New Zealand – Bulletproof Truth

Kane king as South Africa limp back to SA20-land

“He doesn’t leave his bubble. He just stays there, he just focuses on the next ball. He really respects the game.” – Neil Brand on Kane Williamson

Telford Vice / Cape Town

AT least it was Kane Williamson who administered the last rites. If you have to lose a Test and be lumped with an unwanted record that you have avoided for almost 92 years, rather the nicest man in cricket delivers the killer blows than some smug aggressor.

Williamson’s undefeated 133 at Seddon Park on Friday, his third century in four innings and his seventh in a dozen trips to the crease, clinched what New Zealand had never achieved from their first meeting with these opponents in February and March 1932 — victory in a men’s Test series against South Africa.

Having been outplayed and thumped, by 281 runs, in the first Test in Mount Maunganui, the South Africans — significantly weakened by SA20 contractual commitments — proved more competitive in Hamilton. With Dane Piedt taking 5/89 in the first innings, which earned South Africa a lead of 31, and David Bedingham scoring 110 in the second dig, hopes rose of a fairytale win. But a crash of 6/33 after tea on Thursday, starring Will O’Rourke, whose match figures of 9/93 are the best by a New Zealand debutant, trimmed the target to 267. Williamson and Will Young took New Zealand home by seven wickets in the last hour of Friday’s play with an unbroken stand of 152.

“We were in a really good position [on Thursday] afternoon to put the Black Caps under real pressure,” Shukri Conrad said. “At tea time we were 217 ahead for four, and we could have batted out the day and part of today. But we felt we posted something that could be competitive. But when the No. 1-ranked batter in the world plays the way he does, I don’t think we can be too disappointed about the outcome of the match.”

Williamson batted for more than six hours and faced 260 balls for his 32nd Test century, the first of them scored on debut in Ahmedabad in November 2010. His latest feat was a patient march to a victory that became more inexorable with each passing, flawless minute that Williamson occupied the crease. In the series he scored more than 100 runs than anyone else and faced five deliveries short of double the number dealt with by Bedingham, South Africa’s leading batter in the rubber.

“You just watch and marvel at the way he goes about his business,” Conrad said. “If there are any learnings for our young bucks and our more experienced guys to take away it’s how he wanted to be there right at the end and almost pull out the stumps and say thank you very much. He’s a glutton for batting. It was an absolute masterclass. I sit here in the hope that our players watched and saw how to best go about it.”

Neil Brand saw Williamson’s innings up close: “He doesn’t leave his bubble. He just stays there, he just focuses on the next ball. He really respects the game, from what I have seen. He never throws his wicket away and he is always hungry to bat. A lot of us can learn from that.”

What could Tim Southee do but heap praise on the man from whom he inherited the captaincy in December 2022: “He is a special talent. It wasn’t an easy pitch to bat on and he just found a way. We knew if someone could stick with him and he showed us his brilliance, it was going to make things easier. He was tested with spin and pace and a challenging pitch, but we’ve seen over the years he has come out on top. After the 12 months he has had with injuries and setbacks and rehabs and coming back, it’s just phenomenal to see him be able to do what he does.

“He gets into his batting bubble and I guess it’s his happy place. We joke that he doesn’t like spending time with us, that he’d rather spend it out in the middle. But it’s just pure hunger for batting — his pure love for batting, not only in the middle but the time he spends in the nets.

“He is always looking to improve his game. It’s no fluke that he is as good as he is because he trains as hard as anyone I have ever seen. He hits more balls than anyone I have ever seen, and he just gets into that zone and is a guy you want in your team. For over 10 years he has been an incredible member of the side and one of our greats. And there’s still more to come.”

The South Africans were left to pick up the pieces of what might have been had they shown more application when they batted on Thursday, but they knew the superior team won. “The only time you are allowed to lose is when the opposition are better than you, and they certainly were better than us,” Conrad said. As a consolation, Brand had the certainty that “you know it’s possible to play at this level”.

He should count himself lucky he isn’t part of South Africa’s women’s team, who are staring at a defeat of biblical proportions after two days of a one-off Test at the Waca. They were shot out for 76 in 6.2 overs more than a session with Darcie Brown taking 5/21, then toiled for 125.2 overs before Australia declared at 575/9. Annabel Sutherland’s 210 was the fourth double century scored in the 148 women’s Tests played. By stumps on Friday, South Africa had lost their top order and were still 432 behind. The fact that Australia are playing their ninth Test in 10 years and South Africa only their second goes some way to illustrating the disparity between the teams, but that won’t make the visitors feel better about their impending thrashing.

South Africa’s teams will make long journeys home to a cricketminded public who will look at them with a mixture of pity, dissatisfaction and concern. Even allowing for the extenuating circumstances, how could they have performed so poorly? What will these results do to their collective psyche? Why should they take an interest in all that when they could suspend their disbelief and pour their passion into something as frivolous and inconsequential as T20 tournaments?

Like the SA20. It’s a fair bet South Africans have forgotten what happened in the final at Newlands on Saturday, much less in the rest of this year’s tournament. And that’s the point: it’s cricket for cricket’s — and money’s — sake. There is no overarching seriousness to get in the way of the fun, and there are no memories — good or bad — to linger into the succeeding days and weeks. Everyone goes home happy. Who won? Who cares? Even so, T20 shines with an incandescent brightness when the international game ebbs as low as it does in South Africa. And especially when a tournament shows provable progress, as the SA20 has done.

Of the 34 matches just 12 were decided by 10 or fewer runs or with no more than six balls to spare. But that was three more games than last year, and close finishes are not a genuine measure of the quality of the cricket played — two weak teams could contest the tightest match as readily as two strong sides.

Four centuries were scored in this year’s SA20 compared to three in 2023. No players made aggregates of 400 or more last year. This year there were four. This season’s leading runscorer was Ryan Rickelton with 530 in 10 innings. Last summer no-one could catch Jos Buttler’s 391 in 11.

Heinrich Klaasen’s 37 sixes in 2024 was almost double Will Jacks’ league-leading 19 in the first edition. Three players reached 50 off 19 balls in 2023. Klaasen got there in 16 this year. Jacks’ 41-ball century in 2024 beat Klaasen’s effort off 43 deliveries a year ago.

Last year’s highest score was Faf du Plessis’ 113. This year Kyle Verreynne made 116 not out. The biggest stand in 2023 was 157 shared by Reeza Hendricks and Du Plessis. Rassie van der Dussen and Rickelton piled up a partnership of 200 in 2024.

There were a dozen hauls of four wickets or more this year. Last year? Eight. Three of 2024’s best bowling figures were five-fours. We saw one in 2023.

Not all of the metrics point upward. Twenty has been the magic number for most wickets by a bowler in both editions. Anrich Nortjé’s 142 dot balls last year bettered Daniel Worrall’s 124 this year.

But there is no doubt the tournament is flexing its muscles as it grows. If it continues on that trajectory how long might it be before the SA20, with all its fizz regardless of who does what and none of the funk that falls when South Africa lose, replaces the international game as this country’s cricket of choice?

Australia won the Waca Test by an innings and 284 runs on Saturday.

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Bedingham joins club he will want to leave

“I just hope this innings can win us a game and draw the series.” – David Bedingham

Telford Vice / Cape Town

OF the 366 men who have played 464 Tests for South Africa, 73 have scored centuries — 2,347 between them. That’s a slew of numbers, so let’s distill them to one: few of those hundreds are as important as the 110 David Bedingham made at Seddon Park on Thursday.

It gave a team of no-hopers hope. It confounded the prevailing narrative. It made South Africans waking up early to check the score ensure they weren’t still dreaming.

“When we are playing they’re sleeping,” Bedingham told a press conference when he was asked whether players in South Africa had been in touch to offer advice or feedback. In other circumstances it would have been a strange question. Not this time. Had, Bedingham wasn’t quite asked, he heard from the guys who should be in New Zealand — and couldn’t make the trip because they had to play in the SA20.

Bedingham had the good grace not to point out that had earned the right to be there, regardless of the problems caused by the scheduling clash. He played in both Tests against India in December and January, scoring 56 on debut in South Africa’s innings victory in Centurion. Keegan Petersen and Zubayr Hamza were also in that squad, but Petersen was dropped after making two out of 408 in the first Test and Hamza didn’t feature in either match.

Does that make Bedingham the only first-choice player among the 15 South Africans in New Zealand? By the logic above, yes. But that would be an unnecessary cruelty to inflict on people who have been through a lot in the cause of giving of their best.

New Zealand’s 281-run win in Mount Maunganui last week — which would surely have been by an innings had Tim Southee enforced the follow-on after South Africa had been dismissed 349 runs behind on the first innings — raised fears that an even heavier defeat awaited in Hamilton. That that has not transpired can be attributed, in broad strokes, to a less docile pitch, Dane Piedt’s 5/85 on Wednesday, and Bedingham’s innings on Thursday.

“I play a positive brand of cricket,” Bedingham said. “When they had attacking fields there was always the opportunity to score. So I tried to score and I’m thankful and lucky that it worked.

“I was probably a lot smarter than in the first Test, when I was trying to go for everything. In this innings I was more selective. I’m glad I got through it.”

Bedingham established himself in both innings at Bay Oval, facing 58 balls for 32 and 96 for 87 — South Africa’s only score of 50 or more in the match. But it needed more than that to keep them in the game. The stand of 44 Bedingham shared with Hamza was the first innings’ biggest. In the second dig, Raynard van Tonder and Hamza put on 63, and Bedingham and Petersen added 105.

This time, in the first innings, Ruan de Swardt made 64 and shared 77 with Shaun von Berg. In the second innings, Hamza and Bedingham put on 65 before Hamza and Petersen shared 98.

Thus Bedingham has been South Africa’s batting fulcrum in both Tests, a role he played in the classical manner. He stroked more than half of his runs through the off side, hitting 10 of his dozen boundaries through there and sending seven of them square of the pitch.

That’s not the only old-fashioned aspect of Bedingham’s game. Having heard from Shukri Conrad that he was being considered for the tour, Bedingham took his name out of the SA20 draft. “I don’t want to look back at not throwing my name in the draft,” he said on Thursday. “I just hope this innings can win us a game and draw the series.”

If that doesn’t happen New Zealand will beat South Africa in a Test series for the first time in a history that stretches back 17 rubbers to February and March 1932. That prospect was receding when the visitors reached 202/4 after tea on Thursday with Bedingham and Petersen looking settled at the crease. But, with Will O’Rourke taking 5/34 for match figures of 9/93 — the latter a New Zealand record — both were dismissed in a slide of 6/33 that cut a lead that should have topped 350 to 266.

Bedingham looked distraught after he carved a catch to gully off O’Rourke, but he had done his bit in the latest chapter of a long and winding career. In December 2016 he had to be extracted from the wreck of a crashed car, which left him with severe injuries to his jaw, hands and legs that took him out of the game for three days short of a year. From August 2020 he has been playing for second-division Durham as a local by dint of his UK passport; not to try and qualify for England but with a view to securing a British passport. And because he was not securing regular playing slots in South Africa.

“Two years ago I would never have expected to be here, so a lot of thanks goes to Shuks for showing confidence in me and giving me an opportunity to play and score some runs,” Bedingham said. His time in England had “allowed me to play in different conditions, against different bowlers. The whole experience, learning a new culture, that all helps.”

The Hamilton Test is only Bedingham’s fourth, but it is his 90th first-class match. That lends him licence to offer a view on how the last two days could pan out after the third ended with Dane Piedt trapping Devon Conway in front with New Zealand needing 227 more runs to make history. “That we got Conway probably makes us even. Piedtie and the seamers and Shaun have enough in the tank to take nine more wickets.”

Bedingham also needs to keep something in the tank. The next time he bats in a Test he will try to have himself expelled from a club he earned membership of on Thursday. Of those 73 men who have scored 2,347 centuries for South Africa, 25 haven’t made more than one.

* New Zealand won by seven wickets on Friday.

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Piedt’s back with fine five

“It will mean nothing if we don’t get over the line in the end.” – Dane Piedt on his 5/89.

Telford Vice / Cape Town

DANE Piedt spent 1,574 days waiting for Wednesday. Happily the limbo was worth it, as he made clear to reporters in Hamilton: “It was a great day of cricket. A great day of cricket for South Africa. We couldn’t have asked for a better day.”

It started, for Piedt, with the 16th ball of the second day’s play — when Will O’Rourke bowled fellow debutant Shaun von Berg off the inside edge. With that Piedt grabbed his bat and gloves and headed for the middle to resume a Test career that had been paused since October 22, 2019 — when he was part of the side who were beaten by an innings by India in Ranchi.

Piedt’s return lasted six balls, the last of them a short delivery from Tim Southee that he gloved to a diving Tom Blundell. There’s nothing great about that. But Piedt was central to what happened after South Africa were bowled out for 242 a scant 19 balls after he went, their last four wickets tumbling for 15 runs. New Zealand were dismissed for 211 with Piedt taking 5/89. More than nine years after making his debut, in his 10th Test and 22 days away from his 34th birthday, he had claimed his second five-wicket haul and new career-best figures.

The moment he will remember most came midway through the second session when he found turn and bounce to have Kane Williamson, who scored 118 and 109 in the first Test in Mount Maunganui last week, caught at short leg for 43. “Kane Williamson, in my opinion, is the best player in the world at the moment,” Piedt said. “It’s the way he goes about his business. He’s such a humble man, too. You always have a great conversation with him. But it’s always nice getting the big fish.”

How did Piedt get here? By way of retiring from the international game in March 2020 to further his career in the nascent professional T20 league in the US with a view to representing that country. He had played only two Tests after Keshav Maharaj made his debut in November 2016. By the time Piedt announced his decision, Maharaj had played 30. It was clear who South Africa, who don’t often deploy more than one spinner, had entrusted to be their slow poisoner in chief.

And so, with good grace, Piedt took his talents elsewhere. But his journey took an unexpected kink when it became clear that this year’s SA20 schedule would collide with the Tests in New Zealand. Maharaj, like most of South Africa’s preferred XI, was compelled to play in the tournament. That created a slew of vacancies in the Test squad. It was the job of Shukri Conrad, South Africa’s red-ball coach since January last year, to find players to fill them.

“I was in the US and Shukri sent me a message to ask if I was keen for New Zealand,” Piedt said. “I thought he was lying. I replied in the way that I normally do — that’s the relationship we have. We go back to 2008 when he was the Cape Cobras’ coach. He told me, ‘I am being serious’. It’s come full circle.”

When Conrad contacted him Piedt knew nothing of the SA20 situation. He did know that if he wanted to resume his Test career he would have to relocate his life — most importantly his wife and son — to play in South Africa’s domestic first-class competition. But that, too, had moved on since his last match there, for the Cobras against the Titans at Newlands in January 2020, when he went for 0/45 and 0/110. So he had to settle for a gig with second-division Free State.

In Piedt’s first match for them, against Limpopo in Bloemfontein in November last year, he took 5/55 in the second innings. The week after that, against Northern Cape in Kimberley, he shared the new ball in both innings and claimed 3/82 and 3/72. Most of the squad in New Zealand played in an A series against West Indies in South Africa in November and December. Piedt took 2/60 and 2/58 in Benoni, and 5/28 and 6/76 in East London.

That might surprise those who see off-spinners as the dowdy dads of bowling. They are not supremely athletic like fast bowlers, rebels like left-arm spinners or cerebral schemers like wrist spinners. Off-spin is what you resort to when you realise you’re not much good at bowling anything else, can’t cut it purely as a batter, and don’t keep wicket.

Consequently off-spinners need exponentially more belief, confidence and positivity than other players if they are to reach the higher levels. Either that or they must have the modesty to know they are not the star attraction, that their job is to ensure as little as possible happens while the fast bowlers rest, the left-arm spinners pout, and the wrist spinners plot their next mad move.

Piedt is something else entirely: an offie who has the audacity to try to get batters out. It’s an approach that has survived everything cricket and life have thrown at him, including being left out in Mount Maunganui. And it shone through what he said on Wednesday: “I thought I was in the game all the time. New Zealand are a quality Test team, a proper cricket team. They are not just going to give it to you. It takes 10 and 15 overs of perseverance and persistence. And we got in. We know we are on the back foot all the time and we try to take those windows of opportunity.”

In the context of New Zealand winning by 281 runs at Bay Oval, where South Africa were likely spared an innings defeat only by Tim Southee’s decision not to enforce the follow on when the visitors were dismissed 349 runs behind, for them to take a first-innings lead of 31 in Hamilton is astounding. Now what?

“We’ve got to do the things we continuously do; pound away at the wicket and be consistent and not give them free scoring opportunities,” Piedt said. “I don’t foresee the pitch getting easier so that’s going to make for a really competitive match. Day three is going to be exciting.”

Maybe too exciting? Maybe not for a bunch of SA20 leftovers and throwaways who might just have become a team: “The camaraderie has been really good. It’s a tight-knit team and when pressure situations come you can lean on the next guy. We’ll lick our lips for the fourth innings but we’ve just got to bat well tomorrow.”

Best they do, because they will share the spotlight with South Africa’s women’s team, who play their first ever Test against Australia at the Waca from Thursday. That will mark only the second time both South Africa’s Test teams will be in action on the same days — on August 21 and 22, 2003 the men were playing England at Headingley while the women were taking on the same opponents in Taunton. Should things not go well for the men’s team we could see another first: the Kiwis have never beaten South Africa in a Test series.

Avoiding that fate loomed large for Piedt even as he looked back on his success at Seddon Park: “It will mean nothing if we don’t get over the line in the end.”

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SA20 does what Test cricket doesn’t

“It’s disappointing. It’s crazy that it happened. We’ve got to make sure it doesn’t happen again.” – Graeme Smith on the clash between the New Zealand Test series and the SA20.

Telford Vice / Cape Town

THEY wore white dungarees, gold-rimmed sunglasses and not much else. The significant amount of black skin they exposed on this incandescent afternoon soaked up the sunlight, which boomed off their bleached, close-cropped hair. They were young, beautiful, utterly in vogue, and of a gender that wasn’t immediately apparent or even, perhaps, fixed.

They were the last type of person you would expect to see at Newlands, the natural habitat of white and brown conservatives mired in the conventional and the way things should be done — by all of us, not just conservatives — because they’ve always been done that way. And yet there they were promenading the concourse in their dungarees and sunglasses and not a lot else, enjoying Saturday’s SA20 final along with everyone else.

Beyond all the numbers that prove the tournament’s success, that tell us why the second edition was better than the first, that assure us the competition has a solid future, there was this. The SA20 is doing something right if it attracts people who wouldn’t otherwise be seen dead at a place like Newlands.

The conservatives are still there. But if the game is to remain relevant in the real world it will need to develop new audiences. It will require, among others, fine-looking people in dungarees. The SA20 is doing its bit to pull them in even as it goes about its core business of keeping the game in South Africa afloat financially.

But that doesn’t sit comfortably 11,500 kilometres away in New Zealand, where South Africa are likely to lose a men’s Test series to the Kiwis for the first time in all 17 rubbers they have contested from February 1932. That will happen unless Neil Brand’s team find a way to win in Hamilton, where they were 220/6 at stumps on the first day of the second Test on Monday.

The strength of South Africa’s squad has been severely impacted by the players’ contractual obligation to prioritise the SA20, which clashed with the series. Most of the first-choice Test XI was involved in the tournament — and looked on from afar as New Zealand won the first Test, in Mount Maunganui, by 281 runs on Wednesday.

The SA20 has the better of this bargain. South Africa’s seemingly bottomless well of talent means the tournament does not want for players worthy of the stage it offers. So the comings and goings of foreign stars is felt less keenly as it is in the ILT20, which runs concurrently but is heavily dependent on players from other countries.

Graeme Smith is uniquely placed to consider those contrasting realities. As the SA20’s commissioner, he is the face of the tournament and is rightfully credited with the lion’s share of its resounding success. As South Africa’s Test captain, from April 2003 to March 2014, in 109 matches of which they won 53 — both world records — he took his team to the top of the rankings in August 2012, where they remained until May 2014. How did he feel, as an administrator, a former player and captain, a South African, about the fixture trainsmash?

“My job is to build the SA20 and make it a success, but my love for Test cricket hasn’t gone away; I care for it,” Smith told a press conference on Tuesday. “I sit on the MCC cricket committee, and we debated at length two weeks ago. The challenges for Test cricket are much deeper than just this scheduling issue. It’s about the funding, how the models work.

“We saw [CWI chief executive] Johnny Grave come out and say, after an incredible Test win [by West Indies by eight runs at the Gabba last month], that they lost more than USD1-million and didn’t earn a cent on that trip. How does the revenue work between bilaterals? The distributions? All these things in the game need to be spoken about to keep Test cricket strong.

“This scheduling issue [between the Test series in New Zealand and the SA20] shouldn’t have happened. It’s disappointing. It’s crazy that it happened. We’ve got to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Under Smith, South Africa won 48.62% of their Tests, lost 26.61% and drew 24.77%. Of the 79 completed matches they have played since his retirement, in March 2014, they have won 38 — a winning percentage a marginal 0.52 lower than in Smith’s era. But they have lost 39.24% and drawn 12.66% — deficits of 12.63% and 12.14%. South Africa have not been markedly less victorious after Smith, but they have been significantly poorer at not losing. “Our Test cricket has been a challenge for a long time performance-wise,” Smith said. “I’d love to see that team strong again.”

That team had their best day of their tour to New Zealand on Tuesday. Having slipped to 150/6 after tea, they were well-served by an unbroken stand of 70 shared by Ruan de Swardt and 37-year-old debutant Shaun von Berg. South Africa might have been in a stronger position had David Bedingham not been caught off his boot after scoring a sturdy 39. “There’s so many ways in cricket to ruin your day and that’s one of them,” Bedingham told reporters. Maybe slipping on a pair of white dungarees would make him feel better.

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Kiwis eye history in Hamilton

“We want to come away from here with something.” – Neil Brand

Telford Vice / Cape Town

THE last time South Africa played a men’s Test in Hamilton, in March 2017, they were saved by rain that prevented any play on the fifth day. This time — the second Test starts on Tuesday — the New Zealanders look likely to get the job done inside four days.

In 2017 the visitors would have resumed on 80/5 needing another 95 runs to make New Zealand bat again. The chances were thus high of New Zealand wiping out the series lead South Africa had taken at the Basin Reserve, which followed a draw in Dunedin. With that the South Africans were able to celebrate their 12th victory in 18 away Test series, only one of them lost — the November 2015 rubber in India, which was tainted by poor pitches.

Almost seven years on much has changed. South Africa have won just one and lost six of their eight series on the road. The New Zealanders have quietly added to their excellence, which they confirmed by beating India in the inaugural World Test Championship final in Southampton in June 2021.

It’s tempting to look at cricket in New Zealand and wonder why the game in South Africa isn’t on as sound a footing. Isn’t the cricket industry in the countries about the same size? Doesn’t the game there and here share, broadly, the same culture? Yes, in both cases. But that’s a limited, simplistic analysis.

More relevant is the fact that as a developed country — as opposed to a developing country like South Africa — New Zealand doesn’t struggle for skills and expertise in all areas. It also doesn’t have to overcome the levels of corruption that can seem to be hardwired into South African society. Nor is it burdened with layers of distrust along racial, cultural and religious lines to the same degree as in South Africa.

New Zealand’s wider economy is significantly more stable and orientated towards growth than South Africa’s, and that the currency is far stronger. That’s why NZC doesn’t need a glitzy T20 extravaganza to ward off financial ruin. And why CSA do, and must make the SA20 their top priority. Hence the sorry state of the visitors’ Test squad, what with their best players locked into T20 mode until Saturday.

It isn’t fair on anyone involved, not least league commissioner Graeme Smith and the rest of the team who run the SA20, which is after all a rescue mission. But since when has capitalism — and cricket at this level is all about capitalism — been fair? The customers are being given what a lot of them want, and to blazes with the few who don’t want it. Until what they want pays the bills like T20 does, they are going to have to like it or lump it.

Still, it’s difficult not to feel sorry for Neil Brand and his team as they bid to avoid becoming the first South Africa team to lose a Test series to New Zealand. The original of the 17 rubbers was played in February and March 1932, when South Africa won the first match by an innings and both of the other two by eight wickets. Of the 48 Tests the teams have contested, South Africa have lost only six, the most recent of them by 281 runs in Mount Maunganui last week.

Another in Hamilton and New Zealand will banish the ghosts of March 2017, along with almost 92 years of failure. Aside from Test newbies Afghanistan and Ireland, who New Zealand have yet to play against, South Africa are the only side they haven’t beaten in a series. History is in the air.

When: February 13 to 17, 2024; 11am Local Time (Midnight SAST, 3.30am IST)

Where: Seddon Park, Hamilton

What to expect: Decent weather for the duration of the match. Totals of 500 have been reached at this ground five times in its 27 Tests — New Zealand put up 715/6 against Bangladesh in February 2019. Teams have been bowled out for fewer than 100 four times, but not since December 2002. Kane Williamson’s five centuries here — 53 have been scored in all — is as many as he has made at the Basin Reserve, where he has had seven fewer innings. Only three of the 28 five-wicket hauls at Seddon Park have been taken by spinners.

Team news:

New Zealand:

Towering fast bowler Will O’Rourke, who has played three ODIs, looks set for a debut. Mitchell Santner could make way for him. Will Young has been named to replace Daryll Mitchell, who has a foot injury.

Possible XI: Tom Latham, Devon Conway, Kane Williamson, Rachin Ravindra, Will Young, Tom Blundell, Glenn Phillips, Kyle Jamieson, Matt Henry, Will O’Rourke, Tim Southee (capt)

South Africa:

Shukri Conrad suggested strongly after the first Test that the XI would change. Exactly how isn’t easy to see. Perhaps Dane Piedt for Ruan de Swardt?

Possible XI: Edward Moore, Neil Brand (capt), Raynard van Tonder, Zubayr Hamza, David Bedingham, Keegan Petersen, Clyde Fortuin, Dane Piedt, Duanne Olivier, Tshepo Moreki, Dane Paterson

What they said:

“In New Zealand it can look like it’s going to do a lot, and then we’ve seen the side batting first get into a pretty good position. It’s about playing what’s in front of you.” — Tim Southee offers advice about what to do at the toss.

“We want to come away from here with something. We are desperate to put in a good performance this week and hopefully we can get ourselves into the game.” — Neil Brand still has the audacity of hope.

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The SA20 was last year’s darling. Is it this year’s dragon?

“Test cricket is my first love. I don’t think there’s a better feeling for players than wearing a Test cap.” – Aiden Markram, who is currently contractually bound not to play Test cricket.

Telford Vice / Cape Town

LAST year the SA20 was the darling of South African cricket, exploding in a giddy blaze of sound and light to save an increasingly drab game from itself. This year it’s the dragon, the destroyer of the fabric of cricket in this country.

At least, it is in the hurt hearts and miffed minds of those who won’t forgive the tournament for robbing the Test squad of their best players and hanging the remnants and newbies out to dry in their series in New Zealand — where the full-strength home side outplayed the South Africans in all departments to win the first match by 281 runs in Mount Maunganui on Wednesday.

Exactly how the visitors will recover in time to give a better account of themselves in the second Test, in Hamilton from Tuesday, is difficult to fathom. Perhaps, after all the handwringing about the proliferation of two-Test series in South Africa’s schedule, it’s no bad thing there is no third match.

How dare Mickey Mouse nonsense like the SA20 get in the way of proper cricket, this narrative goes. It has to dare because, without it, CSA would struggle to raise the cash required to run their international teams.

Maybe the sold-out crowd that will pack Newlands for Saturday’s SA20 final between Sunrisers Eastern Cape, the defending champions, and Durban’s Super Giants don’t care either way. Maybe they will have voted with their bums on seats against anything tainted by CSA’s touch, even though the tournament is indeed the suits’ creation — albeit it is externally run and its franchises Indian-owned. All involved will be happy that research company Nielsen found the South African television audience for “live and secondary” broadcasts of the first 19 matches in 2024 was up by 36% compared with last year. The “peak audience” was 35% higher, and “consumption” — or the “total number of broadcast hours viewed” — had increased by 49%.

But the fact is the finalists’ squads alone contain nine players who, all things being equal, might have been in New Zealand bolstering South Africa: Temba Bavuma, Aiden Markram, Tony de Zorzi, Sarel Erwee, Tristan Stubbs, Wiaan Mulder, Marco Jansen, Keshav Maharaj and Simon Harmer.

Worse, Bavuma and Erwee have spent the tournament spectating. Bavuma — who had an injured hamstring at the start of the SA20 — has played one game and Erwee none. Similarly, Beuran Hendricks has had only three matches and Senuran Muthusamy four.

How did it feel to be here instead of there? At an interaction with the press in Cape Town on Friday, Keshav Maharaj, DSG’s captain, greeted the question with a hollow laugh and said, “I can’t answer that. That’s left for the right people to answer.” Maharaj’s SEC counterpart, Markram, said: “Test cricket is my first love. I don’t think there’s a better feeling for players than wearing a Test cap. I’m disappointed not to be able to be there to take that series on, but the cards have been dealt and we’re here. It’s a difficult one for us as players, but this is where our focus has been this last month.”

Markram can hardly be blamed for that. His job is to see the ball that’s in front of him and to hit it, not the ball that’s more than 11,000 kilometres away. But another part of his job at Newlands on Saturday will be to stop DSG’s Heinrich Klaasen, the modern game’s ultimate master blaster, from doing just that.

Klaasen’s 208.87 is the tournament’s leading strike rate by more than 23 points. He has scored an unbeaten 30 off nine balls, 40 off 16, and — in the second qualifier against Joburg Super Kings at the Wanderers on Thursday — 74 off 30. Only Ryan Rickelton has made more runs in the tournament this year: 83 more, but from 91 more deliveries. Klaasen has faced fewer balls than the rest of the top six runscorers in the competition and outscored four of them.

“You sit on the couch and think, jeez, how are we going to get this guy out?” Markram said. Maharaj was happy he wouldn’t face Markram’s challenge on Saturday: “Give [Klaasen] 10 balls for himself and the next 20 will disappear.” Had Maharaj bowled to Klaasen in the nets, and did he ‘dismiss’ him? “I’ve bowled to him only once, and after about five sixes, yes, I did get him out. But that was because someone was fielding on the grass bank.”

Maharaj greeted Markram for the obligatory photograph flanking the trophy with a hug and a warm, “Hello my boy!” Which is as it should be considering Maharaj is more than four years older and made his debut for South Africa almost a year earlier. They are different in many ways as cricketers and people, but united in growing the SA20 as a central part of South Africa’s summer of cricket. The 2023 edition lifted the game out of the doldrums with its emphasis on fun and an absence of the seriousness that hangs over the international game. How did this year’s tournament compare?

“Last year it was always going to have a massive impact and people were going to reflect very deeply on it,” Markram. “This year has somehow been even bigger and better. You do have to take your hat off to Graeme [Smith, the tournament’s commissioner] and his team and everyone at the SA20 for delivering another fantastic competition. I don’t know how they’re going to top it next year but I’m sure they’ll find ways to do so.

“From a player’s point of view, it’s been incredible. We’ve loved it. It’s been busy but not too busy, and the standard of cricket has been really high. The overseas boys have loved it, and as a South African you can only nod your head and join them.”

Except, of course, if you’re a South African in New Zealand.

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Under Conrad, South Africa will never walk alone

“Many feel that they’re closer to the Test side than they currently are. You go through a few days like they have been through, and that’s a jolt and a wake-up call.” – Shukri Conrad

Telford Vice / Cape Town

SOMETIMES the story starts when the lights dim, the cameras droop and the action dwindles. So it was with Shukri Conrad in the moments before the end of his online press conference on Thursday.

Conrad’s erudition and ebullience had served him well for the 22 minutes in which he raked over the wreckage of South Africa’s performance in the first men’s Test against New Zealand in Mount Maunganui. Then, as goodbyes were said, he softened into a slight slump where he sat and the sharpness left his eyes. It had been another long day.

Minutes before, when the lights and cameras were still in action, Conrad had said, “It’s not OK. It’s tough. For everyone here. It’s like Burnley going to Anfield every week.” Burnley are currently 19th among the 20 teams contesting football’s English Premier League. Anfield is home to Liverpool, the league leaders and Conrad’s abiding sporting obsession outside cricket. For a proper Liverpool supporter to put the matter into that context captures how bad things are.

South Africa were beaten by 281 runs in four days. All involved knew they weren’t the first-choice XI, that they were the leftovers the SA20 did not want. The result made concrete the portents that had swirled since it became apparent that the tournament and the series would clash, and that South Africa’s best and most experienced players did not have a choice — they were contractually bound to put the SA20 first. For the good reason that it makes money. International cricket, unless it is against India at home, does not. Without money there is no cricket.

All of which is cold, hard logic. Less easy to explain is the hope that leaps in the hearts of those who are told they are on a hiding to nothing; that their six debutants and 37 Test caps next to New Zealand’s no debutants and 404 caps means they shouldn’t be there, that they have less than no chance, that they dare not hope. What, they tell themselves, if they are good enough, and all they need to do is prove it? Like they did in the 1,016 first-class matches their XI had played collectively before Mount Maunganui …

South Africa toiled until three overs after tea on the second day to dismiss New Zealand for 511, with Neil Brand taking 6/119. The visitors were dismissed 349 runs behind midway through the next day. The home side did not enforce the follow-on. Instead they built their lead to 528 before declaring on the fourth morning. The South Africans were bowled out for 247 early in the last hour of play.

Kane Williamson, who scored 118 and 109, was dropped on 45 in the first innings and 62 in the second. Rachin Ravindra was 80 when a chance he offered was spilled. He went on to make 240.

Keegan Petersen’s 45 was South Africa’s best effort — in terms of runs as well as minutes and balls faced — in the first innings. David Bedingham’s 96-ball 87 took some of the sting out of losing 6/69 in the second dig.

Every which way you spin it, the South Africans were outplayed. Did the match illustrate the gulf between first-class and Test cricket? “Yes, if I was brutally honest,” Conrad said. “The divide is great. If it was a T20, you know one performance can win the game. It’s five days of relentless effort and pressure. You’ve got to be on top of your game all the time against a quality side like New Zealand.

“It’s the relentless pressure an attack puts on you at this level. They don’t bowl better away-swingers, inswingers and bouncers. They just bowl fewer bad balls. As soon as you err you are punished. Those were the harsh learnings for our guys. I did expect a bolder showing, especially on the batting side. I felt we let ourselves down.

“When somebody gets knocked over first or second ball, you don’t have an issue. But when you get in and you have the [soft] dismissals we had, that is concerning. We’d create a bit of a partnership, in terms of time or runs, because time is almost like runs to us. And then an in batter gets out and, two overs later, the other in batter gets out playing a rash shot or taking an option that wasn’t necessary. But pressure does funny things to people, especially if they don’t have the necessary experience in Test cricket.”

Batting wasn’t the only cause for concern: “If we took our chances on day one … you know you’re going to have to live on the breadcrumbs. Every now and again, when a slice comes around, you’ve got to grab it with both hands. And we didn’t. That first day could have been different. The longer we had them batting, and then if we batted properly, the more chances Burnley would have had to scrape something out of the game.

“I thought our … let’s call them seamers rather than quicks, did a reasonable job on day one and into day two. That was always how we were set up. We wanted to manage the runrate. This might sound terrible, but we were realistic enough to know we weren’t going to knock New Zealand over. So we had to drag the game. If we did that when we were bowling and they didn’t bat at a decent rate, then you could drag the game more by batting well. Then we could have gone deep into day five, and who knows.”

What mental shape were his players in now? “They’re in decent spirits, but a few of them would have taken a knock in terms of the harsh realities that Test cricket brings. And possibly how far away they probably still are. Many feel that they’re closer to the Test side than they currently are. You go through a few days like they have been through, and that’s a jolt and a wake-up call.

“Often guys come to this level and feel silver bullets need to be landing from all over. In fact all you do is simplify matters. It’s easy to say go out and back yourself. But when your every move is magnified and your technique is being cut to shreds on TV and elsewhere, that’s the harsh reality of Test cricket.

“New Zealand showed us the greatest respect by batting a second time. That’s what they would have done if they were playing Australia or England, or a full-strength South African side. They didn’t patronise us by playing differently.”

Asked if his team had been thrown in at the deep end, Conrad extended the metaphor: “Every time you play a Test there’s an expectation that, even though maybe you can’t do all the swimming strokes, perhaps you can doggy paddle for a reasonable time and possibly not drown.” Even so, he saw “a great opportunity for the players to put their hands up and, as a group, to go back to the first-class system and spread the gospel in terms of what the requirements are and what their experiences were. Hopefully in that way we can uplift the standard and not create expectation at every turn — when someone gets a five-wicket haul or scores a hundred at domestic level.”

Hadn’t the same domestic system delivered all of South Africa’s players? “When Tony de Zorzi walked in to make his debut, he walked in after Aiden Markram and Dean Elgar,” Conrad said. “Then Temba Bavuma walked in at No. 4. There was lots of experience at Test level. If [De Zorzi] had walked out to bat for the first time the other day [in Mount Maunganui], he would have walked out with somebody who was also making his debut, and at three was also someone making his debut. All of these guys are inexperienced at this level. They’ve got heaps of first-class experience but they don’t have any Test experience, and there’s a massive gap anywhere in the world; not only in South Africa.”

Cricket was central to Conrad’s life long before he made his first-class debut in December 1985. He was born into the game: his father, Sedick Conrad, known as Dickie, was a contemporary of Basil D’Oliveira and scored two centuries in his 17 first-class innings, most of them in the top order. Shukri Conrad made seven half-centuries and took 73 wickets in 46 first-class matches as seam bowling, middle order allrounder. He is the kind of cricket person who kept playing after he was formally appointed as a coach, with Gauteng B in 1999-2000. All these years later he is the kind of coach who has “sleepless nights because I take the job very seriously”.

Shukri Conrad made it to Anfield for the first time late last year. A video from the Reds letter day shows him emerging into the stands in a team jersey and a club cap and scarf. It’s lights, camera, action as he exclaims: “Whoah! Are we here?! Unbelievable!” When he is told his seat is near the front of the stand close to the halfway line, he beams: “Are you being serious?!” His mouth can’t help gaping with joy. His eyes are as sharp and shiny as stars in the night sky. If anyone could look happier they might explode.

He didn’t look like that on Thursday, and it’s difficult to imagine the second Test — in Hamilton, starting on Tuesday — giving him reasons to be significantly more cheerful. But he could use some of his sleeplessness at 4am (New Zealand time) on Saturday. That’s when Liverpool kick off against Burnley at Anfield.

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Flurry of firsts for South Africa, not all of them bad

“We got a proper hiding in Adelaide, so to come out fighting in conditions that weren’t easy showed a lot of fight and grit. It speaks volumes.” – Marizanne Kapp

Telford Vice / Cape Town

THE firsts are lining up in South African cricket. All New Zealand need to do to claim their first win — and become the first holders of the Tangiwai Shield — in all 18 men’s Test series they have played against the South Africans is not lose in Hamilton next week. In Benoni on Tuesday, South Africa failed to take their chance to reach the men’s under-19 World Cup final for the first time since 2014.

But it isn’t all bad. In Sydney on Wednesday, South Africa beat bouts of bad weather along with the home side to earn their first win in 17 completed women’s ODIs against Australia — which marked the first time in nine completed games in the format that the Australians were beaten. It was also only Australia’s fourth loss in their 54 ODIs from March 2018.

That followed South Africa’s first win in nine completed women’s T20Is against the same opponents, in Canberra on Sunday. The Aussies clinched the rubber in Hobart two days later, but the South Africans had made their point.

The hero of Wednesday’s match was Marizanne Kapp, who scored 75 off 87 and took 3/12 in five overs. She overcame not only her opponents and two interruptions for rain while she was batting, which reduced the match to innings of 45 overs, but also an elbow injury sustained when she was hit by a throw from the field during the first ODI in Adelaide on Saturday.

“Coming here this morning I felt 100%, and then I started hitting some balls and felt pain in my arm,” Kapp told reporters in Sydney. “After speaking to the physio and doctor, they assured me the pain meds would soon start kicking in. They convinced me to play, and everything worked out.”

But Kapp didn’t need convincing about the importance of the result: “It’s a proud moment, not only for me but for South African cricket as a whole. “We got a proper hiding in Adelaide [where South Africa were bowled out for 105 and Australian won by eight wickets in 19 overs], so to come out fighting in conditions that weren’t easy showed a lot of fight and grit. It speaks volumes.”

South Africa had slipped to 71/3 in the 16th when Kapp took guard. She batted through three partnerships, none of which reached 50 runs or 60 balls, and into the 42nd over to guide her team to a competitive 229/6. Then she took 3/7 in an opening burst of four overs.

But why did she bowl only more over after that? “I had batted for nearly two hours and I’m 34 years old,” Kapp said. “It’s starting to get tough. If it was my younger days, you wouldn’t have been able to take the ball out of my hand.” Besides, it didn’t matter what with Ayanda Hlubi, Eliz-Mari Marx and Nadine de Klerk sharing six wickets as Australia crashed to 149 all out inside 30 overs.

Watching from the safer side of the boundary was Dané van Niekerk, until Kapp’s retirement in March last year her teammate in a Test, 92 ODIs and 70 T20Is. Van Niekerk played in more than two-thirds of Kapp’s internationals and Kapp in more than 80% of Van Niekerk’s. They’re also partners in life: they married in July 2018. Van Niekerk is in Australia as a commentator, which had its pros and cons for Kapp.

“It’s not always nice when she comments,” Kapp said. “I’m 34 years old; I know what I’m doing wrong. But it’s nice to have her here. I was at third today, and she told me, ‘Take out the slip. Put her in the covers.’”

The remark brought a ripple of laughter from the gathered press, but there was no levity in Mount Maunganui during David Bedingham’s interaction with the media after South Africa — wilfully weakened by the SA20’s demands on their first-choice players — shambled to defeat by 281 runs late on the fourth day of the first men’s Test. Set an academic target of 529, the visitors were dismissed for 247 with Bedingham’s 87 their best effort. “I don’t want to look on the negative side because we still have another Test to play, and hopefully win,” he said.

Indeed. The second Test starts on Tuesday. By then, the women’s team could have another, even bigger, first to celebrate: the deciding ODI is in Sydney on Saturday.

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Long day’s journey into night

“We can draw it, or try our best to; winning would be far-fetched.” – Keegan Petersen

Telford Vice / Newlands

TOO many people who can afford elite schools have children. So it can take an hour and more to reach Newlands — where several of these damned schools are clustered — on a weekday afternoon. That’s when all those little darlings pour out of their classrooms and into awaiting cars. And clog up the real world’s roads.

Consequently the journey to Newlands on Tuesday for the first SA20 qualifier, between Sunrisers Eastern Cape and Durban’s Super Giants, offered plenty of time and opportunity to reflect on the importance of population control and making better life choices — and what happens when those virtues are lacking.

Not that cricket in South Africa hasn’t benefited from the arrogance of those who believe the world couldn’t possibly get by without another dose of their genes. Almost all of the cricketers who reach the professional ranks in the country — and in a fair few other countries — have passed through the gates of the better schools in Cape Town and beyond. It is the only part of South Africa’s cricket system that runs something like properly.

Tuesday wasn’t the best time to highlight that fact. Not long after Reece Topley bowled the first ball to Jordan Hermann at Newlands, South Africa’s men’s under-19 team found a way to lose their World Cup semifinal in Benoni despite having reduced India, who needed 245 to win, to 32/4 inside a dozen overs. It doesn’t help when you concede 23 runs in wides. Hours earlier in the first men’s Test in Mount Maunganui, South Africa had been bowled out for 162. By stumps on the third day New Zealand had a lead of 528. “We can draw it, or try our best to; winning would be far-fetched,” Keegan Petersen told reporters. “It’s a wicket where we could look to survive. It’s going to be tough to do it for two days but that’s the hand we’ve been dealt.”

Ah, well. Nevermind. What was going on at Newlands? Nothing. The SA20 suits should have wondered whether they were tempting fate when they signed a sponsor who shares a name with what stops cricket in its tracks. After SEC had faced 50 deliveries, rain — the wet stuff, not the South African mobile communications company — arrived on the wings of whipping wind and tumbled out of a solid grey sky to halt play.

The last bit of entertainment that was had before the rippling covers shrouded large parts of the ground was watching Stephen Cook, the SA20’s head of cricket operations, try to stop his umbrella from turning itself inside out by deploying some of the same gawky movements he used to make when he opened the batting for South Africa. Then, his technique worked well enough for him to score three centuries and two 50s in 19 innings. On Tuesday, not so much.

All the tickets for Saturday’s final had been snapped up before Mumbai Indians Cape Town crashed out of the running. Would it have asked too much of Capetonians to wait out a rain delay to see two teams — neither playing in the city’s name — fight it out for the right to feature in a match their anointed side had no hope of reaching? As it happened, no.

The covered concourse, where many spectators headed for shelter, was rich with beer bouquet, burger breath, cigarette smoke, shining eyes, smiles, laughter, stilt walkers, feathery angel wings, and other, less readily identifiable wonders of the moment. Newlands has fallen into disrepair, but its devotees haven’t been dragged down with it. The fans are a credit to this place, and they deserve better.

The interruption dragged on for five minutes short of two hours. Or, incredibly, five minutes less than would have forced a reduction in overs. High up in the stands beyond the Wynberg End, two spectators high-fived each other in joy at the news that they would get full value for their money.

What did they make of South Africa’s performance in New Zealand? Were they disappointed by the result of the under-19 World Cup semifinal? How long had they been stuck in traffic trying to get to Newlands? All things considered, it seemed rude to ask.

New Zealand won by 281 runs on Wednesday.

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Brand’s sunny side stays up

“If you get hit for six it’s about how you come back.” – Neil Brand

Telford Vice / Cape Town

NEIL Brand’s path through Test cricket has yet to be plotted, but by a particular measure he is the top performer in the history of the game. By another he is in the leading six percentile of all men who have played at this level. Those are no mean feats for a captain whose team are staring at a thundering defeat.

After two days in Mount Maunganui, South Africa are 431 runs behind and have lost their top four — Brand among them. “It’s been a grind,” he admitted after Monday’s play. “Today in particular has been tough. We didn’t expect anything less.”

What Brand probably didn’t expect was to own the best bowling figures by a captain on debut in all the 2,528 Tests that have been played. Brand claimed 6/119. The only others who have taken at least five wickets are Naimur Rahman, whose 6/132 came in Bangladesh’s inaugural Test, against India in Dhaka in November 2000, and England’s Aubrey Smith, who took 5/19 at St George’s Park in March 1889 — South Africa’s first Test.

Brand is the 171st man, captain or not, to claim five or more wickets in an innings on debut. Considering 3,165 men have played Tests, that puts him among the 5.4% who have taken a five-wicket haul in their first Test.

As captain, Shaun Pollock took six wickets in an innings twice and twice claimed six. But none of those displays were delivered on debut. In his first Test, in November 1995 — Centurion’s inaugural Test — when Hansie Cronjé was in charge, Pollock dismissed Graham Thorpe, Michael Atherton and Graeme Hick at the cost of 98 runs in the only innings of a rain-ruined match. Trevor Goddard took 5/60 as captain in Adelaide in January 1964, and Buster Nupen was at the wheel when he claimed 5/63 and 6/87 against England at the Old Wanderers — which is now Johannesburg’s main railway station — in December 1930. Neither Goddard nor Nupen debuted in those matches.

No South Africa captain besides Nupen, Goddard, Pollock and Brand has taken five or more wickets in an innings, not least because the team have been led by batters more often than not. But there are five-fors and then there are five-fours. Some are the product of bat almost dominating ball, as evidenced by several catches in the deep. Others are earned. What kind was Brand’s?

He struck first in the eighth over after lunch on Monday by taking a stinging return catch offered by Daryl Mitchell. Then Glenn Phillips shoved a delivery down long-off’s throat. In Brand’s next over, Rachin Ravindra, having scored 240 in more than nine hours, took a knee to pull a short ball — which ricocheted off his leg and onto the stumps. “The way he struck the ball was scary to watch,” Brand said. Mitchell Santner was bowled in Brand’s following over with a delivery that zagged out of the footmarks. He completed his haul in his next over, when Matt Henry was caught down the ground and swinging Tim Southee was cleanbowled.

New Zealand finished the day in control, but they would have been exponentially more so had South Africa not taken their last five wickets for 38. Brand claimed four of them, and only two of his half-dozen were effected by catches near the boundary. “The tail played quite aggressively, so that kept me in the game,” he said. If you get hit for six it’s about how you come back. I got hit for a few sixes, but you have to do that if you’re a spin bowler.”

Brand’s bowling sailed for seven of the nine sixes the New Zealanders hit. That, and the general slant of events in a match in which South Africa were always going to struggle to stay competitive because most of their preferred XI are contractually bound to play in the concurrent SA20, must have made Brand wonder whether making the trip was worth the bother.

Quite the contrary, as his hattrick of amazings attested: “It’s amazing. Whenever you get down on yourself you just look at the crowd, who have been amazing. It’s amazing to be on a ground like this doing what you love.”

More amazing is that Brand’s sunny side is still up despite the egg on his team’s face. They remain likely to be fried, scrambled, boiled, poached or devilled, or a combination thereof, in the coming days. But you can’t make an omelette without cracking a few shells. Consider them cracked. Putting them back together again will ask everything of all the king’s horses and all the king’s men, and of a record-breaking captain.

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