Rohit Sharma – Bulletproof Truth

Pandya problem bursts IPL’s banks

“Fans in lots of sports see themselves – not the officials, team owners or players – as upholders of their sport’s unwritten moral code.” – The Economist

Telford Vice / Cape Town

AS Kieron Pollard has made clear, Hardik Pandya has not lost Mumbai Indians’ dressingroom. But it is equally clear Pandya has lost the Wankhede. Conventional wisdom says getting the fans back will take the magic cure-all of winning. In Pandya’s case it might require more than that.

Mumbai have lost four of their six matches in this year’s IPL. As have Punjab Kings and Delhi Capitals, while Royal Challengers Bangalore have been beaten six times in seven games. Even so, Shikhar Dhawan, Rishabh Pant and Faf du Plessis are not roundly and repeatedly booed at Mullanpur, what used to be called the Kotla, and the Chinnaswamy — like Pandya is at the Wankhede and, to a lesser extent, everywhere else he plays.

Crowds at India’s matches during last year’s men’s World Cup sank into a creepy hush whenever the opposition did something worth cheering. Non-Indians found that bizarre. Could it be ascribed to juvenility? Or was it a symptom of a wider malaise of exceptionalism? Either way, silence would be better than the boorish way Pandya is being singled out by his own team’s supporters and those of other franchises. “Sick and fed up” is how Pollard said the treatment of his captain made him feel.

The unseemly phenomenon tipped into ugliness at the Wankhede on Sunday, when Pandya was jeered as he came to the middle for the toss. And that despite his unbeaten 21 off six balls three days previously, and having shared an important stand of 60 off 32 with Tim David four days before that. Both those games were also played at the Wankhede, Mumbai won both comfortably, and Pandya was instrumental in both successes. Yet, at their first sight of him after that, the crowd greeted Pandya with rudeness.

The section of fans who saw him hug MS Dhoni as the teams warmed up before the game did vent their approval, but the level of happy noise they made was tiny compared to what met Pandya as he emerged for the toss. Was that noise reserved for Dhoni? The answer to that question could be heard in the raucous appreciation for the hattrick of sixes Dhoni hit off Pandya in the last over of Chennai Super Kings’ innings. Dhoni is, of course, Dhoni — a hero to, it seems, all who see him play. How much of the ovation was praise for Dhoni and how much was glee at Pandya’s misfortune was difficult to know.

Adam Gilchrist made a compelling argument, on Cricbuzz, to explain why this is happening. Teams like Mumbai, who have won five of the IPL’s 16 editions, can become “a victim of their own success”, he said. Their supporters expect better than played six, lost four.

Especially when the captain who led the team to all five of their titles is hiding in plain sight. Rohit Sharma is still there; fourth among the tournament’s runscorers and one of three century-makers after 30 games. Was Sharma’s leadership also a victim of Mumbai’s success? They haven’t won the IPL, or even reached the final, since 2020. At the Wankhede, in relative terms, three years without a trophy is exponentially longer than at other grounds.

And then, seemingly forever, there’s Dhoni. Like Sharma, he has led his team to five IPL championships. Unlike Sharma, Dhoni stepping away from the captaincy has coincided with a mirror image of Mumbai’s reality: CSK have played six, won four.

Pandya’s comment after Sunday’s game that “there’s a man behind the stumps [Dhoni] who tells them [CSK] what’s working, that helps” was taken by Gilchrist to mean that Pandya is possibly “not feeling that he has got support around him”. It’s difficult not to think that means Pandya reckons Sharma does not have his back in the way that Dhoni seems to have Ruturaj Gaikwad’s as CSK’s new captain. Thereby hangs another tale within this tale.

Unlike Gaikwad, who has played for CSK exclusively, starting in 2020, Pandya was parachuted into the Wankhede from Gujarat Titans — who Pandya captained to the title in 2022, when Sharma’s Mumbai finished stone last. Gujarat reached the final under Pandya last year by beating Mumbai in qualifier 2.

Born in Choryasi in the Surat district, Pandya is as Gujarati as they come. But he played his first 92 IPL games, from 2015 to 2021, for Mumbai and was part of four of their champion sides. Then he did, for Mumbaikars, the unthinkable.

A move to Chennai might have been acceptable. Likewise to Delhi or Kolkata. But Gujarat? From Mumbai? That was beyond the pale, an insult to Maximum City. The fact that Pandya was released by Mumbai before the 2022 player auction, when Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Suryakumar Yadav and Pollard were retained, doesn’t feature in this narrative. Neither that Gujarat bought Pandya for USD1.9-million, also before the 2022 auction.

What does the ingrate do after two seasons with Gujarat? Ask to be traded back to Mumbai! If there was a way to lower himself still further in the eyes of the Wankhede faithful, that was it. Worse yet, it prompted Sharma’s removal as captain — the final straw. If Mumbai win an IPL under Pandya, expect boos as he lifts the trophy.

This attempt at analysing the Pandya problem comes to you from the sharp tip of Africa. Why, you might ask if you’re Indian, should what is essentially a domestic squabble be of interest in other countries? Because the IPL has long since burst its banks as an indigenous event, if it ever was any such thing. The first game, at the Chinnaswamy in April 2008, involved four Australians, two South Africans, a Pakistani and a New Zealander — Brendon McCullum, who scored 158 off 73.

So woven into the fabric of modern cricket is the IPL in countries where the game has a significant presence — not least because those countries supply many of the tournament’s best players — that Pandya’s predicament has come to the attention of one of the most unfrivolous publications in print anywhere.

“Are Indians right to boo Hardik Pandya, a star cricketer?” is the headline above 926 words on the subject that appeared in The Economist on Friday. “Mr Pandya’s first sin was to jump ship, moving from the Gujarat Titans to the Mumbai Indians. That move earned Mr Pandya, himself a Gujarati, the ire of his home-state supporters. But as part of the lucrative deal, Mr Pandya allegedly insisted that he replace Rohit Sharma as the captain of his new side. For fans of the Mumbai Indians, that act of opportunism against their hugely successful leader was tantamount to treason.”

That “allegedly” over Mumbai’s captaincy change is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Mere players, even those of the millionaire class created by the IPL, do not make such decisions. That’s the privilege of the billionaires who own them. According to another thoroughly unfrivolous publication, Forbes, Mukesh Ambani alone has an estimated net worth of USD115.4-billion. So it cannot be regarded as anything more than rumour that Pandya “insisted” on being made captain.

But The Economist was onto something elsewhere in its piece: “Fans in lots of sports see themselves — not the officials, team owners or players — as upholders of their sport’s unwritten moral code. Booing is their go-to way of signalling and punishing any transgressions.”

Including transgressions perceived by people who consider themselves keepers of the faith, no matter who owns what. Getting Pandya into their good books could exact a price even billionaires cannot pay.

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Earth to Steve Waugh, and other self-appointed guardians of Test cricket: stay in your lane

“We are just players and we can fight and promote as much as we can, but it’s up to the powers that be to make the right calls for us.” — Dean Elgar on the future of Test cricket.

Telford Vice / Cape Town

PAT Cummins’ CA contract is worth more than double what CSA pay Quinton de Kock, Kagiso Rabada, David Miller and Aiden Markram combined. Steve Waugh, sitting on a pile of 168 Test caps in the privilege of his developed world ivory tower, should think about that before he shoots his mouth off.

“Obviously they don’t care,” Waugh was quoted as saying by the Sydney Morning Herald on Monday in response to South Africa selecting seven uncapped players, including Neil Brand, as captain, in their squad of 14 to play two men’s Tests in New Zealand next month. The matches clash with the second edition of the SA20, which CSA’s contracted players are required to make their top priority — ahead, even, of international commitments.

A CSA statement on Tuesday sought to “reassure the fans that CSA has the utmost respect for the Test format as the pinnacle of the game we love”. It made the valid point that “the dates for this tour were set when the Future Tours Programme for 2023 to 2027 was finalised in 2022. The window for the SA20 had not been determined at that stage.”

What was done to try and avoid the problem? “We made every effort to find another mutually suitable time-slot … in consultation with NZC. Regrettably the constraints imposed by the global cricket calendar rendered this impossible, as the games must be played before April 2025 as part of the WTC.”

The SA20 is financially more important than most of the international cricket South Africa play because, besides tours by India and ICC disbursements, it is CSA’s only profitable project. The tournament is designed as South African cricket’s gift that keeps on giving annually. Without it, because of rampant mismanagement by previous administrators, the game could go out of business in this country. But, where Waugh sat, that didn’t seem to matter.

“If I was New Zealand I wouldn’t even play the series,” he said. “I don’t know why they’re even playing. Why would you when it shows a lack of respect for New Zealand cricket?”

He warned that if “the ICC or someone doesn’t step in shortly then Test cricket doesn’t become Test cricket because you’re not testing yourself against the best players”. Waugh conceded that players are “not getting paid properly”, and he offered a remedy in the form of a “regulation set fee for Test matches” to be footed by the “ICC or the top countries who are making a lot of money”. It’s a useful idea, but it wouldn’t solve the central problem of uneven contracting between countries: the rich would still be richer, the poor poorer.

Whether Waugh counted Australia among those “top countries who are making a lot of money”, and who should thus help out, wasn’t made clear. But there can be no doubt he was referring to India — whose board, the BCCI, will keep 38.5% of the ICC’s earnings from 2024 to 2027. No other ICC member’s percentage is in double figures. But India earn more than 80% of that money. Considering their status as financial giants of the world game, did India have a greater duty to ensure the future of Test cricket than other countries?

Asked exactly that question at a press conference at Newlands on Monday, the day before the start of the second Test, Rohit Sharma said India did indeed have that responsibility. Then he backtracked to a neutral position. “I think so; absolutely,” Sharma said. “Test cricket is something that we all have to protect and give importance to. It’s just not one or two countries’ responsibility. It’s all the nations who are playing. It’s their responsibility to make sure that we keep it entertaining. Around the world a lot of solid Test cricket is being played, which is good. It’s everyone’s duty to make sure that it stays nice and healthy and it stays competitive. It’s everyone’s responsibility.”

What did he make of CSA’s actions? “For me Test cricket is the ultimate challenge and you would want to see the best players playing in that format,” Sharma said. “Everyone has their own problems to deal with. I am pretty sure there is a reason behind it. I don’t know what the reason is, but definitely Test cricket is something we want to see — the best cricket being played and having your top players available.

“I don’t know what the internal talks and discussions are in CSA. From my perspective, I think it’s important that there is priority and thought given to Test cricket because it’s the ultimate challenge that you face in this sport. And you want to be challenged every day. Luckily we don’t have those kinds of problems to deal with at this point in time.”

Note Sharma’s absence of sanctimoniousness, which Waugh wasn’t short of: “History and tradition must count for something. If we stand by and allow profits to be the defining criteria the legacy of Bradman, Grace and Sobers will be irrelevant.” Michael Clarke, too, leapt onto a high horse to declare that “no domestic competition should come in front of” Test cricket, without any apparent understanding of the reality of the situation.

Happily, not all Australians have appointed themselves grandiose guardians of the global game. “If I was a player from another nation and getting paid OK to play international cricket, [and] I’m getting paid a truckload more to play T20 cricket, I’m sorry but I’m going to be playing the T20 cricket,” Usman Khawaja told Fox Cricket. “I love playing for my country, but it is also a case of looking after your family, doing things right. If two people get paid to do the same job and you’re getting paid twice as much at one firm and half at the other firm, you’re going to pick the one you’re getting paid [more] for.”

In other words, if Bradman, Grace and Sobers, and indeed Waugh and Clarke, had been made better offers, what would they have done? Dean Elgar doesn’t have to wonder about that. He was South Africa’s captain in March 2022, when CSA told their players to choose between the IPL and a Test series against Bangladesh.

“It’s a tough one leaving that up to the players, but this is how we’ll see where their loyalty lies,” Elgar said at the time. “They mustn’t forget that Test and one-day cricket got them into the IPL, not the other way around. You don’t want players to miss out on a big occasion like the IPL, by no means. But I’d still like to think playing for your country is bigger than that.” Despite that, Rassie van der Dussen, Aiden Markram, Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi, Marco Jansen and Anrich Nortjé all went to the IPL.

How did Elgar feel now, on the cusp of his last Test? “Speaking to the guys in the changeroom, especially the younger guys, they still very much live for this format,” he said on Tuesday. “Maybe the team they’ve selected to go to New Zealand isn’t ideal for … how I view Test cricket. But there’s still a lot of hunger among the guys who are going to be playing. What’s happened is out of our control; it’s out of the players hands, it’s out of our coaches hands, and our team management’s hands.

“It’s a little bit sad that it has gone into that direction. We just need to focus on what we can focus on. What’s happening behind the scenes is not for players and coaches to fight and kick up a storm about. It is what it is and we just have to move on.”

Was he happy to be bowing out before he had to make that kind of compromise more often? “The future is up to administrators making right decisions for players and the longevity of format, especially our Test format,” Elgar said. “Us as players just need to go out and win and show the hunger for this format. As long as I am around, I am going to be a Test fanatic. A lot of our guys are, too.

“Opportunities need to come our way. Otherwise the conversations are going to be continuous and you are never going to put it to bed. We are just players and we can fight and promote as much as we can, but it’s up to the powers that be to make the right calls for us. I would like to see younger guys coming through and experience what I have experienced over 12 years. Hopefully there’s sanity around the decisions going forward.”

Like Waugh, Elgar is an old-fashioned cricketer. Unlike Waugh, who played his last game of cricket more than a year before the first T20I and almost four years before the IPL explosion, Elgar is part of the modern game. Waugh is out of touch, and has veered out of his lane. The slow lane. As a bona fide great, he will be tolerated and forgiven. This time.

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David says no to SA20 Goliath

“I took my name out of the SA20 draft so I could play Tests in New Zealand.” – David Bedingham

Telford Vice / Cape Town

A dozen days after the Newlands men’s Test is scheduled to end, David Bedingham will board a flight to New Zealand as one of the most experienced players in South Africa’s squad. He will, if he is in the XI in Cape Town, have two caps.

But that’s two more than half the members of a squad of 14 that currently hold 50 caps between them. Or 300 fewer than South Africa’s current squad — a dozen of whom won’t be in New Zealand because they have been signed by SA20 franchises. The tournament will be played from January 10 to February 10, and the Tests, in Mount Maunganui and Hamilton, from February 4 to 13.

Players who are contracted by CSA are required to make themselves available for the SA20, and they are compelled to put the tournament ahead of their international commitments. Bedingham does not have a CSA contract. Also, he has priorities that differ from many modern players’.

So when Shukri Conrad, South Africa’s red-ball coach and sole selector since January last year, told Bedingham a place in the squad for New Zealand could be up for grabs because of the clash with the SA20, Bedingham knew what to do.

“Shuks called and said there’s a possibility, and as soon as I hear there’s a chance … I’m quite a realistic guy, but when I heard that no-one in the SA20 could play I thought my chances of playing [in New Zealand] would be quite high,” Bedingham said on Monday. “So I didn’t give it a second thought. I told him I’d take my name straight out of the draft, so I could hopefully play.”

Yes, you read that right: Bedingham chose Tests over T20s. “If those T20 comps come up for me, perfect,” he said. “But the main aim is always Test cricket. Or first-class cricket.” It seems four days at blustery, all but deserted, sagging into disrepair Newlands playing for Western Province, or at the Riverside for second-division Durham — who he has turned out for since August 2020 with a view to obtaining a UK passport — is further up Bedingham’s to-do list than landing a glitzy T20 deal. Or maybe, given his T20 strike rate of 128.84 and the fact that he’s played 87 first-class matches and 55 T20s, he knows what butters his bread.

But what would happen if a franchise in the SA20 offered him a million-billion in the coming days? Would he get back to Shuks to say he wouldn’t be going to New Zealand after all? “I took my name out of the draft so I could play in New Zealand,” Bedingham said. “Even if they wanted to I don’t think I would be allowed to play [in the SA20] because my name wasn’t in there originally.”

On Saturday, South Africans learned that Tony de Zorzi, who is expected to step into the breach left when Dean Elgar retires after the Newlands Test, had been signed by Durban’s Super Giants and so had taken himself out of the equation for New Zealand.

Like Bedingham, De Zorzi isn’t contracted by CSA. Unlike Bedingham, he had kept his name in the SA20 hat. Doubtless that will earn De Zorzi criticism. It shouldn’t. His match fees in New Zealand are unlikely to come close to what DSG would have agreed to pay him. And, without a CSA contract and besides what he earns from WP — which won’t be much — De Zorzi has no salary security. Given those realities who wouldn’t have taken up DSG’s offer?

Bedingham, it would seem. But he has had different realities to overcome. Bedingham had to be cut from the wreckage of a car crash in December 2016 in which his jaw, hands and legs were damaged so badly it seemed his cricket career was over. He was sidelined for three days short of a year and, in his second match back, a list A game for Boland against Border in East London, he scored 104 not out. He made four more centuries in his next 13 first-class and list A innings.

Bedingham ended his 2023 campaign for Durham in September with 156 in a first-class match against Leicestershire at the Riverside. He has scored a century and five half-centuries in 14 first-class and list A innings for WP this summer.

That was enough to crack the nod with Conrad earlier than the New Zealand tour; in the first Test against India in Centurion last week. He repaid that faith by scoring a fluid, assured 56, a performance that would be beyond many debutants. But perhaps not those who will turn 30 in April and have taken guard for the 137th time in a first-class match. Did he feel as if he should have earned his chance earlier?

“If it happened three years ago or if it happened a week ago, it’s fine with me,” Bedingham said. “But because I’ve played so much it makes you learn your ups and your downs. That prepares you better for Test match cricket. It helped me with trying to keep my emotions low and focusing as best as I could.”

Asked by reporters from India who his boyhood cricketing heroes were, Bedingham said, “Definitely Herschelle Gibbs. Jacques Kallis was from my school [Wynberg Boys’ High] … or, I was from his school. So I tended to watch those two.” Pushed further on the subject by those reporters, who are — compared to the South African press — starved of interactions with India’s players, Bedingham said his favourite stars from that country were “by a country mile” Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. “When I was 13 to 15, or even 18, I was trying to mould my technique on theirs. So if I had a bad game I’d change my technique to copy Kohli’s, and if that failed I’d try copy Sharma.”

While that was going on a familiar figure arrived on Newlands’ outfield to observe South Africa’s training session. Sensibly dressed on a hot day in shorts and a casual shirt, he was surrounded by his children, had a friend in tow, and was greeted warmly by Conrad and some of the players.

He was, depending on who you ask, the man who had saved cricket in South Africa from itself by making the first edition of the SA20 a resounding success, or the man to blame for the state of the squad being sent to New Zealand. Happy New Year, SA20 league commissioner Graeme Smith.

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Loosed in the Sky with diamonds

Joburg’s crowd can’t often be called fair, but they know winners when they see them. And they know how to give them their due.

Telford Vice / Cape Town

ABOVE us only Sky. Sky full of stars. Sky’s the limit. Loosed in the Sky with diamonds. Or, if you want something less obvious, Up, up and away, or Walking on sunshine, or Come fly with me.

How about some Jimi Hendrix: “Excuse me while I kiss the Sky. Or Bob Dylan: “No-one is free, even the birds are chained to the Sky.” Or another rock star: “Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add colour to my sunset Sky.” Rabindranath Tagore always had the right words.

Excuse the gratuitous capitalisation. It’s what happens when the modern patron saint of cricket’s headline writers is cleared for take-off like Suryakumar Yadav was at the Wanderers on Thursday. Fifty off 32. The next 50 off 23. Seven fours in all. Eight sixes. They hurried into being a century that never looked like not materialising. It was ended the ball after it was made thrillingly real. And then, in the field, in the third over of South Africa’s reply, a turned ankle that brought the curtain down on Sky’s involvement. The pain. The poetry. Who needs verbs when you have pure vectors of batting like this.

Some deliveries Yadav hit, mostly to the off side, with visceral violence. Others, especially so fine to leg that they careened directly behind his recoiled back, his bat met with exquisite timing. Often the ball was chastened into areas of the field it should not, by all that is orthodox, been in. But this was not about orthodoxy. It was about what happens when the logic of hitting a cricket ball to maximum effect and efficiency disregards the received ideas of how to do so. Consequently, it’s as difficult to imagine Yadav playing like this in earlier, more stifling eras as it is to think those who would have watched him then would not have been just as enthralled by how he played.

It is also hard to imagine Yadav not enjoying every instant of his time at the crease. Even through the separation cast by a screen, his dealings with the press this week have revealed a man who is able to see the happiness beyond the pressures of playing not only international cricket but playing for — and captaining, no less — the biggest team on the planet. At 33 Yadav is closer to the end of his career than the beginning, but what a lot of fun he is going to have before he takes off his batting gloves for the last time.

Would that more players brought Yadav’s attitude to the game. Then they might have some of his success: Thursday’s feat was his fourth T20I century, which earned him parity with Glenn Maxwell and Rohit Sharma for the most hundreds scored in this format. Note that Maxwell has had 35 more innings than Yadav and Sharma 83 more.

Not that we should allow such trifling details to obstruct our view of an innings that was of such shimmering power that the first handshake offered to Yadav after his fire had been extinguished came from Lizaad Williams, the bowler who had him caught on the backward square leg fence. Several of South Africa’s other players clamoured to offer their congratulations.

Yadav was carried to the boundary and beyond by the appreciation of a crowd, wearing many colours, that had come to see a cricket match — not to watch one team play cricket. On the evidence of this year’s men’s ODI World Cup, had Yadav been part of a foreign team playing in India, you fancy he would have left the scene to the indifferent silence of thousands blanketed in blue shirts.

The Wanderers’ honest generosity did not end there. Having watched the Indians pile up 201/7, the thousands stayed to see South Africa bowled out for 95. Mohammed Siraj started the first over with two slips and ended it with three. The South Africans were 42/3 inside the powerplay, and then lost 8/53 with Kuldeep Yadav tripping the light fantastic for a career-best 5/17.

Joburg’s crowd can’t often be called fair, but they know winners when they see them. And they know how to give them their due, which tumbled from the stands and grass banks in abundance for a side who inflicted South Africa’s third-heaviest defeat in their 169 decided matches in the format.

India batters and bowlers revelled in swinging and seaming conditions that were also true and fast. This theoretically most un-Indian of grounds is where the Indians have been most successful across the formats in this country: won six, lost five. At no other venue in South Africa have India won more games than they have lost.

Thus they will look forward to their return to the Wanderers for the start of the ODI series on Sunday, and doubtless be disappointed that neither of the Tests will be played there. But then the Sky is yours, India. You can’t ask for much more.

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For extraordinary De Kock, India in India is ‘just another game’

“I’d rather win the World Cup and score no runs than score all the runs and not win the World Cup.” – Quinton de Kock

Telford Vice / Kolkata

QUINTON de Kock looked like a player who wasn’t sure where his next run would come from. If you didn’t know better you might have thought the man staring into the camera from a Kolkata hotel room on Friday was in the worst form of his life.

He gave the impression of someone who hadn’t slept for days because he was worried about why he kept getting out. That, technically, is correct — De Kock has indeed been getting out at the World Cup; for scores of 100, 109, 20, 4, 174, 24 and 114.

Only Rohit Sharma has made more hundreds in a single edition of the tournament, five in 2019. The only other player who has managed four is Kumar Sangakkara, in 2015. After 33 games De Kock is this World Cup’s leading runscorer with 545. His 77.85 puts him fourth in the averages. His 174 against Bangladesh last Tuesday at the same Wankhede where India dismissed Sri Lanka for 55 on Thursday is the tournament’s highest score. Only Sharma and David Warner have hit more sixes than De Kock’s 18.

So why were his eyes somewhere else? Why was his face blank, his posture limp? Could it be De Kock was worried about where his next failure might come from? And hoping hard it wouldn’t be against India at Eden Gardens on Sunday? Or in the semifinals? Or — be still South Africans’ beating heart — the final?

None of the above, stalwarts of De Kock’s press conferences over the years would be able to say. The truth of it is that when he is talking to the gathered media, unlike when he is on the field or, presumably, when he is fishing, he doesn’t seem fully conscious. It is, plainly, something he has no interest in doing. He is utterly, irreconcilably, irretrievably bored with reporters’ questions. And so he offers a semblance of himself and counts down the minutes to when it is all over.

That would help explain why he did not come to a press conference after scoring his 174 — reporters were told he was on doctor’s orders as he had been drained by his innings — nor after he made 114 against New Zealand in Pune on Wednesday, when no explanation was offered. This is not a complaint: he was under no compunction to put up with the likes of us.

De Kock’s job is to play cricket, which he does better than most people on this earth. It is not to talk to reporters. Some players are less averse to doing so and a few of them are even good at it. But those reporters who have been around long enough will know De Kock is in exalted company: Jacques Kallis, too, used to look at us with empty eyes and say not at all much.

Famously, Kallis retired from Test cricket on Christmas Day in 2013. Or less than 24 hours before the start of a Test against India at Kingsmead. Just as famously, De Kock also clocked out of the longest format in the throes of a series against India, in December 2012. But he has given us an entire World Cup to get used to the idea of him not playing ODIs anymore. So, given his current glut of runs, has he been moved to reconsider?

“I’m set on my decision,” De Kock said. “It’s the end of my 50-over career. There have been one or two words said to me about it, but I don’t think it’s going to happen.”

Really? Even though he is at the top of his game? “At this point I don’t foresee it happening. But, you never know. Strange things happen in life. It could be a possibility but I don’t think so. There’s some good youngsters coming through anyway who will probably take my place as soon as I leave, and they will have to deal with national duties. That’s that.”

It’s a telling choice of words: “… they will have to deal with national duties”. De Kock, it would seem, has no truck with notions of representation. Too much lip service is paid to too many causes — national and otherwise — in sport. But De Kock plays cricket for the sake of himself, his family — financially — and his teammates. End of. Does he even enjoy it? That’s difficult to say.

For instance, drawing level in World Cup hundreds with another notable left-handed wicketkeeper-batter didn’t raise his pulse: “I always enjoyed ‘Sanga’ growing up and playing with him, and he is one of my good friends now. But I wouldn’t say I wanted to be like him. I want to be like myself. And that’s pretty much it on that topic.”

De Kock is as unvarnished a professional as it is possible to find, and he is to be commended for his refusal to indulge the high-brow nonsense that he and his peers have an obligation to be something more. They do not. De Kock’s balking at taking a knee during the 2021 T20 World Cup to support the cause for social justice, which angered many justifiably, could be couched in this context. It was the wrong thing to do in terms of the bigger picture. But De Kock often doesn’t see the bigger picture, not least because of the privilege of not having to see it from inside the bubble of professional sport. All he sees is the ball. And he hits it. Hard and far. That level of focus, while fraught with wider danger, helps secure success.

Just more than a month from his 31st birthday, and with T20Is his only remaining commitment to South Africa after this World Cup, De Kock has several years left to hit hard the ball and far in T20 leagues to never have to work a day in his life after he plays his last match for the Azerbaijan Anacondas, or whoever.

But, for now, that unshakeable focus is fixed on one thing only. And it isn’t another century or three. “I’d rather win the World Cup and score no runs than score all the runs and not win the World Cup,” De Kock said.

He has been a compelling factor in South Africa’s six victories in seven matches, which has led to rising and increasingly anxious hopes among their supporters that, this time, they can go where they have never been before: to the final and, perhaps, the title. De Kock is playing in his seventh World Cup in both white-ball formats, the first six of which have ended in various stages of catastrophe for the South Africans. What has made this campaign different so far?

“I’m not too sure.” It’s perhaps De Kock’s most frequently used phrase. “We are just playing really good cricket at the moment.” That’s another. “We are not trying to overthink things. We are not trying to reinvent the wheel. We are just trying to do the simple things really well. That’s the key to why we’ve been successful.”

As for Sunday’s match against India in Kolkata, a contest in front of one of the game’s great crowds between the two best teams in the tournament, sides laden with talent, skill and confidence who have won 13 of the 14 games they have played …

“It’s just another game of cricket, I guess,” he said, but showed the good sense to soften that statement: “Every game now, counting down to my last couple, is special. I’ve played at Eden Gardens quite a bit and playing India in India is quite a spectacle. They would have every single fan in India at that game if they could and they are going to be a handful. That’s one of the more crazy things about our fixture …” Enough with the varnish: “ … but otherwise it’s just another game of cricket.”

Maybe, for Quinton de Kock, it really is.

Cricbuzz

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Antisocial media and cricket

“Maybe get a girlfriend. You’ll probably not waste time writing rubbish.” – a reader.

Telford Vice / Galle

IT is not done for people in my profession to admit something like this, but things that should not be said or done – and are said or done, regardless – are the central idea for this piece. So what the hell, here goes: Graeme Pollock gives me the shivers.

First, some context. I have spent thousands of words arguing that the all-white teams of the apartheid-era who were brazenly called “South Africa” cannot be given the credit they took for granted, whatever they achieved. Similarly, the history of white first-class cricket played in the country before the advent of democracy should not be told as just another cricket story. It is not. It was part of a society that kept voting for the oppression of their compatriots.

So Graeme Pollock should leave me cold. He does, but in a way that does not square with the above. I’m never sure whether it’s his stance – legs planted like bluegums too wide apart – that does it, or the way he ducks his chin towards the bowler like a bull daring a matador with a tilt of its horns, or what looks like a laboured backlift, or the sweeping swoop of his bat like Thor’s hammer itself, or the splitting of the atom that occurs when bat meets ball, or the impossibly swift dart that the ball makes for the cover boundary, or a follow-through that always makes me think of US soldiers raising their flag at the Battle of Imajima, or the momentary suspension of gravity that occurs when all that torque is spent and the weight shifts and the front foot takes an involuntary step down the pitch. Whichever, nothing in cricket grabs my heart and holds it tight like Graeme Pollock’s cover drive.

Note that I relate my wonder in the present tense. Pollock played his final Test in 1970, when I was four years old, and his last first-class match in 1987, when I was 21. But the thought of his cover drive is not a memory for me. It is a living, vivid thing, as immediate as my next breath and infinitely more invigorating.

I have come to know that Pollock has had problems with alcohol – three stiff whiskeys in the dressingroom before he went out to the middle was, apparently, the dose late in his career – and that he is, as a friend put it, “on the bones of his arse” financially because of the poor business decisions he made after he retired. But he is still Graeme Pollock, and nothing can change that.

So, on those magical occasions when I enter his rarefied presence, I need to remind myself to behave. Even when we talk on the telephone, every few months or so, I feel a leap when he picks up. Only recently have I dared to stop addressing him as “Mister Pollock”. He actually asks how I am, which very nearly puts me on the floor every time. I talk to Mike Procter, Barry Richards and Peter Kirsten easily as much, perhaps more. But, sorry fellas, none of you are Mr Pollock. Hey, it’s my bubble and I’ll refuse to burst it if I don’t want to. All the political logic in the world would not make me do that.

Not that I have any idea what kind of bloke Pollock really is. Would I like him if I did know? Happily, I do not want to know and I do not need to know.

But, if he was playing today, I would have no choice but to know more about Pollock than I ever wanted to because of social media. Worse, in the space of 140 drunken, racist, sexist, right wing, or otherwise bigoted characters, Pollock could have revealed something I would not have wanted to know; something that could have changed everything I felt about him. Yes, that is denial. But that is what sport is on so many levels.

For instance, had Pollock tweeted, “critics are actually like girlfriends; they never stop thinking about you”, all that stuff about bluegums, matadors, Thor’s hammer, atomic particles and whatever would have disappeared down the rabbit hole of my childhood and stayed there along with perhaps the only set of Major League baseball cards in South Africa and the T-square I made in woodwork class.

Anyone who believes his “girlfriends” – plural, naturally – “never stop thinking about” him – I mean, it’s not as if women have anything else to think about apart from the man, singular, of course, in their lives – has no place in my firmament of heroes.

Happily, in Pollock’s playing days twitter was what birds did and nothing else. But Rohit Sharma made that comment in an interview, and when I wrote a piece headlined “Shame on Sharma, on cricket and on us”, not many of the readers who responded could see the problem.

Instead I was accused of seeking attention, of not having anything better to write about, of being peeved by a player daring to take a shot at the press, of being a patronising knight in shining armour, and of not knowing what bigotry means. “Maybe get a girlfriend,” one advised. “You’ll probably not waste time writing rubbish.”

It was as if I had insulted not a public figure but a dear friend of those who were now complaining on his behalf. In a sense, that is correct. Social media has given people like Sharma more friends than they could meet and revealed them to each other in their full, imperfect glory.

The players come off second-best because there are far fewer of them than there are fans, and the online security guard who can insulate the stars from having to deal with the great unwashed has yet to be found.

But it is from themselves that players often need the most guarding. Sharma is but one example. Kevin Pietersen is another, and easily the cricketer most endanger of self-harm-by-social-media. If he is not calling The Sun’s John Etheridge a wanker on Twitter for erroneous reporting, he is posting tasteless images of what he thinks of Dominic Cork’s opinions – a graphic representation of a woman inserting an “opinion” into her rectum as she would a suppository – or whining about his car being bumped, complete with picture, or getting into idiotic arguments with Jack Wilshere over what, exactly, constitutes being properly English, or fostering his burgeoning bromance with Piers Morgan to the point where they should be told to get a room, or at least to DM each other.

Accidental media collisions with Morgan make me want to take a shower to get the smug slime off. Pietersen never used to be in quite the same gutter. He is now.

Although he is capable of checking in with the real world – he does at least know about Gaza, for instance – too much of Pietersen’s Twitter feed is devoted to promoting himself or the products he sells, and retaliating to other famous figures as well as random strangers who dare abuse him for him to be taken seriously. This is the player, remember, who resorted to that ultimate tackiness, YouTube, to mount a fraught bid to save his test career.

Tawdriness is the overriding impression Pietersen gives of himself on social media. If he was not who he is, he would be just another uber-ego with nothing worthwhile to say and no-one to say it to except those who lurk one step beyond in cyberspace. But Pietersen’s supporters must be happy. Not only has the firewall that stood tall between players and their fans been torn down by the click of a mouse, those fans have discovered that their idols are just as miserable with the world as they are. Now they can all have a good moan together.

Pietersen does not so much cross the line on social media as snort it, and like any other addict he does not know when to stop.

His initial outrage at Etheridge writing, wrongly, on June 11 this year that he had returned the gifts he had received from the England Cricket Board for earning 100 Test caps was understandable: “LIES from @JohnSunCricket this morning! Who briefs you, John? Care to check ur facts instead of misleading the public?”

Etheridge replied: “Was told categorically at Lord’s yesterday that gifts were returned an in ECB offices. Weird – will investigate. Can only apologise.”

That should have been that, but it was not. Once unleashed, there was no controlling the dogs of Twitter. Pietersen would have known that, but he should also have known better than to add his two cents’ worth to a tweet that asked, “How stupid do you feel now eh, John?” Pietersen clambered aboard the bullies’ bandwagon by retweeting that message and adding “Tell us, John?”

If that is fair, then so is a reporter asking Pietersen how stupid he feels for playing a poor stroke to give his wicket away.

Still, the bratsman was not done. On July 26, more than six weeks after the story and the apology had been published, Pietersen was still at it.

“@JohnSunCricket how’s your investigation going, John? Strange we haven’t heard anything from you …”

“More than happy to discuss with you, Kevin,” Etheridge replied.

“Your article was public, John … how about your (sic) discuss it publicly?”

“I was given what I thought was categorical information which turned out to be untrue. I apologised at the time, happy to do so again.”

Whatever you think of the tabloid press, it is difficult to argue with Etheridge’s submissive approach. But Pietersen found a way, with the help of a stirring on the idiot fringe: “Irrelevant. You still impacted the perception of KP to fans, you should apologise in your column #publicshame”

To which Pietersen snarled in support: “waiting, John …”

Pietersen would win more sympathy for being wronged in the media if he was not such a social media miscreant himself. Instead, he wants to play victim and victimiser, and on his own terms.

David Warner, too, wanted things all his own way when he took issue, profanely, with Robert Craddock of the Brisbane Courier-Mail in May last year. Craddock’s crime? Reporting on the sordid night life and corruption connected to the Indian Premier League. Warner was not mentioned, but the article was illustrated with his photograph. You would think Warner, as an apparently upstanding Aussie, would want wrongdoing exposed. But no …

“Shock me @crashcraddock1 talking shit about ipl jealous prick. Get a real job. All you do is bag people. #getalife”

By taking on Craddock, Warner also took on Craddock’s News Ltd. Colleague, Malcolm Conn, the hardest bastard in cricket writing. Conn fired back: “Cricket is a real job? Please. Most people pay to play. Million dollar cricketers milking the IPL are hardly the best judges.”

Of course, Warner was not pacified: “All he [Craddock] did was talk shit about the greats now he sucks up there ass. Talk more crap why don’t you …

“@malcolmconn keep writing paper talk trash for a living champ only thing you will ever do …

“@malcolmconn are you still talking you old fart, no wonder know one buys your paper …”

Conn’s counterpunch hit hard: “You lose 4-0 in India, don’t make a run, and you want to be tickled on the tummy? Win the Ashes and get back to me …

“It’s becoming increasingly obvious why Brad Haddin was brought back as vice captain. Your (sic) lengths behind in that race …”

Warner copped a fine of Aus$5750 [3700 pounds] and apologised. Less than a month later, he took a swing at Joe Root in a Birmingham pub and was fined Aus$11500 [7000 pounds] and suspended. He apologised. Again.

Pietersen versus Etheridge differs from Warner versus Conn. For one thing, there was nothing wrong with the story that sparked such strong objection from Warner. For another, the overweening, apprehensive relationship England’s press have with the country’s players – no interview with an England player is, it seems, published without an embarrassing bow and scrape to the player’s sponsors for their “co-operation in making this piece possible” tacked onto the end – does not exist in Australia. In fact, before cricket acquired a nanny, otherwise known as a code of conduct, it was not unheard of for Aussie players and reporters to settle their differences with boxing gloves.

Sometimes administrators get it as wrong as the players. In August last year, Alviro Petersen, the South Africa opening batsman, threw a Twitter tantrum when ESPNCricinfo’s Firdose Moonda – who is also my wife – wrote that he did not deserve his place in the one-day team, an assertion she bolstered with facts and stats.

Petersen’s response was to patronise her, calling her “dear” and offering to “do the research” for her. But things turned ugly when he retweeted one of his followers’ suggestion that Moonda should “find something else to write about, food or clothes maybe”. Soon, she was being sent videos of men beating up women.

Moonda approached Cricket South Africa (CSA) with her concerns that Petersen had gone too far. They told her he was entitled to his opinion. But, two months later, when CSA were trying to suppress a story Moonda was preparing to write, they offered her a face-to-face apology from Petersen. She declined.

Pietersen is an exception because anyone who has a skew enough word to say about him can expect a backlash, but for the most part the social media strife that cricketers get themselves into involves the mainstream media.

Players expect adoration from their fans, and they get it. But social media means that players, their friends, their supporters and the press share the same platforms. All of those figures are in danger of falling short of libel laws and accepted standards of decent discourse, although journalists have no excuse.

What some players do not seem to understand is that a message tapped out on a mobile phone and unleashed on social media is revealed to the world. It is not a bit of banter between mates or a private argument – it is published for all to see, interpret and, if they want to, meet with a response. Players also do not get that they are as equal as every other citizen of the twitterverse, something they are not used to and clearly do not like.

But there is nothing they can do about it because there are no media officers hovering nearby to save players from the tougher questions they are asked, as happens at press conferences. There is also no-one to filter out their stupidities and correct their flawed language, a service most journalists render to players free of charge.

That they have done for decades probably saved players like Graeme Pollock a lot of strife. Not anymore: as of August, 2010, Pollock has been on Twitter. Yes, I do follow him. No, that does not give me the shivers.

The Nightwatchman, 2014

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You can take the IPL out of India, but can you take India out of the IPL?

“Sachin was injured, Harbhajan got banned and Sanath didn’t want to do it.” – Shaun Pollock explains how he became an IPL captain.

Telford Vice / Cape Town

IS anything more Indian than the IPL? To some Indians that would be a provocation: yoga, Bollywood and richly varied cuisine, for a start. But, just as it would be arrogant to expect the world to know who or what adho mukha svanasana, Shah Rukh Khan or roti are, it would be naïve to assume everyone knows cricket existed in India before April 18, 2008.

Since that day, when Royal Challengers Bangalore and Kolkata Knight Riders took to the Chinnaswamy to play the first IPL match, the tournament has done for cricket what slicers have done for bread. Bread that comes in loaves, that is. So not roti. Nor indeed chapati, naan or paratha.

Just as true is that Bollywood blares with blingy bombast on screens far from India in the thrall of people who are anything but Indian, and that yoga has, in Westernised countries, been bastardised into exercise muddled with pseudo-spiritual mumbo jumbo, aromatherapy candles and incense and incongruous statues of buddha.

But while you can take the IPL out of India — as was done completely in 2009 and 2020 and partly in 2014 and 2021 — there is no taking India out of the IPL. Even its satellite tournament, South Africa’s SA20, is more Indian than South African. Indeed, the fact that all six of the SA20’s franchises are IPL-owned is an important part of its ability to attract sponsors, broadcasters and spectators.

The IPL has changed cricket in vast and irrevocable ways. So much so that it can be difficult to remember a time when these few weeks weren’t central to the global game’s annual calendar. Whether watching in person or from afar, it’s barely possible for cricketminded non-Indians to imagine anything more utterly and entirely Indian than the IPL.

Except that that has never been true. Foreigners have been intrinsic to the tournament since its inception. Its first winning captain was Shane Warne, its first player of the series Shane Watson, its first leading runscorer Shaun Marsh and its first leading wicket-taker Sohail Tanvir.

Admittedly, 2008 is the only year outsiders have swept those boards. But Indians have dominated only twice: MS Dhoni, Sachin Tendulkar — both as player of the series and top batter — and Pragyan Ojha in 2010, and Dhoni, Harshal Patel — as player of the series and top bowler — and Ruturaj Gaikwad in 2021.

A foreigner has been named the IPL’s best player in a dozen editions of the tournament, or four times as often as an Indian. An outsider has scored more runs than any local 10 times compared to five by homegrown batters. The balance is closer in bowling, where foreigners have claimed the prize eight times and Indians seven.

Of the 405 players who were up for auction for this year’s IPL, 132 were not Indian. That’s just less than a third. The same was true of 42.15%, or 51 of 121, of the support staff — everyone from chief executives to lead and assistant masseurs to Gujarat Titans’ “throwdown specialist”, Ashok Sadh — named at the time of the auction.

But playing is at its core an individual pursuit, and the spotlight doesn’t linger on coaches when things go well or badly. Captaincy asks different questions of those blessed or cursed to be handed its chalice. Not only do they have to play well — better than their peers to escape being seen as keeping their places only because they are captains — they are expected to inspire others to play as well, if not better. They are also, at some level, coaches.

What might captaining a team on cricket’s biggest modern stage mean for those who have this potential greatness thrust on them — particularly if they are not Indian? It’s a question Shaun Pollock never should have been asked. He led South Africa in 119 matches across the formats, an ICC World XI in three ODIs and an Africa XI in two more, but he was an accidental IPL captain.

“It was in the first year, so I didn’t have a clue about any of the players and because of that I was a bit skeptical about captaining,” Pollock told Cricbuzz. “But Sachin was injured, Harbhajan got banned and Sanath didn’t want to do it. That was why I did it.”

Sachin Tendulkar, Mumbai Indians’ appointed captain, missed the first half of the inaugural IPL with a groin problem. Harbhajan Singh was given the job in Tendulkar’s absence, but suspended for the rest of the tournament for slapping his teammate, Sreesanth, after the third match. Mumbai lost all three games. Whether Sanath Jayasuriya really was unwilling to step into the breach is not known, but it seems clear Pollock made a positive difference: his team were beaten by 10 wickets by Deccan Chargers in his first game at the wheel, but they reeled off a hattrick of wins under him before Tendulkar arrived to preside over another three consecutive victories.

“The challenge is understanding the locals; knowing their skills and their strengths, and trying to understand how you can get the best out of them,” Pollock said of his IPL captaincy experience. “Communication can be difficult, but I think that’s changed a lot. International players who captain now really do understand their squad. They’ve probably been with them for a couple of years, so I don’t think that’s as big a challenge.

“Conditions were difficult to read. I relied on what the locals would say about pitches and how they might or might not play. Also, in those days there wasn’t much analysis. So I used to rely on what they knew about the other local guys we were playing against. These days, with all the coaches and advisory staff that teams have, the analysts give you a pretty good idea about where to bowl and what fields to set.”

JP Duminy led the then Delhi Daredevils in all 14 of their matches in 2015 and in two the next year. He piloted Delhi to only six wins, but for him leadership was about more than results. “One of the keys for me was investing in the culture of whichever country I was in,” Duminy, who also played in the PSL and the CPL, told Cricbuzz. “In India it was about trying to communicate with the local players as best I could, and trying to find a common cause in what we were playing for. Ultimately it’s to try and win the competition, but it’s also about investing in something deeper — understanding what makes local flavour tick, and forming and developing sound and sincere relationships. Leadership is about not necessarily needing to be in charge, but getting the best out of the people who are in your charge. That’s a significant quote I saw from [American author and inspirational speaker] Simon Sinek, which I think applies.”

Duminy saved some of his attention for the energy he could feel from the stands: “There are rituals that happen in India outside of playing that we need to understand; how passionate the fans are, and the importance of trying to find some way to connect with them. It can be overwhelming, but having the patience to do that is a big part in earning support for the team you’re playing for.”

No IPL has been without at least one foreign appointed captain. In 2011 half of the 10 teams were led by non-Indians. Two years later the foreigners were in the majority: they were in control of five of the nine sides.

But Indians have piloted teams to triumph 12 times, which is as it should be considering they had captained 87 of the 126 editions of the teams before this year. Of the internationals only Warne in 2008, Adam Gilchrist a year later and David Warner in 2016 know what winning the IPL as a captain feels like. Rohit Sharma has been there five times, Dhoni four times, Gautam Gambhir twice and Hardik Pandya once.

This year Warner, who is in charge of Delhi Capitals, has the chance to become the first foreigner to lead a team to the title twice. RCB have Faf du Plessis at the helm and the buck stops with Aiden Markram at Sunrisers Hyderabad. But Sharma and Dhoni are around and in search of yet more glory, and Pandya is back to try and repeat last year’s feat with Gujarat.

Is anything more Indian than the IPL? Maybe. But nothing anywhere in cricket is as magnificent.

Cricbuzz

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Indian silver gleams for South Africa

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

Telford Vice | Cape Town

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

First published by Cricbuzz.

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No De Kock? Or no Rohit? Your choice …

“Neither. They are both gun cricketers and matchwinners.” – Gary Kirsten on whether he would rather do without Quinton de Kock or Rohit Sharma.

Telford Vice | Cape Town

WILL Quinton de Kock leave a bigger hole in South Africa’s XI than Rohit Sharma in India’s in the imminent Test series between the teams? Or is Rohit more valuable to India than De Kock is to South Africa? There is, of course, no definitive answer. But that won’t stop the question from being asked.

De Kock is available for the first Test in Centurion from December 26, but his presence thereafter is not assured. He is set to become a father, and the plan at this stage is that he will miss the third Test at Newlands from January 11 to be with his partner. But childbirth doesn’t keep a timetable, so he could already be busy with his real life when the second Test starts at the Wanderers on January 3 and might, in that case, stay home for the third match as well. Rohit’s situation is more straightforward: he has been ruled out of all three matches with a hamstring injury.

The cold facts of the absentees’ playing records put them in neighbouring ballparks. De Kock has scored 3,245 runs at 39.09 in 89 Test innings with six centuries and 22 half-centuries. Rohit has been to the crease 74 times, and has 3,047 runs — among them eight centuries and 14 50s — at 46.87.

South Africa have won 29 of the 53 Tests in which De Kock has played, and India 24 of Rohit’s 43. Only once have South Africa lost despite De Kock scoring a century. India have never been beaten when Rohit has reached three figures.

Since De Kock made his debut, against Australia at St George’s Park in February 2014, only Dean Elgar, Faf du Plessis and Hashim Amla have scored more runs for South Africa. Only Amla had fewer innings than De Kock in that time, and only one fewer. Only Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane have scored more for India since Rohit first took guard, against West Indies at Eden Gardens in November 2013. Kohli, Pujara and Rahane have had between 58 and 60 more innings since Rohit arrived.

De Kock has been outscored by Elgar, Aiden Markram and Rassie van der Dussen in 2021. No Indian has made more runs this year than Rohit, and in the wider world of Test batting only Joe Root has been more successful. In South Africa’s most recent series, in St Lucia in June, De Kock scored a career-best 141 not out and 96. In Rohit’s last innings, at the Oval in September, he made 127.

South Africa have ready replacements for De Kock in their squad in the shape of Kyle Verreynne and Ryan Rickelton. Both understudies are, like the star, hard-charging wicketkeeper-batters. Verreynne played as a batter in the series in the Caribbean, scoring 39 runs in three innings. Rickelton is uncapped, but has hammered two centuries in three innings in first-class matches this season.

Priyank Panchal, who captained India A in two of three four-day matches against their South Africa counterparts in Bloemfontein in the past three weeks — and scored 96 in the first of them — will stand in for Rohit in the squad. But KL Rahul, who has scored six centuries as an opener, including at the SCG, the Oval and at Lord’s, seems a more likely replacement.

De Kock and Rohit operate at opposite sides of the batting crease, and of the order. Lusty left-hander De Kock has batted at Nos. 6 and 7 in 66 innings — almost 75% of his total — and higher than No. 5 just nine times. Rohit, a silkily skilled right-hander, made his debut at No. 6 and was there or at No. 5 for all but six of his first 53 trips to the crease. But, in his 27 innings since October 2019, he has opened exclusively.

That’s all well and good, but none of the above comes close to answering the original question. At best it tells us what we know: that De Kock and Rohit are pivotal players for their teams. De Kock has a similar effect on cricketminded South Africans as Hashim Amla — they are reassured by his mere presence. The sight of Rohit, too, calms India’s supporters: everything’s going to be alright.

Rohit has been proving that point from the beginning of his career, scoring 177 on debut and 111 not out in his next innings. Opportunities for De Kock to score big in Tests are comparatively fewer because he bats lower in the order. So it took him 11 innings to make his first century, an undefeated 129 against England at Centurion in January 2016. It started after South Africa had shambled from 237/1 to 273/5, and flew off 128 balls with 80 runs flowing in fours and sixes.

The two players’ worlds collided poetically at Visakhapatnam in November 2019, when Rohit opened the batting for the first time and scored 176 and 127. He was dismissed the same way in both innings — stumped off Keshav Maharaj by De Kock, whose 111 in the first innings remains his only century in a losing cause: India won by 203 runs.

Poetry is nice to have, but would you rather be without De Kock or Rohit? Gary Kirsten offered a one-liner in a test message: “Neither. They are both gun cricketers and matchwinners.” Mickey Arthur went a half-step further in another short, sharp text: “It’s an interesting one, but I think Quinton is a matchwinner.”

Paddy Upton replied with a voice note: “It really depends on the balance of the team. Rohit’s a gun up front and he’s someone who can really hurt you in the context of Test cricket. Quinton, as a No. 6 or 7, is also someone who can frustrate the living hell out of you. I think both of them have a touch of genius; they’re both genuine game changers, innings-makers and opposition-breakers in their own right. Rohit has the extra arrow of [white-ball] captain and ‘Quinnie’ of wicketkeeper, so they both bring two skills to the equation.”

The Test series will be about who plays more than about who doesn’t. But before we surrender to its realities it seems right to ponder the imponderables; to grant those who won’t be there for all or some of its drama their share of the spotlight.

De Kock or Rohit? We can’t answer the question, but asking it takes us to places we mightn’t have gone.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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What’s in a batting order? Too much opinion, not enough fact

Ray Jennings sent Andrew Hall out to open the batting in Kanpur in November 2004. South Africans, cricket’s flat earthers, thought Jennings was mad. Hall scored 163. South Africans still think Jennings was, and remains, mad.

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

HOW many players have batted in all 11 positions in men’s Test cricket? Out of the 2 989 who have taken guard in the 2 365 matches yet seen, three.

Syd Gregory, Wilfred Rhodes and Vinoo Mankad are the only members of maybe the most exclusive club in the game. They are the top 0.100368016058883 percentile.

Cricket being the anally obsessive silliness it is, that’s hardly surprising. The bounder! How dare he assume, just because he swats an old ball and tired bowlers about down there at No. 6, he is also capable of opening the batting? Has the man no idea of his station in life?

What is surprising is that as many as nine players have bounced around 10 spots in the order. You could see one of them looming large behind big sunglasses and an even bigger moustache in India’s dressingroom during South Africa’s tour.

Ravi Shastri, now India’s coach, began his career as a No. 10 against New Zealand at the Basin Reserve in February 1981 and ended it as an opener against South Africa at St George’s Park in December 1992. Somehow, over the course of 11 years and 121 Test innings, big Ravi never made it all the way down to No. 11.

None of the nine, as indeed the three, are South African. That, too, is hardly a shock. South Africa could win awards for staidness, for refusing to believe there is a world outside the box. They are the flat earthers of cricket. When plan A doesn’t work, they are all out of plans.

Consequently, South Africans don’t like people who think they’re special. Gregory, born on the site of what is now the Sydney Cricket Ground, and with his father, uncle, brother, brother-in-law and cousin all either first-class or Test players, would have been far too tall a poppy for us to take seriously.

Rhodes was, most famously, an ace left-arm spinner. So that’s him done for in the South African way of looking at these things, even though he had a streak of fast bowler’s mongrel. A proper Yorkshireman, Rhodes refused to crack a smile when the Marylebone Cricket Club awarded him honorary membership in 1949. Instead he raised a suspicious eyebrow and said, “I don’t rightly know what it means yet.”

Mankad added his name to cricket’s lexicon by pulling up in his delivery stride while bowling for India in Sydney in December 1947 to run out non-striker Bill Brown, who was stealing ground by advancing up the pitch before the ball had been delivered. Mankading, the practice was instantly named. Too bloody special by half, this fella.

Remember when Ray Jennings sent Andrew Hall out to open the batting in Kanpur in November 2004? South Africans thought Jennings was mad. Hall scored 163. South Africans still think Jennings was, and remains, mad.

So what happened in Ranchi in the third Test against India represented a spark of revolutionary thinking. On the Saffer scale, at least. Quinton de Kock was in South Africa’s XI, as usual. But he wasn’t keeping wicket! Or batting at No. 7! Or even at No. 6!

He was opening!

Stru’s bob. There was Dean Elgar. And there, with him, daring to believe he was an opening batter, was De Kock. If you blinked you would have missed him: he lasted six balls in each innings. That’ll teach him. Know your place.

De Kock had opened before — at Centurion in August 2017 — and scored 82 and 50. But that was an emergency measure taken after Elgar stood on the boundary and twisted an ankle.

This, too, was a desperate move, prompted by what became South Africa’s worst performance in a series in 83 years. Before their routing in Ranchi, not since March 1936 had they lost consecutive Tests by an innings.

But De Kock’s elevation could serve to start a conversation about whether the batting order, as we have come to accept it, remains fit for purpose. Consider what happened across the dressingroom divide: neither Rohit Sharma nor Mayank Agarwal had opened the batting in India before they walked out to do so together in the first Test in Visakhapatnam. Four innings each later they had scored five centuries between them, including a double ton apiece.

So much for specialisation, which unlike specialness South Africans take too seriously for their own good. That’s why they tied themselves into knots about which of Temba Bavuma or Faf du Plessis should bat at No. 4. Opinions on this non-issue flew as frequently as the sixes Sharma kept hitting off the South Africans’ flaccid bowling, and came mostly from blowhards who offered little except their unsubstantiated views.

Cricket is beset with know-it-alls who confuse the rest of us with people who care what they think. Social media has only encouraged them. You could avoid them in the pub, but refusing to let them catch your attention on Facebook is more difficult.

Rather than put up with bores droning on about why whoever should bat wherever, we could shut them up by knowing how whoever has fared at every stage of every innings in terms of the number of balls that had been bowled when they arrived — taking into account the match situation, the conditions, and the opposition’s strengths and weaknesses.

So if Du Plessis has scored four centuries in six innings when he has taken guard with three wickets down and South Africa 200 runs behind on a turning pitch against attacks that feature more than one spinner, he should bat ahead of anyone who has been less successful in that situation. Bar nothing and no-one.

And if Elgar hasn’t had much success against left-arm quicks on greentops, and the opposition unleash two southpaws with the new ball, he shouldn’t come in before the ball is 45 overs old.

Batting orders should be fluid enough to be chopped and changed at a moment’s notice, not stuck in a linear logjam based not on hard data but on some swami’s say-so.

We’ll need a cricket crazy 12-year-old to design the algorithm, but the world isn’t short of them. Then we’ll need to convince the fogeys. Or get Jennings’ buy-in, which probably wouldn’t be difficult.

Syd Gregory, Wilfred Rhodes and Vinoo Mankad would, you hope, see the sense of this, even if others won’t.

Maybe that’s why they’re the top 0.100368016058883 percentile.

First published by Times SELECT.