“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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