Pune – Bulletproof Truth

South Africa’s batters give bowlers licence to thrill

Marco Jansen bowls from “18 metres above the ground”, according to Kagiso Rabada.

Telford Vice / Kolkata

THE security man patrolling the concourse a metre or so below the top of the sightscreen at the Hill End of Pune’s Maharashtra Cricket Stadium on Wednesday was determined to do his job properly. “Sir!” It was a command, not a respectful term of address, and it was punctuated by a hand held up to say stop right there. “Next over, sir! Please wait!”

From that spot on the concourse you could see the top bit of Devon Conway as he coiled into his stance at the Pavilion End, his bat tapping the pitch, his head still, his eyes focused on the figure loping towards him to start New Zealand’s reply to South Africa’s 357/4.

The sightscreens at Pune are surely among the tallest in cricket. What did it matter if someone wanted to take a step closer to the field to snap a photograph of the scene glowing hazily in the evening smog? There was no way Conway’s view of the oncoming bowler could or would be cluttered by that movement. But there is no point arguing with punctilious security staff at cricket grounds. So we wait …

With a shocking suddenness a significant shard of the view above the sightscreen is punctured by a human spike. He rises from below like the shark in Jaws, up and up and up, and you want to apologise to that security man for your lack of understanding of the vectors pertinent to the moment.

Marco Jansen, all 2.06 metres of him, has bowled his first delivery from — as Kagiso Rabada would say later with not entirely mock envy — “18 metres above the ground”. Considered from the batter’s perspective, at the point he releases the ball some of Jansen’s long lever of a left arm probably is above even the tallest sightscreens in cricket.

That is but one of the factors that have made him the deadliest new-ball bowler at the World Cup. He has taken a dozen wickets at an average of 12.83 and an economy rate of 4.96 in the powerplay. Jansen’s snaking seamers have scooted across right-handers and jammed left-handers, scattering stumps and finding edges. He has burgled a few down the leg side and, memorably, straightened a delivery into Joe Root’s pads to create a catch at leg slip. The next best powerplay exponent, Dilshan Madushanka, has struck seven times. What, besides his skyscraper status, makes the South African more dangerous than his peers?

“He’s hitting great lengths, he’s swinging the ball both ways and he’s got a great bumper,” Rabada said. “If you have that in your artillery and you execute more often than not, you’ll be successful. He’s a natural bowler with a natural action — he can swing it, he can nip it. He’s gifted with the talent of making bowling look natural.”

That’s three mentions of natural in two sentences. It’s not a term easily associated with the beanpole fast bowler, who looks like he might snap in two as he leans into his run. Indeed, he seems more unaffected and authentic when, bat in hand, he is blazing the bowling to all parts.

But Jansen’s 16 wickets have been central to the success of South Africa’s attack, who have dismissed England, Australia and New Zealand for fewer than 200. Nonetheless the bowlers have been overshadowed by their batting counterparts — particularly when South Africa have taken guard first. When that has happened the South Africans have piled up 428/5, 311/7, 399/7, 382/5 and 357/4, and won each time. Rounded up, that is an average total of 375/6 — more than England, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India, Afghanistan, the Netherlands or Bangladesh have yet made in an innings during the tournament.

So, when South Africa bat first, by the time their bowlers get their hands on the ball they have room to manoeuvre, reason to dream big, and licence to thrill. Better yet, they have Jansen, Rabada, Lungi Ngidi, Gerald Coetzee, Keshav Maharaj and Tabraiz Shamsi, who have claimed 65 wickets at 22.97. Eighteen of those strikes have been made in the powerplay, seven more than second-placed Sri Lanka. Leg slip, anyone?

“When the batters put up big totals it means we have runs to defend,” Rabada, who helped rattle New Zealand out for 167 in 35.3 overs, said. “But we almost make it irrelevant how much our batters score. We focus on our own target as a bowling unit and a fielding unit. But, with the batters putting up big totals it does bring wicket-taking opportunities — because opposition batters have to go after the ball. But we’re setting our own standards and backing ourselves to defend any total.

“All the bowlers in our attack are genuine wicket-takers, which is why things are happening when they’re happening. We’re playing close to our best. That’s why we’re getting the results we’re getting.”

It’s not only the quicks who are getting into the act. Maharaj magnanimously attributed his 11 wickets at 26.45 and 4.93 to the over to “big fast bowlers making enough rough for me”. That was at least partly a joke, but he was also serious: “It’s always nice when you have 350 on the board and you’re bowling second, but a lot of the credit must go to our fast bowlers. They’ve been phenomenal, especially in the powerplay; taking two to three wickets almost every game. That allows you, as a spinner, to settle into your job.”

Doubtless the patron saint of punctilious security staff above sightscreens everywhere is happy to oblige.

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Nervous? Not this South Africa team

“It’s almost irrelevant who’s in front of you.” – Rassie van der Dussen on South Africa’s looming clash with India.

Telford Vice / Pune

IN World Cups past the thought of having to take on a high-riding home side in front of one of cricket’s most vociferous crowds would have made South Africans wonder what their team had done to deserve such a daunting fate. Not this time.

Yes, the opposition will be India at Eden Gardens on Sunday. Yes, they are unbeaten and bristling with strength and confidence in every area. Yes, they are the most passionately backed team in the game; perhaps in all of sport. No, that doesn’t mean South Africa are intimidated, worried, or apprehensive about the looming contest.

“What we’ve done really well in this campaign is focus on what we want to do and how we want to play it,” Rassie van der Dussen said in Pune on Wednesday after South Africa hammered New Zealand by 190 runs to rise to the top of the standings. “In our match review meetings we keep looking at the numbers with the coaches and so far in this tournament, by most metrics, we’re stacking up pretty well.

“So it’s almost irrelevant who’s in front of you. We know if we play the way we want to play and execute how we want to and take the correct options, especially under pressure, then the result is a byproduct.”

Van der Dussen scored 133 on Wednesday, Quinton de Kock made 114, and they shared 200 for the second wicket to set South Africa, who were put in to bat, on the path to a total of 357/4. Then Marco Jansen took 3/31 and Keshav Maharaj claimed 4/46 to dismiss the New Zealanders for 167 in 35.3 overs.

South Africa have earned five of their six wins batting first, each of them by more than 100 runs. Their biggest success was against England at the Wankhede on October 21, when they won by 229 runs.

De Kock is the tournament’s leading runscorer with 545 in seven innings. He has made four centuries, Van der Dussen two, and Heinrich Klaasen and Aiden Markram one each. No other team have scored more than Australia’s five hundreds. Jansen is the joint top wicket-taker with 16 strikes, the same number as Adam Zampa and Shaheen Shah Afridi.

“He’s ploughing back into the team in all aspects — in the bowling meetings, in the batting meetings, and by being one of our senior guys,” Van der Dussen said of De Kock’s contribution to South Africa’s cause.

“He’s one of my favourite guys to bat with. He really guided me through my innings today. At times I was under pressure and I was asking him about a few options. He’s such a cool and calm guy out there; he thinks so clearly.

“He doesn’t talk much; he does it out on the field. And I think that’s inspirational for us as a team and the rest of the guys — to see someone like that come up with the goods.”

But India, who slipped to second because of Wednesday’s result, loom as South Africa’s toughest opponents yet. They could be cast as the mirror image of the South Africans, having clinched five victories batting second.

“Playing India in India is a massive event,” Van der Dussen said. “They’ve been playing really well and they have a lot of experience in their team. They’ve got all bases covered — a brilliant attack and batting line-up.

“But we’ll go into that game knowing that if we do the things well that we want to do well, we’ll be in a really strong position. The challenge is to execute under pressure, to stay with that, and that’s what we’ll look to do. But we’ve played them here before and we’ve beaten them here before. So, in a sense, even though it’s a World Cup, it’s not really too different.”

In November 1991 South Africa returned from 22 years of isolation by playing an ODI against India at Eden Gardens. Their opening pair that day, Jimmy Cook and Andrew Hudson, looked dazed and confused as they walked out in front of a heaving crowd. Hudson, who was caught behind off Kapil Dev for a third-ball duck, has admitted to an acute case of nerves in reaction to the scale of the occasion.

Sunday will dwarf that moment from almost 32 years ago. But, this time, the South Africans will not be nervous.

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South Africa beat puny Kiwis with impunity in Pune

Proteas’ sixth win in seven games was achieved with what looked like ridiculous ease.

Telford Vice / Pune

THIS is getting … not silly, old, or boring. Maybe familiar. Predictable, even. South Africa bat first and add a small mountain of runs to the men’s World Cup landscape, with the help of one, two or even three centuries. News at 11. By which time they have wrapped up another win.

Names and places are changed, not to protect the innocent but to offer further evidence that this South Africa team are different from those who have come and gone before. Now, seven matches into their campaign with just one of them lost — batting second, it bears pointing out — only a fool would say they aren’t bound for the semifinals.

On Wednesday in Pune it was New Zealand’s turn. Actually make that in Pimpri Chinchwad. Or was it in Gahunje? What cricket calls Pune seems to be a loosely connected string of educational institutions — “the Oxford of the East” — military bases — passengers arriving at the airport are warned it is forbidden to take photographs there — high-rise apartment buildings — some completed, others not — the skeletal beginnings of what will be a metro system, and the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium. Much of all that is more or less connected by the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, which morphs the Pune-Bengaluru Road, and its clogged tributaries.

As a metaphor for the nebulousness of New Zealand’s performance, that will have to do. First Tom Latham made the strange decision to field — against a side who had reeled off seven totals above 300 in the last seven ODIs in which they have batted first. Make that eight after Wednesday.

Maybe the Kiwis were emboldened by their 383/9 against Australia in their last match, at the same ground on Saturday. Maybe they forgot that the Aussies had put up 388 to start with. And that the South Africans had rolled Australia for 177 in Lucknow on October 12 to win by 134 runs.

Maybe matters would have unfolded differently had Matt Henry not left the field with a hamstring injury midway through his sixth over. On his way past the dugout and out of the ground to have his leg scanned, Henry passed Lockie Ferguson, Mark Chapman and Kane Williamson, all of them ruled out of the match with various temporary impairments. When Ish Sodhi was called onto the field while Jimmy Neesham went off to have his wrist looked at after Rassie van der Dussen nailed it with a straight drive — which was also a spilled chance — New Zealand were down to their last 11 fit and eligible players.

Perhaps the New Zealanders figured South Africa’s 357/4, replete with Quinton de Kock’s 114 and Van der Dussen’s 133, was chaseable. Even against some of the leading bowlers in the tournament — Marco Jansen, Gerald Coetzee and Kagiso Rabada are among the top 10 wicket-takers.

Maybe the target could have been hauled in, but not after New Zealand had shambled to 90/5 inside 19 overs. Two overs earlier, as Kagiso Rabada prepared to bowl his fifth, the raucous joy of Waka Waka, the Afrofusion-Soca song by Shakira and Freshlyground that was the official anthem of football’s 2010 World Cup in South Africa, boomed from the stadium’s speakers. It was a sign, surely.

Another came after Glenn Phillips deployed silky timing to stroke the first delivery of that over through the covers for four. That wasn’t the sign. Instead it was that the shot, one of the match’s finest, made no impression on the South Africans. Rabada turned on his heel as the ball was fetched from the boundary, and eight overs later New Zealand were 110/8 on their way to 167 all out in 35.3.

South Africa’s sixth win in seven games was achieved with what looked like ridiculous ease. De Kock and Van der Dussen battered the bowling ruthlessly to share 200 off 189 for the second wicket. Keshav Maharaj found sharp turn and bounce to tear through the middle order for his 4/46, after Jansen led a typically ominous assault by the fast bowlers. And that against opponents who had won four of their first six matches and also had two bowlers in the top 10 wicket-takers, along with two of the leading 10 runscorers.

It wasn’t easy, of course. Displays as dominant as South Africa’s on Wednesday are never a mistake. They are the product of planning and intent, and most importantly execution. There have been times they have failed to do the latter during this tournament, most memorably against the Dutch in Dharamsala on October 17, when they lost by 38 runs. Then they got out of jail to beat Pakistan by one wicket in Chennai on Friday.

But, in light of Wednesday’s walloping, those look like speedbumps on South Africa’s way to the semifinals. Only one team, surely, can beat them before the World Cup reaches its sharp end. They will meet that side in Kolkata on Sunday.

Previously South Africa would have quietly quaked in their boots at the prospect of facing unbeaten India at a packed Eden Gardens, and on Virat Kohli’s birthday, no less. Now, Temba Bavuma’s men might well buy him a cake.

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Rassie van der Dussen, meet Bishan Singh Bedi

“The situations we faced in the past four years – COVID, Black Lives Matter, SJN – various political stories that we’ve had to manage as a team, have really forced us to pull together.” – Rassie van der Dussen

Telford Vice / Pune

RASSIE van der Dussen, meet Bishan Singh Bedi. You will have so much to talk about that your conversation will soar through and beyond mere cricket. You won’t agree on everything — that would be boring, anyway — but by the time you say goodbye you will have made not only a friend but a comrade.

Sadly, as of last Monday, when Bedi died in Delhi, this connection is no longer possible. That they never met is indeed a pity, because Bedi was that rare creature in cricket, regardless of the era: a player who thought about and spoke about matters far away from the game. His boundary wasn’t the edge of the ground. It was the full extent of what it meant to live, with integrity, in this imperfect world. Van der Dussen is of the same mind.

Which is not to conflate them as cricketers. Bedi’s bowling action was fluid simplicity in motion, the game’s equivalent of Picasso’s lifelong yearning to paint like a child. Van der Dussen’s batting technique can look as if it’s been cobbled together by a committee for the preservation of ungainliness. And yet, just as the product of Bedi’s apparently beach cricket action was the undoing of the world’s top batters, so Van der Dussen’s spiky angularity reaps runs and adds rectitude to South Africa’s batting.

He is their compass at the crease, just as a lodestone guides him off the field. As with Bedi, Van der Dussen’s boundary encircles everything. His answer, at a press conference in Pune on Tuesday when he was asked what had changed for South Africa’s team — who have won five of their first six games at this World Cup — since the 2019 edition, when they lost five of their eight completed matches, said as much.

“I think the situations we faced in the past four years, whether it be COVID, whether it be Black Lives Matter, SJN [CSA’s Social Justice and Nation-Building project, which exposed deep rooted racism in the game], various political stories that we’ve had to manage as a team, have really forced us to pull together.

“And the effect of us being really tight off the field, knowing each other intimately. We’ve been playing together for a very long time. Between any two members of the squad there’s a real connection somewhere. So I think there’s definitely something different in this team. We’ve had to deal with quite a lot of controversy and that’s stood us in good stead.”

A lot of that would seem to have nothing to do with scoring runs and taking wickets. But, because cricket is part of the real world and not the other way round, those who need to score runs and take wickets will be thrown this way and that by the impact of events beyond the edge of the ground.

Van der Dussen, like Bedi, is not among the unfortunates who believe in the impossibility that sport should be sacrosanct and separate from everything around it. The reaction to South Africa’s loss to the Netherlands on October 17, which leapt far past Dharamsala’s confines, proved that.

“You realise there are people at home who’ve been scarred by South Africa’s performances at World Cups,” Van der Dussen said. “And you can’t criticise them for feeling that way — it’s criticism coming from a place of hurt; they’ve seen that movie before. But we haven’t lived that, so it’s not really applicable to us and it’s not affecting us. It’s part of history but it’s certainly not part of us as a team.”

That history is starkly different to the Springboks’, who have returned home to the adulation of their compatriots after winning the rugby World Cup for a record fourth time. The Boks have yet to lose a final. The Proteas have yet to reach a final. That’s a bleak view from the cricket end of the equation, but Van der Dussen said the team were “massively” inspired by their rugby counterparts.

“I think Siya [Kolisi, the Springbok captain] mentioned in a press conference that if you’re not from South Africa you don’t really understand what sporting achievements mean for the people at home and for us. The realisation for us is that we’re no different. Yes, we haven’t won World Cups. But if we do manage to get there it will be an honour for us to be mentioned in the same sentence as those guys.”

What did it mean for Van der Dussen to represent not a country where realities are less contested, or problems are on a smaller scale, or the future seems stable? What did it mean to play, instead, for South Africa’s teams?

“We come from a very divided background, and that sort of mindset is still entrenched in a lot of communities and among a lot of the older generation. What the Springboks and what sport shows us is that, as South Africans, when you do get things right and you do things the right way, what you can achieve. Good things happen to good people. That Springbok team, that’s what they are. They’re all hardworking, good South Africans with a real humility about them, a real hunger for success. It shows, when you’re willing to put differences aside, what’s possible for a country like ours.”

At 34, Van der Dussen lives in a South Africa he knows is at once different and similar to what it was under apartheid. Gerald Coetzee, 11 years Van der Dussen’s junior, is from a different time and, in some senses, a different place. “We’ve grown up to understand each other’s cultures, and when we don’t understand something we try to respect it,” Coetzee said. “Because when you don’t understand something you still need to respect it.”

Coetzee “can’t imagine how hard it must have been” to live and play sport under apartheid, “but our cricket heritage is old and we look up to those players. So as much as the politics was horrible, the players were decent. There’s a balance — looking at the cricketers we’ve produced over the years and being proud of that; also looking at the history and being sad. But also rejoicing about that it’s become so much better and there’s been so much growth. We need to look at that and appreciate it.”

Had Bedi, a cricketer’s cricketer who was so much more than a cricketer, still been with us it would be difficult not to imagine him nodding and smiling in approval. This, he might have said, is how life is supposed to work: one generation making it better for the next.

Before India visited South Africa for the first time from November 1992 to January 1993 — when apartheid was dying but still the law of the land — Bedi, then 47 and long retired, asked Vijay Lokapally, a stalwart Indian journalist who was to cover that tour, “to get literature on South Africa the country and on South African cricket”, Lokapally said. “Bedi sir felt strongly for the blacks. He particularly wanted books that had information on the apartheid days.” When Lokapally returned home Bedi invited him to lunch and a debrief: “He listened to my experiences with childlike enthusiasm. He wanted to know if I had experienced any discrimination because of my colour.”

Famously, Bedi wrote to the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) to demand his name be removed from a stand at the Kotla after the ground was relabelled in honour of Arun Jaitley, a former DDCA president and BCCI vice-president but more prominent as India’s minister of finance. To be connected with a figure he detested was too much for Bedi, whose letter scathed: “With honour comes responsibility. They fêted me for the total respect and integrity with which I played the game. And now I’m returning the honour to assure them all that four decades after my retirement, I still retain those values.” As if that wasn’t clear enough, he followed up with another volley days later: “I don’t wish a stand in my name when late Arun Jaitley’s statue is erected without any visible shame.”

Even so, the Bishan Singh Bedi Stand still hugs the western boundary in Delhi, offering spectators respite from the setting sun. Cheers rose from those in its seats on October 7 — 16 days before Bedi’s death — when South Africa piled up 428/5 to beat Sri Lanka by 102 runs. Quinton de Kock and Aiden scored centuries, but so did a player who isn’t blessed with their languid left-handedness, a man of angles, integrity, and the courage to speak his mind. Maybe, in cricket’s strange way, Van der Dussen did meet Bedi after all.

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Time, at last, for cricket’s World Cup to shine

“The result against Pakistan could have been different, and then we’d be having a different conversation. If we do it again and again we’ll start to accept that we’re getting better at winning key moments in pressure games.” — Rob Walter

Telford Vice / Pune

RUGBY is a bigger deal than cricket in New Zealand and South Africa. Small wonder: the All Blacks or the Springboks have won seven of the 10 men’s World Cups yet played, even though the Boks weren’t at the first two because of apartheid.

So there will be no avoiding in Pune on Wednesday the echoes of this year’s final between rugby’s giants, which was played in Paris in the early hours of Sunday morning (IST). The South Africans claimed a record fourth triumph, winning a thunderous, controversy-strewn classic by a single point.

Men’s World Cup matches involving the countries’ cricket teams have have been spiced with drama — the 2011 quarterfinal and 2015 semifinal, for instance — but this rivalry isn’t as keen as it is in rugby. Maybe that’s because New Zealand have beaten South Africa six times in eight meetings. It isn’t much of a rivalry if one side wins significantly more often.

But the South Africans will believe they are capable of pulling one back this time. They are among the biggest batting teams at the tournament, and in Chennai on Friday they offered evidence that they have found a way to play under pressure by hanging tough to beat Pakistan by one wicket in the first close match of this World Cup.

The complication, for South Africa, is that the New Zealanders are themselves not averse to piling on the runs. And, of course, Friday’s match was not a knockout game — which have tended to prompt meltdowns in the team now led by Temba Bavuma.

The complication, for New Zealand, is that Lockie Ferguson, Kane Williamson and Mark Chapman are carrying significant injuries. Those are problems in three important areas that have made them a competitive team.

The other complication is that, with the semifinal line-up solidifying with each passing match, this game is more about who goes where in the final four than anything else. Both teams will be reasonably confident of making the play-offs, but will they play Australia or India in the semis? Winning, and losing, on Wednesday will go some way towards answering that question.

New Zealand’s other remaining opponents in the league stage are Pakistan and Sri Lanka. They should have the measure of both. But South Africa will be at Eden Gardens on Sunday for a clash with unbeaten India. They won’t want to be thinking about what went wrong in Pune as they take the flight to Kolkata.

Cricket matches between New Zealand and South Africa are often distilled to a tussle that pits the former’s famous flintiness against the latter’s supposedly superior strength. That narrative will again be afoot in this match, but so will something else.

When you grow up in the shadow of rugby and play cricket instead, and you know you have picked the sport that doesn’t grab your compatriots’ attention nearly as much as the other, you also know you need to take every chance to show them why you have made the right choice. This, for all involved, is one such chance.

When: November 1, 2023 at 14:00 IST

Where: Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium, Pune

What to expect: A small target — 260 wasn’t reached in either of the first innings in the two matches played here in the tournament — despite the decent pitch and small outfield. Hot and dry, but less humid than other venues.

Teams:

New Zealand

The Kiwis are awaiting news on Lockie Ferguson’s Achilles, Kane Williamson’s thumb and Mark Chapman’s calf. Tom Latham was particularly non-committal about them at his press conference on Tuesday.

Without certainty on those players it’s difficult to see which way New Zealand will lean to pick their XI. That said, all three trained on Tuesday.

Tactics & strategy

New Zealand have made four of the top 20 totals in the tournament, and Rachin Ravindra, Daryl Mitchell and Devon Conway have scored centuries. So we can bank on them being competitive with the bat. Mitchell Santner and Matt Henry are their two most successful bowlers and are among the top 10 wicket-takers, and then there’s Glenn Phillips, whose off-spin became less part-time and more frontline every time he gives it a whirl.

Probable XI: Devon Conway, Will Young, Rachin Ravindra, Daryl Mitchell, Tom Latham (capt), Glenn Phillips, Jimmy Neesham, Mitchell Santner, Matt Henry, Trent Boult, Lockie Ferguson

South Africa

Kagiso Rabada missed the match against Pakistan in Chennai on Friday because of lower back spasms, but should be good to go on Wednesday. South Africa’s only other question is whether to pick Tabraiz Shamsi as a second spinner rather than Gerald Coetzee, their fast bowling enforcer.

Tactics & strategy

Like their opponents, South Africa own four of the 20 biggest totals at this World Cup. Quinton de Kock has scored half of their six hundreds, and Aiden Markram, Heinrich Klaasen and Rassie van der Dussen the others. Runs are not the issue, and they showed against Pakistan that they can chase. Also like the Kiwis, the Saffers have two of the leading 10 wicket-takers in Marco Jansen and Gerald Coetzee. But they have been liable to leak a few too many runs.

Probable XI: Temba Bavuma (capt), Quinton de Kock, Rassie van der Dussen, Aiden Markram, Heinrich Klaasen, David Miller, Marco Jansen, Kagiso Rabada, Keshav Maharaj, Gerald Coetzee, Lungi Ngidi

Did you know?

— Two of the three centuries in World Cup games between the teams — Herschelle Gibbs’ 143 and Stephen Fleming’s 134 not out — were scored in the same match, at the Wanderers in 2003.

— Jacob Oram’s 4/39 in the 2011 quarterfinal in Dhaka is the only instance of a bowler claiming more than three wickets in World Cup matches involving these teams.

— Two of the Kiwis’ six World Cup wins were in knockout games: the 2011 quarterfinal and the 2015 semifinal.

What they said:

“There were two special sporting events going on, and one’s just finished. But we feel the support we have back home. We certainly understand the country is right behind us and hopefully we can make them proud.” — Tom Latham says his team can feel the love despite the nation’s obsession with the rugby World Cup.

“The result [against Pakistan] could have been different, and then we’d be having a different conversation. But the important and heartening thing was to see how some of the guys played under pressure, and that we managed to find a way to get over the line. If we do it again and again we’ll start to accept that we’re getting better at winning key moments in pressure games.” — Rob Walter on South Africa’s relationship with tight contests.

Squads:

New Zealand: Kane Williamson (capt),Trent Boult, Mark Chapman, Devon Conway, Lockie Ferguson, Matt Henry, Tom Latham, Daryl Mitchell, Jimmy Neesham, Glenn Phillips, Rachin Ravindra, Mitchell Santner, Ish Sodhi, Tim Southee, Will Young

South Africa: Temba Bavuma (capt), Reeza Hendricks, Aiden Markram, David Miller, Rassie van der Dussen, Marco Jansen, Andile Phehlukwayo, Quinton de Kock, Heinrich Klaasen, Gerald Coetzee, Keshav Maharaj, Lungi Ngidi, Kagiso Rabada, Tabraiz Shamsi, Lizaad Williams

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India complete SA’s humiliation

“We don’t want to be mentally weak.” – Faf du Plessis

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

RUTHLESSNESS. Of the many factors that separated India and South Africa in their men’s Test series, that’s up there.

Faf du Plessis knows it, and he should. Having presided over South Africa’s worst series in 83 years — not since 1936 have they endured consecutive innings defeats — he was a good choice to explain it all.

“The way the Indian seamers especially showed us as a South African fast bowling attack how to bowl speaks volumes for this series,” Du Plessis told reporters in Ranchi on Tuesday after India won by an innings and 202 runs in less than two-and-a-half days of actual playing time — more than half of which India spent batting.

They lost nine wickets before declaring after 116.3 overs, and needed only 104.2 to dismiss South Africa. Twice.

“The pace they bowled, the consistency they bowled, the skill that they showed, there’s learning for us in that,” Du Plessis said.

“Seam bowling is one area; spin, they were better than us.

“From a batting unit [perspective], exceptional ruthlessness in the way they put massive scores on the board.

“That’s one of the reasons why mentally we were probably so weak towards the end.

“The relentless ruthlessness in the way that they put big totals on the board.

“Obviously they did bat first every time which made it easier, but they still put on 500, 500, 600.

“And the scoreboard pressure, the effect that it has on you mentally as a batting line-up, it takes a lot of energy and it takes a lot of toll and that’s why we could see, towards the end, our batting line-up was mentally weak.

“We don’t want to be mentally weak. Obviously you try as hard as you can, but their ruthlessness right through this series — you just feel like there’s no opportunity or no moment in the game when you can hide.

“It’s constant. Your body is tired, your mind is tired and then you make mistakes.

“That’s what makes them such a powerful team — the ruthlessness. That’s where we’re falling short with the batting.

“In the first Test Dean [Elgar] and ‘Quinny’ [Quinton de Kock] played great knocks [scoring 160 and 111] but after that a lot of 50s, a lot of starts.

“They didn’t have that. They had huge scores.

“And also from a fielding point of view, it’s tough to say that, but they outfielded us.

“The energy that they showed, it was a complete performance and we were outplayed.”

That was no less true on Tuesday, when the Indians needed only a dozen deliveries to take the last two wickets they needed to clinch the series 3-0.

Debutant left-arm spinner Shahbaz Nadeem had Theunis de Bruyn caught behind before, with his next delivery, catching Lungi Ngidi’s mighty mow after it ricochetted off non-striker Anrich Nortjé’s wrist.

With that another triumph was added to a list that already featured victory by 203 runs in Visakhapatnam and by an innings and 137 runs in Pune — which was South Africa’s biggest loss to India until Tuesday.

The difference of 53.91 that looms between South Africa’s batting average for the series — 23.01 — and their bowling average — 76.92 — is an unwanted record for all their rubbers since readmission.

South Africa’s seamers took 10 wickets at an average of 70.2 in 219.3 overs. India’s claimed 26 at 17.5 in 152.5. That’s another record in comparison terms.

All told South Africa snared 25 scalps and India 60: still another worst for them measuring the difference between them and their opponents in a series, and there are plenty more where those came from.

That’s what ruthlessness look like.

First published by TMG Digital.

Shake, rattle and Ranchi

South Africa have been outbatted, outfastbowled, outspun, outfielded, outcaptained and outthought.

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

THE last time South Africa faced a set of results worse than what looms for their men’s Test team in India on Tuesday, Nelson Mandela had yet to join the ANC.

In March 1936, like they had done in the preceding matches at Newlands and Old Wanderers, Australia won by an innings at Kingsmead to seal a 4-0 series victory.

More than 83 years have passed since South Africa last suffered consecutive innings defeats.

That is likely to change in Ranchi, where the visitors have two wickets in hand to score the 203 runs they need to make India have to bother with batting again in the third and last Test of a rubber that has become ever more wretched for the South Africans.

Having been thrashed by an innings and 137 in the second Test in Pune, which followed a mere drubbing — by 203 runs — in Visakhapatnam, South Africa are staring at a successive defeat in the most humiliating manner.

It would be the ninth time South Africa have slumped to one innings defeat after another, but all of the previous calamities of this calibre were endured while they were lightweights of the international game.

For a side who have spent more than a third of the previous 10 years — 42 of the 120 months — as the No. 1-ranked Test team, and who were still in that spot less than four years ago, this is more a crash than a fall from grace.

They have been outbatted, outfastbowled, outspun, outfielded, outcaptained and outthought. Not forgetting outtossed. Now they are about to be tossed out, of India, and will return home to face England in December.

By then, they will hope, the messy details of what happened on Monday will not be as raw in their consciousness as now.

Having resumed on 9/2 with their hopes of reeling in India’s declaration of 497/9 receding steadily, South Africa were dismissed for 162 in 56.2 overs — both their lowest total of the series and the fewest number of overs they have faced in an innings in the three matches — and followed on 335 behind.

The 91 Zubayr Hamza and Temba Bavuma shared, and the 32 put on by George Linde and Anrich Nortjé, were their only noteworthy partnerships.

Hamza, in only his third Test innings, played like someone with significantly more experience and made a flinty 62.

Bavuma showed familiar stickability for his 32, debutant Linde looked like he belonged for his 37, and Nortjé gutsed it out for 55 balls for his four.

Mohammed Shami seemed to take a particular dislike to Nortjé, hitting him on the shoulder with consecutive bouncers and then nailing his elbow.

Less than three hours after he was dismissed the first time Hamza was back at the crease.

But not for long: he picked the wrong line trying to defend the sixth ball he faced, a sniping outswinger from Shami that sent his off-stump gambolling gaily in the outfield.

“A day of firsts — first half-century for the national side … and the first time I’ve been out twice in the same day,” Hamza mused to reporters in Ranchi after the close.

Quinton de Kock, Hamza, Faf du Plessis, and Bavuma were all out by midway through the 10th over, when Dean Elgar ducked into a bouncer from Umesh Yadav that didn’t get up and was clanged a fearful blow on the side of the helmet.

He shambled off groggily, and South Africa were 67/6 when Theunis de Bruyn walked out as his team’s first ever concussion substitute.

De Bruyn was 30 not out when bad light ended play with South Africa having subsided to 132/8.

This has not been a happy series for De Bruyn, what with him scoring only 52 runs from his first four innings.

But, unlike Hamza, Du Plessis, Bavuma, Heinrich Klaasen, Linde, Dane Piedt and Kagiso Rabada, De Bruyn wasn’t dismissed a second time inside a few hours in which 16 wickets fell.

“To have almost being bowled out twice in just less than two days is pretty poor,” Hamza said.

Mandela, who joined the ANC in 1943, doubtless would have agreed.

First published by TMG Digital.

Ranchi rains India runs, SA wickets

How many more South Africa wickets would have fallen had bad light not taken 34 overs out of the day’s play?

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

A monsoon of Indian runs followed by the clatter, like gravel on a tin roof, of South African wickets.

The second day of the third men’s Test in Ranchi on Sunday stuck to the script used for much of the rest of the series.

Virat Kohli declared after India piled up 497/9. Then South Africa shambled to 9/2 in the five overs they faced before bad light ended play.

Worse, the players dismissed are Dean Elgar, who has scored the most runs and faced the most balls for the visitors in the series, and Quinton de Kock, whose promotion to an opening berth was the grandest part of the plan to cure the virus that has struck South Africa’s batting.

Both gloved catches to the wicketkeeper having tried to leave short, aggressive deliveries bowled by Mohammed Shami and Umesh Yadav.

Other South Africans will be relieved to know the gloom cut short Sunday’s proceedings by 34 overs: who knows how many more wickets would have fallen had they been bowled.

Rohit Sharma converted his overnight 117 not out into 212, his first Test double century.

Sharma, who made 176 and 127 in the first Test in Visakhapatnam, took his aggregate for the series to 529 — more than any other India batter has scored in a rubber against South Africa.

Having reached three figures with a six off Dane Piedt on Saturday, Sharma went to his second hundred with a pulled six off Lungi Ngidi to the 13th ball after lunch.

Ajinkya Rahane resumed on 83 and forged to 115 before being caught behind off George Linde in the 10th over before lunch to end a stand of 267, a record for India’s fourth wicket against South Africa.

The Indians attacked overtly after Rahane’s dismissal, scoring 191 runs in the 41 overs they faced before the declaration — 4.66 an over.

Yadav led the way, smashing the first two balls he faced — bowled by Linde — for six and following that with three more maximums in the debutant left-arm spinner’s next over. Yadav ran only a single in his 10-ball 31.

Linde, who was summoned from South Africa after Keshav Maharaj injured a shoulder during the second Test in Pune, bowled with discipline in his 31 overs — more than any other member of the attack — and took 4/133.

Off-spinner Piedt, Linde’s Cobras teammate, will be less satisfied with his lot.

He went into the match having sweated it out for 38 overs for his return of 1/209 in the first Test, and the 20 sixes he has conceded in the rubber is the most by any bowler in any Test series.

Piedt, who was also hit for nine fours in the innings, sent down a dozen of his 18 overs before he bowled a maiden.

He smiled broadly as his sixth straight scoreless delivery was confirmed and accepted Elgar’s two-handed high five. Then he reeled off another two maidens.

Piedt finished with 1/101 and might have got the joke that he shouldn’t be wearing 63 on his back. Instead he should wear No. 64.

Because that’s what he’s bowled in this series: sixes and fours.

First published by TMG Digital.

SA ring changes but call goes unanswered

“I was just hoping for a wicket somewhere,” Anrich Nortjé on dismissing Virat Kohli to take his first Test wicket.

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

FIVE changes to their XI failed to move South Africa out of India’s shadow on the first day of the third men’s Test in Ranchi on Saturday.

And that despite the visitors enjoying their most successful first hour of the series to reduce India to 39/3, largely thanks to Kagiso Rabada’s rasping first spell of 2/15.

But, at stumps, which bad light forced six overs after tea, the home side were 224 runs to the good with seven wickets still standing.

Rohit Sharma became Dane Piedt’s least favourite batter in reaching 117 not out, his third century in four innings.

No-one has hit more sixes this year than Sharma’s 17, all in this rubber, and no bowler has been hammered for more sixes in a series than the 11 Sharma has sent arching off Piedt.

The hapless off-spinner might have wished he hadn’t been one of the straws clutched at in the wake of two heavy defeats.

Heinrich Klaasen and George Linde — in for Aiden Markram and Keshav Maharaj, both injured — earned debuts, and Theunis de Bruyn, Vernon Philander and Senuran Muthusamy were axed in favour of Zubayr Hamza, Lungi Ngidi and Piedt.

Quinton de Kock handed the wicketkeeping gloves to Klaasen and will fill the vacancy, left by Markram, at the top of the order.

Linde looked like making a dream start when Sharma blipped his third delivery towards short leg — where Hamza couldn’t hold a difficult chance.

Sharma would have been gone for 28, his stand with Ajinkya Rahane would have been capped at 21 instead of resuming on Sunday at 185, and India would have been 60/4.

Ah well. At least Anrich Nortjé will always have the memory of trapping Virat Kohli in front with an inswinger, which followed two outswingers, for his first Test scalp.

“I was just hoping for a wicket somewhere,” Nortjé told reporters.

Let no-one remind him that the only other bowler to dismiss India’s captain in the series, Muthusamy, is no longer in the team.

First published by the Sunday Times.

Who will score SA’s runs in Ranchi?

“Sixties aren’t going to win Tests for us. I need to bat big.” – Faf du Plessis

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

THE first question asked of Faf du Plessis at his press conference before the third men’s Test against India in Ranchi, which started on Saturday, earned a suspended sentence.

“We’re making a few changes to the side,” Du Plessis said in response to a reporter who wanted to know what the South Africa captain’s team might look like.

“Probably the batting order will change. Let me think about it — I’ll give you something towards the end.”

Had Du Plessis not thought about it forever and ever, amen?

Had he not had enough time to agonise over his options since South Africa were hammered by an innings and 137 runs in Pune on Sunday, which came after they had crashed by 203 runs in Visakhapatnam?

Of course he had. Du Plessis has likely thought about not a lot else since the start of the series.

Mostly, he’s been thinking about batting.

“As a player all you want to do is grow,” he said. “For all of us, it’s about converting.

“Sixties aren’t going to win Tests for us. I need to bat big.”

Du Plessis has batted bigger than most. His 137 runs in four innings is more, in South African terms, than only Dean Elgar’s 216 and Quinton de Kock’s 147.

The problem is Mayank Agarwal and Rohit Sharma have each scored more than 100 runs more than Elgar, and that India’s two double centuries and a century put South Africa’s two tons in the shade.

Those centuries, by Elgar and De Kock, were scored in the visitors’ first innings of the series.

That’s an awful lot of grinding, catch-up, losing cricket ago; time in which South Africa have been bowled out all four times and India not once.

“It dents your confidence but international sport is supposed to be hard,” Du Plessis said. “We can’t expect things to just happen.”

But things are bad enough for Du Plessis to clutch at the straw of South Africa’s experience in their previous series in India, in November 2015.

“We came here last time with a team who had the best record abroad and we still struggled.”

Despite the presence of the now retired Hashim Amla, AB de Villiers and Dale Steyn — who bowled just 11 overs in the first Test before breaking down with injury and missing the rest of the rubber — India won 3-0, albeit with the help of unfair pitches.

The surfaces have been exemplary this time. The difference is that the South Africans, their batters especially, but also their fast bowlers, haven’t been up to scratch.

And that the Indians are all but unbeatable at home. They have lost only one of the 32 Tests they have played in India since December 2012, and won 25.

The victory in Pune sealed their 11th consecutive win in a home series, a world record.

“They’ve been much better than any opposition who’ve come here for … they’ve been incredible,” Du Plessis said.

As for the pitch in Ranchi, where only one Test has been played — a draw involving Australia in March 2017, when a double century and three centuries were among the 1 258 runs scored at the cost of 25 wickets — Du Plessis’ eyes were spinning, you might say.

“It looks a bit drier, a bit crustier,” he said.

“I think the wicket will spin. It’s a different colour — it’s got that dark, dry hardness.

“I think reverse swing and spin will be factors.”

So much for what he thinks. What he knows is that, “If you get runs in the first innings, anything is possible.”

Du Plessis’ team know so just as well as he does. Putting that knowledge into action has eluded them through their own lack of enterprise — if you have feet, use them — and India’s excellence.

The challenge of changing that narrative took a new turn when Aiden Markram was ruled out with a self-inflicted broken wrist.

According to a Cricket South Africa release on Thursday: “In a moment of frustration with his own performance [after being trapped in front by a ball that wasn’t going to hit the stumps in the second innings in Pune], he lashed out at a solid object, resulting in his injury.”

Opener Markram has scored 44 runs in four innings, so his is no great loss to the cause.

Who will replace him? As the press conference broke up Du Plessis got back to the reporter who had asked him the first question.

“Hamza,” Du Plessis said, “Hamza is coming in.”

That would be Zubayr Hamza, who has spent the first two Tests on the bench.

He last picked up a bat in seriousness on September 26 in a tour match in Vizianagaram, where he scored 22.

In the same innings Markram retired when he reached 100 off 118 balls, a performance that would seem beyond him now, and not only because he has since faced exponentially better opposition.

Good luck, Mr Hamza.*

* South Africa gave debuts to Heinrich Klaasen and George Linde — who came in for the injured Markram and Keshav Maharaj — and dropping Theunis de Bruyn, Vernon Philander and Senuran Muthusamy in favour of Hamza, Lungi Ngidi and Dane Piedt. Quinton de Kock, who has relinquished the wicketkeeping gloves to Klaasen, will fill the vacancy Markram left at the top of the order.

First published by TMG Digital.