shorter on-side boundary that winked in his peripheral vision when he was facing at the Corlett Drive End. Miller took a single off the last ball of the first four of the final five overs — to keep the strike — only twice, albeit once not doing so because he hit a boundary instead. But, although 52 runs flowed off 32 balls in the unbroken stand with Lutho Sipamla, South Africa left a chunk of runs out there. 

There are no simple answers to the questions raised, not least because — unlike batting, bowling or fielding — there is no direct measure of running prowess, or lack of it. How, for instance, can we believe that WG Grace and Inzamam-ul-Haq were better runners between the wickets than Jonty Rhodes and AB de Villiers? And yet, if we compare how many times those players were run out, they were. Rhodes was dismissed that way in 5.33% of his international innings and De Villiers in 3.14%. Grace was run out in only one of his 22 trips to the Test crease, and all told in 42 of his 1,938 innings: 2.17%. Inzi? Six times in the 200 innings he had for Pakistan. Or 3%. But attitudes towards taking sharp singles by the superb athletes playing T20 cricket now are a world away from what they were when utterly unathletic specimens like Grace believed people had come to watch him bat, and nothing else. Besides, there is much more to running between the wickets successfully than sheer speed. It’s also about knowing how fast you can’t go — the single most crucial element in judging a run — having an accurate idea of your partner’s limitations, and communicating seamlessly.

Andy and Grant Flower are first-language English speakers, but they would invariably call in Afrikaans when they batted together — not only to keep the opposition guessing but also to create a resilient, private bubble of understanding. They knew each other’s game as well as a pair of brothers could, and they were masters of the art of the undefendable single bunted either side of the pitch. But that didn’t stop them from being separated by runouts five times at international level. Even so, that’s an acceptable failure rate considering they shared 116 partnerships, 15 century stands among them.

No two minds as like as theirs played at the Wanderers on Sunday. It only complicated matters that the pitch at a venue where no spinner has yet taken four wickets in an ODI offered sharp enough turn, at least in the first innings, to vindicate England’s decision to pick two frontline slow bowlers. More than half the overs South Africa faced — 27 — were sent down by spinners, who took four of the five wickets to fall to bowlers.

Running hard immediately after coming to terms with a spinning ball is akin in difficulty to haring away after being forced onto the back foot by a fast bowler. Doing so when you have arrived at the ground justifiably expecting a belter of a pitch doesn’t make it easier. It was here, in March 2006, that South Africa scored 438 to beat Australia by one wicket off the last ball to clinch an ODI series. That wasn’t the only departure from the script on Sunday: South Africa hit exactly 100 more runs in fours in the 438 game than this time, and they launched twice as many sixes.

All of 248 of their runs were clubbed in fours and sixes in 2006. But the Aussies hammered even more in boundaries: 256. The difference between the teams was how they took their other runs — Australia ran 178 of them, South Africa 190.

That’s 12 degrees of separation. Or three fours. Or two sixes. Or what distinguishes winners from losers.

First published by Cricbuzz.

Leaner, meaner Ngidi short of a smile. And a milkshake …

“You’ve got to limit a lot more things that are harmful to your body. It’s the lifestyle of being a sportsman.” – Lungi Ngidi

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

POUR some sugar on Lungi Ngidi. Maybe it was the syrupy heat of a proper Cape Town summer afternoon, or the fact that he had alighted from an airplane — where desserts are rarely worth eating — a short while previously, but he sounded like he needed sweetening up when he spoke to the press at Newlands on Sunday.

Maybe because Ngidi, along with Jon-Jon Smuts, Tabraiz Shamsi and Sisanda Magala, is fresh from spending three weeks at boot camp. Or what Cricket South Africa called a “conditioning camp”. Those players’ fitness, it seems, was an issue. All except Magala came through well enough to keep their places in South Africa’s squad for the ODI series against England starting on Tuesday.

Ngidi is a long way from fat. But he has emerged from the camp leaner, he said, by “about four or five kilos”. His smile, usually as broad as the day is long, was worth at least half that lost weight: it was significantly narrower on Sunday. Maybe this is projection, but it seems he could murder a milkshake right about now.

What was the routine at the camp? “Running, bowling, gymming. It’s just a block [of time] where you can 100% focus on training. It’s a lot harder in season to get that conditioning done. So to get that time off and be able to do that was the main thing about it.

“You speak to dieticians, you work with strength and conditioning coaches, you try find the best way to lose weight and also maintain strength and fitness. There’s a lot that goes into it behind the scenes. Most people only know that we had a camp. But at the camp you do a lot more than what people know. You’ve got to limit a lot more things that are harmful to your body. It’s the lifestyle of being a sportsman.”

Ngidi is 23 years and 1.93 metres of fast bowling thunder and lightning. Depending on which end of the pitch you’re at he is either a thrill or a terror to behold. He made his international debut in a Test against India at Centurion in January 2018 and claimed 6/39 in the second innings. But has played only for more Tests, not least because he is often injured. So fare, he has missed out because of hip, knee, abdomen and hamstring problems along with stress fractures. Ngidi has had 34 games across the formats for South Africa. In the same period the more resilient Kagiso Rabada has played 56 matches. Ngidi’s latest calamity, a hamstring issue, struck in December during the Mzansi Super League. Why all the pain and suffering for someone who, by the look of him, is a magnificent physical specimen? “It’s hard to pinpoint,” Ngidi said. “We do a lot of work as national players but everyone’s formula’s different. I’m a bit bigger than the other guys, so it probably takes a bit more out of my body to bowl.”

Even so, he will go into this series as the leader of South Africa’s attack. With Rabada rested and Anrich Nortjé, Chris Morris and Dale Steyn not selected, no-one in the squad packs anything like Ngidi’s pace. He can’t take the prized wickets of Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler because they aren’t in England’s party. Does he fancy others? “I’d like all of them. That’s my main thing right now — to take as many wickets as possible. It doesn’t matter who’s playing for them. Our aim is to win the series. Even if they were here it would be the same: to win the series. They’re good players, but a good ball is a still a good ball on any day.”

The last time Ngidi was in a South Africa side, in a Test against India in Ranchi in October, Enoch Nkwe was interim director, and responsibility for preparing the batters and bowlers fell to former Mumbai stalwart Amol Muzumdar and Vincent Barnes. Now, Mark Boucher is the head coach with Jacques Kallis and Charl Langeveldt assisting him. Ngidi was undaunted by all the changes: “I’ve been coached by Boucher since he was at the Titans [Ngidi’s franchise], so I think that relationship will be the same. I worked with Langeveldt the first season that I came into the Proteas, so I guess the only person that I haven’t worked with is Jacques Kallis. But he did come into the Titans camp once or twice. So I’m not too anxious about it.”

With the next ODI World Cup more than three years away but the T20 global showpiece looming in Australia in October and November, the England rubber is more an opportunity to stake a claim for the T20 World Cup than a contest in its own right. “Everyone’s fighting for a spot there, but that’s quite far down the line,” Ngidi said with a face filled with seriousness. “The first step in on Tuesday.”

In his first outing since returning from injury, a one-dayer against the Lions at Centurion on Friday, he took 3/40 from nine overs — and bagged South Africa squadmates Reeza Hendricks and Rassie van der Dussen, both caught behind — into the bargain. England’s batters should be worried that even that couldn’t bring back Ngidi’s smile: “I pride myself on the way I bounce back from things. That was a step in the right direction.”

We won’t tell the fitness fanatics if you don’t: please, someone, get the kid a milkshake.

First published by Cricbuzz.

Pakistan tour on cards

If security is stable South Africa will play three T20s in the country.

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

SOUTH Africa could soon be on their way to Pakistan, where no team representing their country has set foot in almost 13 years. A mooted tour there in March would form part of the preparation for the T20 World Cup in Australia in October and November.

Cricbuzz has learnt that a delegation of security experts from South Africa is to visit Pakistan to gather intelligence on the country’s suitability for a visit by the national side. If the situation is deemed stable enough the Proteas will arrive after their tour to India, which ends on March 18, to play three T20s.

South Africa, who were last in Pakistan in October 2007 for two Tests and five one-day internationals, have played seven Tests and 26 ODIs in the country. No international teams went there for more than six years after a terrorist attack on the Sri Lanka team bus in Lahore on March 3, 2009 — which killed eight and wounded nine, including six Lankan players. Tours resumed in May 2015, when Zimbabwe played two T20s and three ODIs. Sri Lanka, West Indies and Bangladesh have also since visited, all without incident.

South Africans have been to Pakistan in recent years, but only as individuals. A World XI that played three T20s in Lahore in September 2017 included Hashim Amla, Faf du Plessis, David Miller, Imran Tahir and Morné Morkel. Rilee Rossouw, JP Duminy, Cameron Delport, David Wiese and Colin Ingram have featured in Pakistan Super League matches in Karachi and Lahore.

Before any trip to Asia or anywhere else comes into focus, South Africa will have to find a way past World Cup champions England in three ODIs starting at Newlands on Tuesday. Quinton de Kock will be at the helm for the first time as the appointed captain, and his squad includes exciting prospects like medium pacer Lutho Sipamla, left-arm spinner Bjorn Fortuin, opening batter Janneman Malan — brother of Test opener Pieter Malan — and wicketkeeper-batter Kyle Verreynne. The absence of Du Plessis and Kagiso Rabada, who have been rested for the series, will only add to the newness of De Kock’s team.

Batter Jon-Jon Smuts, Fast bowler Lungi Ngidi and left-arm wrist spinner Tabraiz Shamsi came through a fitness camp well enough to keep their places in the squad, but fast bowler Sisanda Magala didn’t make the grade. “It’s been a tough assignment and the guys have really put in the work with the ambition to get into the green and gold in mind,” a release quoted acting director of cricket Graeme Smith as saying. “That’s the kind of commitment and grit we’re looking for in our national team. I’m pleased that Lungi, Tabraiz and Jon-Jon have been declared fully fit to join the ODI squad and I’m confident that Sisanda will be in that circle soon enough. He has put in an immense amount of work over a short period of time and we want to ensure he has the tools to deal with the high demands of international cricket when the opportunity arises.”

Magala, who took 11 wickets in nine games for the Cape Town Blitz in this year’s Mzansi Super League, will remain with the national squad and could yet play in the T20 series against England that will follow the ODIs.

First published by Cricbuzz.

MSL catches fire in PE

As a window into what the MSL could be if major players in the sponsorship and broadcast world were able to have confidence that it was a good place to spend their money, it was bittersweet.

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

THE Mzansi Super League (MSL) took the edge off its problems by delivering the closest game yet in this year’s competition at St George’s Park on Wednesday.

Plagued by inadequate sponsorship and broadcast revenue, ineffective marketing, little prospect of breaking even, and tiny crowds, the MSL doesn’t have much going for it.

But, for three or so hours while the Nelson Mandela Bay Giants and the Cape Town Blitz conjured a contest for the ages, none of that mattered as acutely.

The Blitz put up a decent 186/9 — the Warriors’ 189 against the Cobras in April is the only higher T20 first innings at this ground, and remains the record total — and the Giants reeled it in with five wickets standing and four balls to spare.

Janneman Malan and Quinton de Kock shared 72 for the first wicket for the second time in the tournament in scoring 31 and 39, and the rest of the visitors’ top five — Marques Ackerman, Liam Livingstone and Asif Ali — added another 87 to the total.

But the Giants fought back, taking 5/22 to limit the damage effectively.

Chris Morris, Junior Dala, Imran Tahir and Onke Nyaku claimed two wickets each with Tahir’s 2/26 and economy rate of 6.50 the standout showing.

The Giants seemed sunk without trace after only nine balls, what with openers Matthew Breetzke and Jason Roy gone with just three runs scored.

But captain Jon-Jon Smuts stood tall through partnerships of 53 with Ben Dunk, 46 with Heino Kuhn and 48 with Marco Marais before slashing a catch to backward point to go for a 51-ball 73.

Smuts’ gutsy effort included a reprieve for a no-ball dismissal by Wahab Riaz and surviving a lengthy review for a catch by George Linde at short fine leg off Sisanda Magala.

His exit, forced by a near no-ball from Wahab, left Marais — the cleanest, crispest, hardest hitter in South African cricket since Rassie van der Dussen — and Morris to get the job done, which they did by clattering 37 off 18 balls.

Morris clinched it in soap opera style with a mighty heave off Magala, which Linde, diving for all his worth on the midwicket fence, almost caught.

Instead the ball was deflected onto the boundary cushion, which cost the Blitz six runs, the match, and their position at the top of the standings — a spot now occupied by the Giants.

As a game of cricket it was the stuff of dreams: dramatic and intensely competitive with a fair sprinkling of quality individual performances.

As a window into what the tournament could be if major players in the sponsorship and broadcast world were able to have confidence that the MSL was a good place to spend their money, it was bittersweet.

Reality resumed, and with it an interview Hashim Amla gave to Pakistani website PakPassion.

“I find it very amusing whenever this whole subject of Kolpak and its effects on South African cricket are brought up,” Amla was quoted as saying.

“Kolpak has been around for a long time, and so it’s surprising to me that it is been touted as the reason for all evils only because we lost the recent Test series to India [3-0 in October].

“I do not want this idea to become a convenient excuse for what basically were bad performances against India.

“When I was playing domestic cricket, we had quite a number of Kolpak players in our domestic teams also but then there was no talk of this subject.

“Let’s be honest about it, India are a really good side and they will probably beat all teams at home and the fact is that we did not play that well during the tour.

“Now one may argue that I am saying this because I have signed to play for Surrey next year as a Kolpak player but my story is slightly different as I have a few years of international cricket under my belt.

“The fact remains that this whole issue has gained importance just due to recent bad performances.”

Amla spoke from the United Arab Emirates, where he is playing for the Karnataka Tuskers in the Abu Dhabi T10 — a fact that on its own is indicative of some of South African cricket’s problems beyond Kolpak.

Having served as the Blitz’ batting consultant, free of charge, Amla has done his bit for the MSL.

But, if the game was in better shape at home, wouldn’t he prefer playing in the MSL to some gimmick far away?

You didn’t need to be at St George’s Park on Wednesday to answer that question.

First published by TMG Digital.

Spinners earn rare turn at the top in SA

TMG Digital

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

YOU read it here first: Nicky Boje, who turns 45 next month, is considering a comeback.

Boje played the last of his 216 first-class matches as a flinty left-arm spinner and handy batsman in January 2011.

But, given how the franchise first-class season is unfolding, he doesn’t want to die wondering about his chances of burnishing his legacy.

“Ja, well I’ve always thought about it,” Boje, now the Knights coach, said on Tuesday about fetching his whites from the mothballs after he learnt that five of the leading six wicket-takers are spinners.

He was, of course, not being entirely serious. But he could have made a decent argument for having another go.

With each team having played six matches Titans leg spinner Shaun von Berg tops the list with 20 wickets, followed by Knights medium pace Malusi Siboto, Warriors off-spinner Simon Harmer and his left-arm teammate, Jon-Jon Smuts, Dolphins left-armer Senuran Muthusamy, and Cobras off-spinner Dane Piedt.

Asked why slow poison was working better this summer than in others, Boje, who grew up and played in the South Africa of Allan Donald and Fanie de Villiers, and a host of other quality quicks, was like eight of the 100 batsmen he dismissed in tests: stumped.

“I’ve got no idea why that’s happening,” he said. But he had a go at explaining the phenomenon, anyway: “In the first round the pitches were flat and that made it difficult for seamers.

“Also, most of those guys have been around the block, so they’ve learnt their skills and got better as bowlers.”

And he wasn’t surprised by which bowler was on top: “I’ve always rated Shaun von Berg as a quality spin bowler, so he would probably always be there and there abouts [among the wicket-takers].”

There can be no argument that pitches have been docile, what with 16 of the 18 matches played so far being drawn.

The two games that were won and lost had more of a South African look about them: 48 wickets fell to fast bowlers, 23 to spinners.

But slow bowlers will want to believe their stocks are on the up in a country where so many factors about the way they pursue their craft — from the way they are captained to the nature of the pitches — have been ranged against them.

If we see Boje marking out a run-up one of these days we’ll know times have truly changed.