Royal Challengers Bangalore – Bulletproof Truth

Du Preez presides, for now, after Moreeng marathon finally ends

“Whatever you know about cricket, the moment you move into the women’s space you find out that you might know nothing.” – Dillon du Preez, South Africa interim coach

Telford Vice / Cape Town

HILTON Moreeng’s marathon of more than 11 years as South Africa’s women’s team’s coach is over. But who his permanent replacement might be remains as uncertain as it has been for the almost 15 months that CSA have searched for his successor.

Moreeng has been in the job since December 2012. His last match in charge was to have been the T20 World Cup final between South Africa and Australia at Newlands in February last year. But CSA’s failure to settle on a suitable successor meant he was retained on a series of interim contracts.

On Friday, CSA said Moreeng had decided to relinquish the position. Dillon du Preez, who was appointed assistant coach in September 2020, will step in until the end of the tour to India in June.

Last year’s final is the only World Cup decider any senior South Africa team, female or male, have reached. Moreeng took his team to four other semifinals in both formats. Under him South Africa won 84 of 149 ODIs and 60 of 127 T20Is, an overall success rate of 52.17%.

Moreeng was the first fulltime coach for South Africa’s women’s team. He was appointed almost a year before CSA first decided to contract women, and he was more or less a one-person support staff. Nearly eight years later, when Du Preez came on board, the team had a manager, a strength and conditioning coach, a doctor and a physiotherapist. Now they also have specialist batting and fielding coaches, with Du Preez taking care of the bowling. Moreeng has been an important figure in the successful metamorphosis of women’s cricket in South Africa from an amateur pursuit to fully-fledged professionalism.

“Whatever you know about cricket, the moment you move into the women’s space you find out that you might know nothing,” Du Preez told a press conference on Friday. “What Hilton has done for me has been amazing. I couldn’t have picked a better guy to learn from.”

But Moreeng’s team have outgrown him. In August, not quite six months after the T20 World Cup final, it emerged senior players had written to CSA to express their dissatisfaction with his methods, which they considered outdated. That was thought to be the reason for Suné Luus resigning the captaincy and for Chloe Tryon leaving the squad. The unhappiness has been reflected in the results — since the T20 World Cup, South Africa have won 12 games and lost 15.

The players’ problems with Moreeng weren’t personal. Instead, they felt he had run out of the kind of ideas they were exposed to in foreign franchise leagues. Given that delicate situation, had CSA consulted with the players to see if they were happy with Du Preez?

“We did acknowledge what transpired in the environment a few months ago,” Enoch Nkwe, CSA’s director of cricket, said. “We had a couple of meetings with everyone included, the management and the players, to figure out the real issues and what can be done in the short term. And also what can be worked on from a long-term point of view to try and better the environment and strengthen it.” Du Preez was more direct: “I’ve got the commitment from the management and the players.”

Considering Du Preez had been Moreeng’s assistant for almost four years, and seeing as his charges approved of him, had he been offered the position permanently? “Those are going to be the conversations that are going to be taking place,” Nkwe said. “We didn’t want to dump everything immediately. We also need him to understand if he would like to do this moving forward. There are also internal processes that need to be understood and respected. It was probably better to go the interim route while we’re trying to sort out a lot of those things internally. And to allow Dillon the space to think through things in the medium to long term. Maybe he puts his hand up and it’s a role that he’d like to take forward. Who knows. We’ll have to wait and see.”

Did Du Preez want the job permanently? “I think I will want it,” he said. “It’s too early to give you a 100% answer. But that’s where you want to be, at the highest level. I would really want to coach there; I enjoy it a lot. But let’s talk after India.”

Nkwe said in November that interviews for the position had been conducted and that Moreeng’s successor was due to be named before the tour to Australia in January and February this year. That did not happen, and Moreeng stayed on. “Unfortunately we couldn’t find fitting candidates to take the team forward,” Nkwe said on Friday. He added that Moreeng had agreed in January to “help us with the transition post the 50-over World Cup next year”. But said he changed his mind last month after Sri Lanka earned their first ever series win in South Africa, prevailing 2-1 in the T20Is, and drew the ODI rubber. “Unfortunately he came to the end of the season and felt he didn’t have it anymore to continue,” Nkwe said.

What now for Moreeng, who at 46 is far from at the end of the coaching road? “We would like to retain him in whichever way because you don’t just let go of such experience, especially in women’s cricket,” Nkwe said.

If Du Preez’ name sounds familiar to those who don’t remember him as a flashy bowling allrounder on South Africa’s domestic scene, it might be because he once had Sachin Tendulkar and Ajinkya Rahane caught in the slips with consecutive deliveries. He was playing for Royal Challengers Bangalore against Mumbai Indians in a 2009 IPL game at the Wanderers, and came within a centimetre or two of a hattrick — his next delivery hit JP Duminy’s pads too high. When Du Preez had Duminy caught behind with the second ball of his next over, he had taken three wickets for no runs.

Fifteen years and exactly one week later, Du Preez isn’t hitting the headlines that hard anymore. But, as Nkwe said, “who knows” whether he will again.

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How cricket built a healthy, and evolving, relationship with electronic umpiring

“We need to move past this assumption that the best on-field match officials are also your best television match officials.” – Simon Taufel

Telford Vice / Cape Town

“TV umpire to director, we have a review for …” It’s a step in the process that starts when players are dissatisfied with the on-field umpires’ decision. Or when those umpires are unsure. So the umpire upstairs, using video evidence and gizmos, takes a look and hands down the verdict.

The mechanism has become an integral part of the modern game. Many sports have embraced electronic officiating, but none has done so as well as cricket. Crucial to the system’s integrity is trust in the technology, credible, confident communication, and transparency.

The original electronics were vetted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and relaying the relevant information and umpires’ deliberations to the watching public is a matter of connecting the officials to screens and speakers. What matters more than anything, then, is the human element: what umpires say and how they say it.

“The two biggest skills required in TV match officiating are composure and effective communication,” Simon Taufel, the former elite umpire, told Cricbuzz before plucking an analogy from the skies: “Businesses that need to focus on communicating effectively, something like air traffic control, use agreed terminology and work with non-English speaking people.

“We have to work with the lowest common denominator. While that might seem too basic, if we don’t do that we don’t have effective communication. We run an international game, and English is not something that comes easily to a lot of people.”

Umpires’ familiar DRS script makes them sound as if they’re on autopilot, but consistency is part of the point. To be believable and believed, what they say must be repeatable. And understood by all involved and by all who have an interest in the outcome.

“It can come across as robotic, but when you have very clear, agreed communication phrases of introduction, identification, requests and acknowledgement, then you leave very little room for human error and misunderstanding,” Taufel said.

He knows what he’s talking about. Having built a sterling reputation as an international umpire from January 1999 to August 2012 — he was awarded the David Shepherd Trophy a record five times consecutively — Taufel served as the ICC’s umpire performance and training manager from November 2012 to August 2016.

His tenure at the ICC coincided with those of senior administrators David Richardson, Geoff Allardice and Vince van der Bijl. With the input of leading umpires of the era like Steve Davis and Ian Gould, they transformed what had arrived in November 1992 as basic electronic umpiring and was first deployed as DRS in July 2008. The joke inside the ICC in the early days was that DRS stood for “the David Richardson System” because of the then chief executive’s drive to improve and refine it.

The tinkering continues. In March 2022 it was decided the television umpire would keep an eye on no-balls. That meant part of the DRS script became “I have checked the front foot and it is a fair delivery”. The change saved time and allowed on-field umpires to keep their eye on the action unfolding in front. As logical as that update to the playing conditions is, it shuttled between various committees of the ICC and the MCC — the custodians of the “laws” — and back for years before it was adopted.

A previous major step was taken in November 2014, when communication between umpires and broadcasters was first relayed to television viewers. “We held off on doing that for a long time on the basis that, quite often, a good decision can be ruined by a poor explanation,” Taufel said. “You become protective of your match officials to ensure you don’t fall over in that space.”

There were two challenges, Taufel said: “Number one was for the match officials to clearly articulate what they wanted, why they were making the decision, and to sell the decision verbally. The second was getting the commentators to shut up and let the TV match official talk and explain what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. It was a leap of faith but it worked.”

Spectacularly well, as was proved again in a game between Kolkata Knight Riders and Royal Challengers Bangalore at Eden Gardens on Sunday. Virat Kohli felt the slow full toss he had slapped to Harshit Rana for a return catch had reached him above his waist, and was thus high enough to be ruled a no-ball. The on-field umpires, Akshay Totre and Vinod Seshan, deemed that a possibility, and — before Kohli demanded they do — asked television official Michael Gough to investigate. Replays showed Kohli was correct about the ball’s height. But they also proved he was well outside his crease when he met the delivery, which made his argument irrelevant.

As “law” 41.7.1 makes clear: “Any delivery, which passes or would have passed, without pitching, above waist height of the striker standing upright at the popping crease, is unfair. Whenever such a delivery is bowled, the umpire shall call and signal no-ball.”

Kohli’s front foot was the best part of a metre in front of the crease. His back foot was also out of his ground. The gizmos produced data that said the ball would have reached him a dozen centimetres below his waist had he been “standing upright at the popping crease”.

Gough rightly gave Kohli out, triggering enough fury from the batter to cost him half his match fee. Much of the subsequent heat has been aimed, unfairly, at the umpires. Instead, Kohli should have been upset with himself for falling prey to Rana’s canny sucker punch — and for his own lack of knowledge on what constitutes a waist-high no-ball. Kohli was wrong. The officials were correct, and they had the data to prove it.

“The biggest challenge with the television umpire role is that once a decision is referred or reviewed, we never get it wrong,” Taufel said. To that end, Taufel — who now manages umpires in franchise leagues — foresees a category of officials who make their decisions from behind a screen exclusively.

“In the ILT20 this year we had two specialist television officials, who did 17 matches each. We had not only live comms to air, but two video cameras in the box so that people could see what they were doing as well as hear what they were doing. They were also able to have the odd exchange with the commentator.

“Matching the best people with the best technology to get the best outcomes is a must. We need to move past this assumption that the best on-field match officials are also your best television match officials. I think that’s incorrect. I worked in printing before I became an umpire and my best printer didn’t make my best foreman.”

Clearly, technology isn’t done with umpiring. So far cricket has managed the relationship better than sports like football, which is frequently mired in Video Assistant Referee controversies. Nottingham Forest were denied what they considered three clear penalties in their 2-0 EPL loss to Everton at Goodison Park on Sunday. Forest alleged publicly that the VAR official, Stuart Attwell, supported Luton Town — who like Forest are struggling to avoid relegation. “If we were in another country we’d start speaking about conspiracy,” Nuno Espírito Santo, Forest’s manager, said. In cricket, Kohli’s futile rant — routine by football standards — is as bad as it gets.

“We’re lucky that we have a lot more line decisions than most other sports,” Taufel said. “Rugby is a very technical game, even soccer. But we still have a lot of … you use the term controversy. I use differences of opinion because people see things from their own perspective. When we talk about clean catches or obstruction, we’re talking about wilful intent or a definition.”

And talking in clear, consistent, credible, confident communication.

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While Du Plessis dazzles, De Kock dwells the dugout

“Coupled with his captaincy, Faf becomes the most valuable player in the whole of the IPL.” – Adrian Birrell

Telford Vice / Cape Town

AMID the simmering and sometimes blatant hostility that swirled around Ekana Stadium in Lucknow on Monday, a thought might have been spared for Quinton de Kock. Especially while Faf du Plessis was reclaiming the orange cap.

But such subtleties were hit out of the park in a match that cost Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir their entire match fee and Naveen-ul-Haq half of his, all for actions more in keeping with the behaviour of petulant children than adult professionals. Royal Challengers Bangalore’s 126/9 proved enough to beat Lucknow Super Giants by 18 runs. In only five of the 1,003 IPL games played, and not since 2018, was a smaller total defended. Monday’s contest was febrile, as much because of conditions that asked plenty of batters, especially when facing spin, as the conduct of some of the more prominent figures involved.

De Kock watched his seventh consecutive match from the dugout as Du Plessis took his aggregate for the tournament to 466 in nine innings. De Kock, who again wasn’t picked for Wednesday’s washout against Chennai Super Kings in Lucknow, has yet to play in this year’s tournament. Du Plessis has yet to miss a game.

Add that to the range of contrasts that separates the two South Africans. Forget left-handed versus right-handed, or relentless attack versus the diligent building of an innings. Or the fact that De Kock turned 30 in December and Du Plessis will reach the end of his 30s in two Julys’ time.

One is a non-bowling wicketkeeper — in all the 664 matches he has played since provincial under-13 level, De Kock has turned his arm over for two overs. The other is an erstwhile leg spinner — Du Plessis has bowled 2,129.3 overs and taken 343 wickets at 26.06, 41 of them at first-class level. But he hasn’t bowled since March 2015, or 373 games ago. He stopped because of a chronic shoulder problem.

At press conferences it can be difficult to extract a quotable sentence from De Kock. It can be as challenging to stop the articulate thoughtfulness that pours readily from Du Plessis. Which is not to say De Kock is dim. Just that he is interested in what he is interested in, and that talking to the gathered press is evidently not among those interests. In October Du Plessis published an autobiography, “Faf: Through Fire”, that amounted to 193 pages and 145,540 words. Do not expect anything of the sort from De Kock.

On the field De Kock exudes cleverness. In an ODI at the Wanderers in April 2021 he fooled Fakhar Zaman by stationing himself behind the stumps and pointing at the opposite end of the pitch as the Pakistani dashed towards him in an attempt to complete a second run. De Kock created the impression that the ball was being thrown to the other end. It wasn’t, but Zaman couldn’t see that as the action was unfolding behind him. He slowed and turned to look over his shoulder — and the ball, hurled by Aiden Markram from long-off, clattered into the wicket to run out Zaman for 193. That ended the match with the visitors 17 runs shy of sealing the series. Devious? Probably. But there was no doubting De Kock’s quick, clear analysis of the situation and how to exploit it. Whatever else he is, he is not stupid.

“Quinton’s a proper professional,” Adrian Birrell, who shared a dressing room with De Kock and Du Plessis as South Africa’s assistant coach from 2013 to 2017, told Cricbuzz. “It might not look like it sometimes but he’s very serious about his cricket. But he’s snookered by Nicholas Pooran and Kyle Mayers in this year’s IPL. He missed the first two games because he was playing [World Cup Super League ODIs] for South Africa against the Netherlands. Pooran and Mayers started well, and it’s been difficult to change the side. Pooran offers them a keeping option and Mayers is an allrounder, so Quinton has struggled to get into the team.”

Only MS Dhoni and Dhruv Jurel had a higher strike rate in this year’s tournament than Pooran’s 190.68 going into Monday’s match. Mayers has made four half-centuries and is eighth among the leading runscorers. Both the West Indians have played in all nine of LSG’s games. The hip injury KL Rahul sustained in the field on Monday might be expected to secure De Kock gametime, but the issue is complicated by the quota for foreign players.

“Quinton will be champing at the bit to get an opportunity, but it shows the strength of the IPL,” Birrell said. “Because you can only play four internationals you’ve got very good players, other than Quinton, sitting on the bench. Iconic players like Joe Root also haven’t had a game yet.”

The former England captain has been on the outside looking in for all nine of Rajasthan Royals’ games. Dasun Shanaka, Matthew Wade and Lungi Ngidi are among those who have also not played a match. How would the downtime affect De Kock when, or even if, he is called into action? “He’s a very natural player and he adapts very quickly, so I would think he would just need a couple of nets and he’d be good to go,” Birrell said.

Du Plessis doesn’t have that problem. Thanks to the impact player rule a rib injury couldn’t keep him off the field in three games. In one of them, against Punjab Kings in Mohali on April 20, he scored 84 off 56. In another, against Rajasthan Royals at the Chinnaswamy three days later, he made 62 off 39. Du Plessis has cracked half-centuries in five innings, and his team have won four of six games with him as captain.

Of the three matches in which he was substituted in and out — when Virat Kohli returned to the captaincy — RCB won two, including their only consecutive successes, on the back of Du Plessis’ batting. When he was dismissed early, caught in the deep for 17 in the third over off fellow impact player Suyash Sharma in Bengaluru on Sunday, Kohli scored 54 off 37 but Kolkata Knight Riders won.

“Coupled with his captaincy, Faf becomes the most valuable player in the whole of the IPL,” Birrell said. “You wouldn’t think he’s at the peak of his powers at his age [38], but he is. This is the best he’s ever played.”

It’s also the most Du Plessis has ever been paid to play. The equivalent of USD856,000 he earned this year — which was also his fee in 2022 — is his biggest payday in the tournament and brings his total for 13 editions of the IPL to USD4.944-million. De Kock is on almost as good a wicket, making USD825,638 in 2023 and, in all IPLs, USD4.743-million.

But the comfort that brings won’t stop a player who hammered 100 off 44 two innings ago — in a T20I against West Indies in Centurion on March 26 — from fretting about when next he might take guard. Perhaps not until he is back in a South Africa shirt. De Kock can but hope that isn’t his fate.

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ABD can check out of RCB, but he can never leave

“He has been inducted into the RCB hall-of-fame, and that induction is scheduled to take place in Bengaluru next year. As of now, that is all.” – AB de Villiers’ agent on his future involvement with the franchise.

Telford Vice | Cape Town

“ABD! ABD! ABD!” Until this year, it was not uncommon to hear that chant at a cricket ground in India. But this time it was puzzling. The shout went up at the Kotla before tea on December 7, 2015. AB de Villiers was batting. But Delhi homeboy Virat Kohli was on the verge of sealing a 3-0 triumph in his first home series as Test captain. Surely that mattered more?

“ABD! ABD! ABD!” There it was again at the Chinnaswamy on May 1, 2018 during an IPL game between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Mumbai Indians. That time it made still less sense: De Villiers wasn’t even at the ground. He was in the team hotel recovering from a fever.

That wasn’t the only instance of him becoming the centre of attraction despite not being at the scene. For too much of the 2019 Word Cup, Faf du Plessis was lumped with trying to explain to the press why South Africa’s squad didn’t include De Villiers. Nevermind that he had retired from international cricket more than a year earlier, and had murmured a casual, almost perfunctory, belated offer of a comeback weeks before the tournament.

So Du Plessis would have been forgiven a touch of déjà vu on Tuesday — the day before he is due to lead RCB in the IPL eliminator against Lucknow Super Giants at Eden Gardens, when a De Villiers story stole the headlines again.

In a lighthearted video interview with Danish Sait’s “Mr Nags” comedy character posted on RCB’s social media feeds, Kohli was asked whether he missed De Villiers, who quit all cricket a month after last year’s IPL. “I miss him a lot,” Kohli said. “I speak to him regularly, quite regularly. He keeps messaging me. He was in the US recently watching golf. Augusta Masters is what I heard it was called. So he told me he was there experiencing it with his friends and family. We stay in touch and he’s very keenly watching RCB, obviously, and hopefully here next year in some capacity.” At that, “Mr Nags” did a theatrical double take, complete with electronic bells and whistles. Then it was back to an impishly smiling Kohli: “Did I spill the beans?”

The video was posted on May 11. Surprisingly, it took another 13 days — which takes us to Tuesday — for De Villiers’ response to hit the screens. “I’m glad to hear Virat’s confirmed it,” he said in another video interview, this one with VUSport. “To be honest, we haven’t decided on anything yet. I will definitely be around the IPL next year. I’m not sure in what capacity, but I am missing getting back there. I’ve heard a little bird tweeting, saying that there might be some games in Bangalore next year. So I would love to return to my second home town and see a full capacity stadium there, the Chinnaswamy, again. I would love to return. I’m looking forward to it.”

Cue online pandemonium as almost every cricket commentator, real and imagined, weighed in with a view on De Villiers’ apparently miraculous resurrection. Not enough of them made clear that the possibility of him coming back as a player was negligible. Asked if he could expand on the news or offer insight, Edward Griffiths — De Villiers’ agent — told Cricbuzz: “He has been inducted into the RCB hall-of-fame, and that induction is scheduled to take place in Bengaluru next year. As of now, that is all.” So far, so true: the franchise named De Villiers and Chris Gayle as inaugural members of their hall-of-fame last Tuesday. But, clearly, there is value even in a non-playing De Villiers and RCB will know the worth of having him around, in whatever invented job description, beyond his induction. Those yells of “ABD! ABD! ABD!” lubricate the flow of money into coffers. From RCB’s and doubtless De Villiers’ perspectives, why not? The team and the tournament have done more to create the cult of ABD! than international cricket could accomplish for any non-Indian, even a star of De Villiers’ magnitude.

He appeared in every IPL until this year; for Delhi Daredevils in the first three editions, the next 10 for RCB. He also played 415 matches for South Africa across the formats and another 144 first-class, list A and non-IPL T20 franchise games — the latter for seven teams in six countries. But it’s as a Bangalore boy that De Villiers will be remembered, particularly outside South Africa.

He has played more games for RCB than anyone except Kohli, owns the second and third-highest scores yet made in the team’s colours, is their second-highest run-scorer after Kohli, and has shared with Kohli their two highest partnerships for any wicket. Little wonder Kohli says he misses him. The bigger picture is that the connection between the De Villiers and RCB brands is rock solid. This is the age not of the team but of the player, of individual social media giants who attract attention for what they post almost as much as for what they achieve on the field. De Villiers, like Kohli, ticks those boxes.

Bangalore are among the IPL’s most popular and well-resourced outfits. The Rs464 crore (USD111.6-million) Vijay Mallya paid for them in 2008 made them the most expensive franchise. RCB have been represented by players of the calibre of Rahul Dravid, Jacques Kallis, Kevin Pietersen, Yuvraj Singh, Glenn Maxwell, Quinton de Kock, Anil Kumble, Zaheer Khan, Dale Steyn, Mitchell Starc and Muttiah Muralitharan. But, despite reaching the final three times, they have never won the title.

De Villiers played in two of those deciders — in 2011 and 2016 — and in a semi-final — for Delhi in 2009 — along with seven preliminary finals or eliminators for RCB. He scored three half-centuries in those games, two of them matchwinning performances, and was on the victorious side three times.

For South Africa, De Villiers featured in knockout matches in four editions of the World Cup, two in the Champions Trophy and two in the World T20. It must hurt somewhere in his soul that he was not required to bat in the only one of those games that South Africa won: the 2015 World Cup quarter-final at the SCG.

No doubt De Villiers is as proud to have played for South Africa, and to have played so well, as anyone else. But he will carry with him the scars of catastrophes like the 2007 World Cup semi-final against Australia in St Lucia, when South Africa crashed to 27/5 inside 10 overs, and the quarter-final of the 2011 edition of the same tournament in Dhaka, when they lost 8/64 in 19.1 overs to help New Zealand defend 221.

De Villiers was part of South Africa’s first ever Test series win in Australia, in 2008/09, when he scored 63 and 106 in the first match at the WACA and 56 in the third in Sydney. He was a significant factor in the long batting line-up that was central to South Africa winning in England in 2012 to secure the Test mace, and in the same year in the successful rubber in Australia, when he scored 169 in the second innings of the third match in Perth. De Villiers is among only four South Africa players who retired with a Test average of 50 or more, and only the second in the modern era after Kallis.

And yet, for many, a vacuum will loom at the centre of his international career. De Villiers would consider this unfair, but somehow his performances seemed more about himself than about South Africa’s team. Maybe that’s unavoidable for someone who is an outrageously better player than anyone else around. But consider that the memory of his 31-ball century against West Indies at the Wanderers in January 2015 — still the world’s fastest ODI hundred — is significantly more uppermost than the fact that South Africa made what remains their highest total in the format that day, and that openers Hashim Amla and Rilee Rossouw also scored centuries and shared 247, then South Africa’s highest stand for any wicket, and that the home side won by 148 runs.

Contrast that with the place accorded in the annals to Du Plessis’ vigil in the second innings of his Test debut, in Adelaide in November 2012. Bigger than his more than six hours at the crease in intense heat denying and defying bowlers as good as Peter Siddle and Nathan Lyon on a challenging pitch, bigger than his undefeated 110, is the truth that Du Plessis saved the match for his team. It is the difference between heroes and superheroes.

But don’t expect chants of FDP! to soar even if Du Plessis guides RCB to glory this year. Teams only have the bandwidth for so many superheroes, who only have the bandwidth for so many teams. The real truth of De Villiers’ to-be-continued relationship with RCB is as simple as that: they need each other.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Big names? Big deal. How not to win cricket’s most glittering prize

The IPL is not a telephone directory. It takes more than names and numbers to win it.

Telford Vice | Cape Town

MS Dhoni, Rohit Sharma, Kane Williamson, Shreyas Iyer, Mayank Agarwal and Rishabh Pant walk into a bar, where they see Stephen Fleming, Mahela Jayawardene, Tom Moody, Brendon McCullum, Anil Kumble and Ricky Ponting.

Fancy meeting you here, one says to another. What’s up? That some of the biggest names in cricket have been lumped together in a bar tells us they are not in Ahmedabad, which is in the dry state of Gujarat. It’s just before 8pm (IST) on Sunday. This coming Sunday …

The televisions in the noisy, crowded room are, of course, turned on — the IPL final is about to start. And none of those big names are involved, because they are the captains and coaches of the six teams who were shut out of the tournament’s play-off stages. Played 14, didn’t win enough of them, thanks for coming.

Thereby hangs a puzzle, because the six sides — Chennai Super Kings, Mumbai Indians, Sunrisers Hyderabad, Kolkata Knight Riders Punjab Kings and Delhi Capitals, and the previous iterations of some of them — have won a dozen of the 14 completed editions of cricket’s most glittering prize between them, and only Punjab and Delhi are without a title. Only in the first two IPLs, which were won by Rajasthan Royals and Deccan Chargers, were one of those half-dozen outfits not triumphant. Only in 2009, when Royal Challengers Bangalore went down to Deccan Chargers in the final, have one of them not reached the decider.

How, given all that, could it be that not one of those teams — particularly CSK and Mumbai, who have earned nine championships combined, or almost two-thirds of all the IPL silverware on offer — have made it to the business end this year? The other side of that question is how four sides who have just one title to show for their efforts — Rajasthan’s win in the inaugural 2008 competition — are the only ones left in the race this year?

It only adds to the intrigue that two of the final four, Gujarat Titans and Lucknow Super Giants, are new franchises in their first campaigns and haven’t had the chance to win anything. The captains and coaches still in the running, when compared to the stature of those who have fallen by the wayside in 2022, is part of this riddle: Gujarat’s Hardik Pandya and Ashish Nehra, Rajasthan’s Sanju Samson and Kumar Sangakkara, LSG’s KL Rahul and Andy Flower, and RCB’s Faf du Plessis and Sanjay Bangar, who has Mike Hesson at his elbow as director of cricket. There are giants of the game among them, certainly, but none taller than several of the 12 gathered for a mythical last IPL supper in a bar far from Ahmedabad.

Add some of the names attached in various capacities to the teams who haven’t made it, and the mystery deepens still. We’re talking about figures of the stature of Sachin Tendulkar, Zaheer Khan, Shane Bond, Michael Hussey, Eric Simons, Shane Watson, Ajit Agarkar, Pravin Amre, Simon Katich, Muttiah Muralitharan, Dale Steyn, Brian Lara and Jonty Rhodes. On the other side of that equation, Lasith Malinga, Paddy Upton, Gautam Gambhir and Gary Kirsten are in the dugouts of the sides who are still in the fray.

Might money buy success? None of the 10 franchises reached their salary cap of Rs90 crore (USD11.9-million) at the player auction in March. Mumbai and SRH came closest at Rs89.9 crore. But Mumbai were the first team to be eliminated, finishing bottom of the standings with four wins and 10 losses. SRH, who lost eight games, ended eighth. Before we think that decides the dollar debate, consider that the four teams who are still standing spent between Rs89.85 and Rs88.55 at the auction. Another four shelled out between Rs87.05 and Rs81.55. So, among the six teams who failed to make the play-offs were the four with the smallest salary bills.

Something similar is true of football’s English Premier League, in which Manchester City emerged victorious over Liverpool by a single point in the final standings, which were settled on Sunday. In March, no club had spent more on players than the £355-million committed to that cause by Man City. Liverpool doled out £41-million less than the champions, and between £29-million and £9-million less than Chelsea and Manchester United — who finished third and sixth. But the top six teams in the standings were also the top six spenders on players.

None of the five most expensive players at the IPL auction were bought by franchises that remain in the hunt. Of the 10 most handsomely paid, only RCB’s Harshal Patel — who sold for Rs10.75 crore — Lockie Ferguson and Avesh Khan — who were bought for Rs10 crore each by Gujarat and LSG — are still in action.

An important part of the explanation for what may seem inexplicable is that players change teams. For instance, Gujarat captain Pandya was part of Mumbai’s champion sides in 2015, 2019 and 2020. Du Plessis, RCB’s skipper, was involved in CSK’s success in 2018 and 2021 — when he scored a 59-ball 86 in the final against KKR.

Also, quality will out. Accordingly, the four finalists provided at least five and as many as eight of the leading 10 performances in terms of top run-scorers and wicket-takers, highest individual scores, best bowling in an innings, best economy rate in an innings and best economy rate in the tournament.

Among them were some of the IPL’s most enduring memories. Quinton de Kock’s screaming 70-ball 140 not out — the highest score this year — for LSG against KKR on Wednesday was a thing of wonder. Rajasthan’s Jos Buttler hammered half of the six centuries made in 2022, and across just six innings. Consistently bristling wrist spin earned Rajasthan’s Yuzvendra Chahal 26 wickets and made him the IPL’s most dangerous bowler. Happily, those stars have not shined for the last time this year.

But the IPL is not a telephone directory: it takes more than names and numbers to win it. It needs, among many other factors, belief, nerve, luck and bonding between players who, after the final, might not see each other — except as opponents — until next year. It’s difficult to know when you’ve nailed down that last element, but sometimes it can be read between the lines.

It’s there in comments attributed to Sal Kishore on Gujarat’s website: “It’s been amazing being here, with Ashu pa [Nehra] and Hardik. Ashu pa has made sure that everybody feels so secure in this team. Even when I was playing the 12th game of the season, I still felt like I need to contribute something for the team; not like I’ve been left out or something like that. We’ve all felt so secure and a lot of credit needs to be given to the both of them making the environment like that.”

And in what Rahul had to say about LSG teammate Mohsin Khan: “He’s been brilliant. I played with him in the nets first time a month ago, and I didn’t want to face him. Seriously — he was sharp. He’s scary at times in the nets. It’s not just the pace, he has a good brain, and skill as well.”

Even Virat Kohli isn’t immune. The former India captain is fading into the twilight of a great career, but his sentiments on Sunday, after RCB secured fourth place by dint of Mumbai beating Delhi Capitals, spoke of someone who is raging hard against the dying of the light: “It has been wonderful that I have got so much support in this edition. I am forever grateful to all the love that I have never seen before.”

More evidence of strong unity was to be seen in a video posted on Rajasthan’s social media feeds of their players keeping, for the most part, their composure and their humour intact on a jarring, strangely foggy, storm-struck flight from Mumbai to Kolkata for their qualifier against Gujarat on Tuesday.

There was visible relief on the Royals’ faces when the aircraft landed safely. How many of them might have headed straight for the nearest bar to calm their nerves? And who would they have found there?

First published by Cricbuzz.

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ABD: a peacock or just some guy?

“A famous cricketer you say? I’m getting a picture …” – a much repeated moment in the life of AB de Villiers.

Telford Vice | Cape Town

YOU know you’re a star when your parents pull a crowd who wouldn’t have had a clue who they were if they had passed them in the street. But by then there was no doubting the star status of AB de Villiers.

The second Test of South Africa’s unhappy series in India in November 2015, at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, was De Villiers’ 100th. He was welcomed to the crease at his other home ground — he played 84 matches in Centurion and 65 in Bangalore — like a son. On his way to the middle, another of the city’s famous adoptees, Virat Kohli, took a moment out of stamping his authority on his first home series as captain to shake De Villiers’ hand.

An hour had passed during which South Africa, still reeling from having been routed inside three days on 22 yards of designer dust in Mohali, discovered they had lost the ability to bat on a greentop. Stiaan van Zyl, Faf du Plessis and Hashim Amla had been dismissed, and all for 45 runs.

De Villiers, then the top-ranked Test batter, changed that narrative in an innings that began with him leaping down the pitch to Ravichandran Ashwin — and then lunging, elegantly as you like, into a forward defensive. He batted through four partnerships that realised 132 of the total of 214, and made 85 before being sawn off by a questionable decision for caught behind off Ravindra Jadeja. It was an arresting performance that, like all of De Villiers’ best, seemed at once frenetic and effortless. The only spot of calm was where he was, or where he kept his thoughts.

The delivery that was gifted his wicket became the last ball before tea, which somehow prompted the appearance of De Villiers’ parents in the pressbox, where they were received by the mostly Indian reporters present like celebrities in their own right. “I never played cricket in my life,” his father, also Abraham Benjamin — and also AB — said. “Where I come from there was only one ball.” He made an oval shape with his hands, indicating a rugby ball. “Do you know this ball?” There was silence, which Millie de Villiers broke with, “They don’t know.”

South Africa’s last three wickets tumbled to the first 45 balls of the third session. India were 80 without loss at stumps. And that was, effectively, the end of the match: all of the last four days were lost to rain. That allowed De Villiers’ innings – and the eight wickets shared by Ashwin and Jadeja — to stand in splendid, stark relief. It was its own fine thing that defied being blended into the team effort even though it did much for the collective.

He had a knack for this; for creating a whirlwind of which he was simultaneously part of and apart from. On another occasion at M Chinnaswamy, at an IPL game in May 2018, the chants of “ABD” cut through the wall-to-wall din of probably the loudest crowd in cricket — who invoked De Villiers’ name even though he was not playing because of illness. He was nowhere near the 2019 World Cup in England when news broke that discussions had taken place about him coming out of international retirement to play in the tournament, which destroyed South Africa’s already waning confidence.

Perhaps if you’re as hot a player as De Villiers was, it’s best to keep away from the flames. Or maybe that was one of the few available ways to keep it real. Because the truth of it is that De Villiers is special only on a sports field. That is no insult: clearly he has made his parents proud, and just as clearly he adores life as a husband and a father. Even so, millions of people around the world know how that feels. They are special to the people in their lives, but, beyond those boundaries, that does not make them special. De Villiers, the cricketer, is as special as a person could be without hurting themselves.

But see him out of his professional habitat and you might as well be looking at a peacock marooned on an iceberg. That’s a kind description of the discombobulated mess he was, understandably, at a press conference in the aftermath of the 2015 World Cup semi-final at Eden Park.

Or he could be mistaken for just some guy. In November 2012 he was no more than another beer-buzzed bro among those who shambled into a pub — “The Lucky Shag”, no less — on the banks of the Swan in Perth late on the night that South Africa celebrated the completion of a successful Test series. In Gqeberha — then Port Elizabeth — in March 2018, on the eve of what became the “Sandpapergate” series against the Aussies, he was a harried parent in a restaurant at the team hotel trying to convince his children to eat something not made of sugar. In July 2019 he went unnoticed by the locals when he took time out from playing for Middlesex in the T20 Blast to come to Deptford Park, just south of the Thames, in London to open an artificial pitch that had been laid by a charity that funds public cricket facilities.

“Do you know AB de Villiers,” a woman present was asked. “Who? No.” She was informed: “He’s a famous cricketer from South Africa. A very famous cricketer. That’s him out there; in the pink shirt.” Around De Villiers were around 30 excited children who knew exactly who he was, among them the woman’s. “A famous cricketer you say? I’m getting a picture …”

It’s difficult to know who or what AB de Villiers would have been had he not become AB de Villiers. His identity is so tightly bound to his shimmering talent as a cricketer that, when he isn’t holding a bat or diving for a ball, he seems almost not to exist. He is the tail of his own comet.

De Villiers’ announcement on Friday that he has retired from all cricket means his wife, Danielle de Villiers, and Millie and AB senior have their spouse and son back from his all-encompassing previous job. Two little boys and their baby sister are about to discover that, happily, their father is more than someone who appears on television from faraway places wearing strange clothes and doing even stranger things. De Villiers belongs to them. He does not belong to cricket, or to those who follow the game.

It seems he does not need to make more money playing cricket. He certainly doesn’t need to endure more bio-bubbles in the cause of playing cricket. Is he a peacock on an iceberg, or just some guy? We’re about to find out.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Why AB de Villiers can’t shut up and go away

“My head and my heart have been in different places at the same time, which is not a good place to be in.” – AB de Villiers has interesting ideas on anatomy.

TELFORD VICE | Cape Town

“EVERYTHING comes to an end,” AB de Villiers, looking into a camera lens sternly, said in a video released on his app on May 24, 2018. For some, the world itself seemed to end that day: it marked his immediate retirement from international cricket.

At 34! Curtailing a career that had captured hearts and minds like few others had or will! Robbing the highest level of the game of the brilliance of a player who didn’t bat at the crease but at the corners of the envelope of possibility! And announcing this catastrophe on his own app! How weird was that?!

On the field De Villiers sees things others don’t and plays accordingly. It all makes sense when a previously unimaginable stroke sends the ball streaking through a gap that didn’t exist until, somehow, it did. Off the field he makes much less sense.

In person De Villiers invariably seems as if he has tumbled out of bed with just enough time to brush his teeth before he had to answer your knock at his door. It is no bad thing that someone as over exposed as he has been for half his now 36 years has retained something like wide-eyed innocence. Less kindly, he can come across as bewildered with the world and his place in it.

Even so, whirring behind his eyes and guided by instinct is a flinty intelligence. He needs it to keep pace with a life that could, if it isn’t carefully managed, be wrenched out of his control. Maybe that’s why he used his app to call it quits rather than submit himself to questioning that could be bent out of his preferred shape. And maybe that’s why he — or his advisors — didn’t see that putting a platform between himself and the people who think they own a piece of him, South Africa’s cricketminded public, was a bad idea.

Worse, he has angered them more than once since he walked away — voluntarily, let’s not forget. If “everything comes to an end”, why has De Villiers spent too much of the past 13 months with his nose pressed against the dressingroom window hankering to get back in?

He was the invisible elephant in that dressingroom at last year’s World Cup, where the emergence of his casual, ill-considered offer to return — without committing to playing in the team’s matches before the tournament — derailed a campaign that was always going to struggle to get out of the station.

There De Villiers was again on Wednesday, his nose flattened against the glass during his In Conversation video interview with the peerless Harsha Bhogle on Cricbuzz.

“This lockdown didn’t come at a great time,” De Villiers said. “I was quite interested and very keen to get a part in the squad and be there with the guys again … even if I just work with them, even if I don’t play. I am open to anything, I just want … the fire is there to make a difference for the guys and it has always been there. I have to assess my situation every single day, see where I am at.

“For now I just want to get on the cricket field. Hopefully IPL will happen this year … another tournament or two, I just want to get going and then we’ll reassess and I’ll have a look at where I am at, at that time, with my family, with my body, my hunger … all those things play a big role. I don’t know where I am going to be in six months’ time. Hopefully everything works out and I can get that opportunity to contribute again to whichever team I play for.”

Confused about whether he wants to play international cricket again? You’re forgiven. And you’re not alone …

“A lot of things happened in the last five years in my life and in my career. It was a confusing time, I can say that. My head and my heart have been in different places at the same time, which is not a good place to be in. Trust me, I’ve asked this question to myself a lot of times but I made the decision to retire at a time when I felt I really needed to get away.

“I got a lot of criticism at the time for picking and choosing, so there was no room to hide anymore. I couldn’t say I want a bit of time off because, again, I am picking and choosing. So I felt my only option was to say ‘listen, I am done, I am out of here’.”

In the year before he retired South Africa played 37 matches, among them 14 Tests. De Villiers featured in 24 of those games, 15 at home, the rest in England, and including seven Tests — a total of 45 days, or parts thereof, on the field. He also played 21 other matches in that time, a dozen of them for Royal Challengers Bangalore. Since he retired he has played 58 games, all of them T20s for half-a-dozen teams in as many countries. If that makes it seem as if he is working more and spending less time away from the game, consider the intangibles.

“I did retire and I am still retired. But things changed over the last three to four years. I am still healthy. I still feel I can hit the ball.”

Just because the name of a country is on a team’s playing shirts doesn’t mean that side is some kind of nationalist project whose over-arching mission is to defend their country’s honour and strive for glory in its name. They are simply a cricket team, nothing more and nothing less.

South Africans are as guilty of muddling international sport with patriotism as anyone else, but in their case this dangerous, unfortunate tendency comes laced with the poison of a past built on legislated racism. That adds exponentially to the weight of the political issues every player must bear when they wear a South Africa shirt. There is no escape, and there shouldn’t be if we hope to have a future more equitable than our past. The only way out — of the pressure to perform as well as the politics — is to retire.

Then there’s the money. De Villiers earned around 10 times as much playing 12 matches across 42 days for RCB in 2018 as he did from his last 24 games for South Africa, in pro rata contractual terms.

Those are powerful reasons to accept the decision he made to hang up his Protea cap. But accepting that choice and moving on has proved difficult for De Villiers himself, especially after Mark Boucher was appointed South Africa’s coach in December. They shared a dressingroom in 176 matches for South Africa, and were on the field together at Taunton on July 9, 2012, the first day of that tour of England, when a flying bail to the eye ended Boucher’s career. When the Test series started at the Oval 10 days later, De Villiers was behind the stumps despite the presence in the squad of Boucher’s designated understudy, Thami Tsolekile.

“In the back of my mind at that time [when I retired], I knew I was still going to play cricket. And after a good IPL or two and a bit of time in the BBL, slowly but surely that urge started coming back again. The T20 World Cup came back in my mind.

“Having spent time with Boucher at that specific time last year, it really started the conversations. It came from his side at the beginning because I would never say ‘I am back and available again’. He started the conversation and I said ‘listen, let’s just chat along and see where we go with this’.

“That’s why it looks so confusing from the outside. And I don’t think it should be that confusing. Life changes, and it shouldn’t be the same all the time. Things change, situations change from year to year and that’s basically what happened to me in the last four to five years. Yes, it looks bad from the side and it is confusing … I did retire and I am still retired. But things changed over the last three to four years. I am still healthy. I still feel I can hit the ball. If that changes, I am certainly not available for anything. But for now, we’ll see what happens in the next few games that I play.”

De Villiers is a decent, well-mannered, fair-minded man. Even those who write critically about him can be sure that, the next time they see him, they will be offered a hand to shake — virus-regulations permitting — a tip of the cap and a cheery hello. “I understand, you have a job to do,” he has told reporters more than once. But, at some level and perhaps more so when the barbs come from those whose job it isn’t to critique what he does and how he does it, the hard words hurt.

“I am human and you can see that it’s difficult for me to accept people giving me criticism when they know I am a genuine guy and that I just want the best for everyone. So that is difficult to fathom, to take in. I’ve obviously learnt over the years that it’s part of the game, it’s part of what I do. Not everyone can like you. My parents always told me you can’t please the whole world … but I want to. Why not?

“Anyway, that’s probably where a lot of indecision came in. I want to be there, I want to show people I am genuine and I just mean the best for everyone in the team and myself. I come from a good place and it’s difficult to then get a kickback on that and hear that ‘AB is indecisive, AB has turned his back …’ It is tough, I am sensitive, there’s no doubt about it. I am just a human being after all. So, yeah, it is difficult.”

It’s difficult for everyone concerned. De Villiers first said yes to South Africa at St George’s Park in December 2004. Thirteen months ago he said no. Now he seems to be saying wait. Sorry?

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Dillon du Preez: the IPL’s afterthought allrounder

He had to prepone his wedding. He was sledged by Shane Warne. He came close to a bomb blast. He would do it all again.

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

YOU’VE sat in the dugout in three different cities watching your teammates play the first seven matches of the tournament. You’re finally given a game. You bowl eight balls without anyone taking a run off you. By then you’ve claimed three wickets. Not just any wickets: Sachin Tendulkar, Ajyinka Rahane — with consecutive deliveries — and JP Duminy.

But you play only one more match in the competition. When it’s all over you have bowled seven overs of a possible 64 — more than eight times fewer than the hardest working member of your team’s attack — and faced 13 balls, or less than 4% of the number received by the busiest batter in your dressingroom.

You have a right to feel hard done by, denied the chance you have earned to give of your best. You are Dillon du Preez.

“To be honest, I was happy I got the two games,” Du Preez told Cricbuzz about playing for Royal Challengers Bangalore in the 2009 IPL. That he was on the books at all was, he said, a case of the franchise big wigs thinking “we’ve got some leftover cash, let’s sign another allrounder”.

The other side of that equation was more complicated. Du Preez explained: “I got the call from [RCB coach] Ray Jennings to say, ‘Do you want to be part of the IPL?’. I said, ‘Don’t ask me ridiculous questions — I’m there.’ He said, ‘OK. You need to be in India on the 10th of April.’ I said, ‘Can I be there on the 11th? I’m getting married on the 10th …’.

“[Jennings] words were, ‘There are a lot of nice places in India where you can get married.’. We actually moved the wedding to the 20th of March. Only to find out about a week after that that the IPL would start on the 18th of April and that it was being moved to South Africa! My wife’s still pissed off with me.”

That wasn’t the only bit of unsmooth sailing for Du Preez. RCB lost four of their first seven games, prompting a rethink for their match at the Wanderers against Mumbai Indians, who had won four of six. “Jennings came to me the night before and said, ‘Listen, you’re playing tomorrow’,” Du Preez said. “I actually couldn’t sleep — I had been told I was a back-up player for guys like [Jacques] Kallis or [Dale] Steyn. I was getting into the changeroom the next day when I remembered that I had left my playing shirts at the hotel. I had to send the security guard back to my room to get my clothing. So it was a great start.”

All was forgotten when, with his third ball, he drew Tendulkar into an untidy drive with a fullish delivery outside off. The healthy edge flew to Rahul Dravid at slip. “I remember running through to the guys and celebrating, and on my way back to my mark I thought, ‘What just happened?’. I mean, that guy invented cricket! I couldn’t believe it.”

Du Preez’ early success sparked a second slip, Robin Uthappa. Who’s idea was that? “I was floating in the clouds. I’ve no idea. I want to take credit for it, but I really don’t know.” Whoever was responsible, it proved an inspired decision. Du Preez’ next delivery was identical to his previous ball, Ajyinka played a stroke similar to Tendulkar’s, and Uthappa took the catch.

Enter Duminy to face the hattrick attempt, which was pitched shorter. The left-hander shouldered arms and was struck high on the front leg. Nonetheless, RCB yowled like a choir of scolded cats. “It wasn’t out,” Du Preez said. “I went up for the lbw shout — on a hattrick ball you have to — but it was never out.” Duminy became Du Preez’ third victim in his next over, when he flailed at a short, wide effort and was taken behind by Mark Boucher.

In the same over Du Preez found a defending Dwayne Bravo’s edge. But the ball dribbled to earth. He clanged Sanath Jayasuriya on the helmet. Conceding two singles was the closest he came to getting anything wrong.

So he was granted another over. Anil Kumble’s misfield to Jayasuriya’s extra cover drive off the first ball cost three runs. Two dots and a single to Bravo followed. The afterthought allrounder was looking good: 2.4-1-7-3. Then Jayasuriya produced an unlovely but emphatic horizontal swipe to smear a short ball over mid-on for four. Du Preez, his tail up and trusting the fastest pitch in the country to be on his side, retaliated with another semi-bouncer — which Jayasuriya dispatched many metres over the midwicket fence. “He smacked me so hard it almost hit the scoreboard.”

Even so, Du Preez had done enough for Kumble to entrust him with the last over of the innings. But his planets had lost their alignment. Abishek Nayar blitzed a four down the ground and edged another boundary to the fine leg. Four runs off the next three balls took the over’s damage to a dozen runs. Bowl the last one and get the hell out of there … Not only did Du Preez overstep he also flubbed a simple throw for a runout, which resulted in overthrows: “Thanks for reminding me. I forgot about that.” The free hit was worth just one — Nayar’s top edge plopped in front of mid-on — but the 16 runs Du Preez conceded in that over were as many as he had given up in his first three combined.

All ended happily for RCB with Jacques Kallis and Uthappa scoring unbeaten half-centuries to seal victory by nine wickets with a ball short of two overs remaining. “I was sitting in the bus on the way back to the hotel really chuffed,” Du Preez said. “You’re playing with some big guns — Kumble, Dravid, [Virat] Kohli was still casual — so when you get a game you feel like you have to perform to prove that you’re part of this; that you fit in and are on par.”

Du Preez kept his place for RCB’s next match, against Rajasthan Royals in Centurion four days later. Before he could get his hands on the ball, he had to bat. He walked out in the 15th over with RCB having crashed to 72/6 and his coach’s barked instruction uppermost: “Don’t get out! Be there at over 18!” Sergeant-major Jennings, Du Preez said, “has a funny way of making you feel bad for not doing what he says”.

“This guy is a legend, but he’s a clown.” – Du Preez on Shane Warne.

But other words fogged the calm head Du Preez needed to succeed in his mission: “Shane Warne was standing at cover giving me a mouthful. I stood there looking at him and I wanted to have a full go in Afrikaans. I did say something — I’m not going to tell you what — but I was thinking, ‘I’m not even facing. Why are you having a go at me?’. I wanted to climb in and smack him out of Centurion. He was in my face for a few overs, and I was at the non-striker’s end thinking, ‘This guy is a legend, but he’s a clown’.”

It seems a good thing, for Du Preez, that Warne had only one over left when he took guard. He faced just two balls from the Australian, squirting a single backward of square leg and surviving a threatening slider. There were four balls left in the innings after Du Preez shoved Amit Singh’s slower ball down long-on’s throat. Gone for 10 in a measly total of 105. But at least he had followed Jennings’ orders.

The highlight of Du Preez’ three overs, no two of them bowled consecutively, was a short delivery to Yusuf Pathan, who was beaten for pace and top edged to fine leg. It had little impact on a match Rajasthan won with three wickets down and 30 balls remaining.

That confirmed RCB’s fifth loss in nine games. But they won four of their last five to finish third in the standings before sweeping past Chennai Super Kings by six wickets in their semi-final. Only to go down by six runs to Deccan Chargers in the final. Du Preez was returned to the spectators’ ranks for all seven of those matches — despite the fact that the semi and the final were played at the Wanderers, where he had performed so well. But no bitterness lingered: “Just being part of it was amazing, sitting in the changeroom with people like Anil. I was 12 or 13 when I first saw him play. When guys like that talk, you listen.”

Du Preez never bowled nor faced another ball in the IPL. But, as his contract was for two years, he was in India for the 2010 edition. “It was again nice being part of it, but after six weeks I had started moving my bed to the other side of the hotel room and putting the TV somewhere else just to get a different view of things. It was tough. My wife was pregnant, so she couldn’t fly over.”

That’s not to say he left with dull memories only: “Before a game against Mumbai in Bangalore there was a massive bang. We were told to go into the changeroom, and that it a generator had blown up. But on the TV next to the officials while they were telling us that it was reported as a bomb. Kevin Pietersen said, ‘This is not my bread and butter, so that’s it — I’m done, I’m not going onto the field’. I was 12th-man but I didn’t walk around the field. I stayed in the changeroom. Dale Steyn played a loose shot and got out, and on his way back to the changeroom — while I was looking out at the field — he smacked his bat onto the steps next to me. I thought it was another bomb!”

In fact, two bombs had exploded an hour before the scheduled start of the April 17 match, injuring 15 people and reducing to rubble a section of the wall around M. Chinnaswamy Stadium. A third was discovered and defused by police. In other countries the match would have been called off. But not in India: the start of play was delayed by an hour. According to contemporary reports, Bangalore police commissioner Shankar Bidari said, “It is a minor bomb blast, but investigations are in full swing to find out who is responsible.” Seven people connected to jihadist organisations were arrested.

You might consider the trip a mistake. But you’re not Du Preez: “Even if I had to pay for my own flight I would have gone, just to be part of it.” And for the money? “Some guys could buy a casino or a cruise ship with what they make from the IPL, but not me.” How much did he earn? “Was it USD50,000? I can’t remember.”

“I wanted to put my foot through that laptop [when he was confirmed as unsold for the 2011 IPL]. I didn’t, probably because I was stiff from bowling and I couldn’t get my leg up high enough.”

That September, in the Champions League, which was in South Africa, Du Preez garnered enough attention — a 25-ball 46 against South Australia helped, as did cleanbowling MS Dhoni in the semi-final against CSK — to keep himself in the reckoning for the 2011 IPL. And so to the player auction … “I sat in front of my laptop for two days. My name would come up and then go away again. I wanted to put my foot through that laptop [when he was confirmed as unsold]. I didn’t, probably because I was stiff from bowling and I couldn’t get my leg up high enough.”

Self-deprecation comes more easily to Du Preez than to many other fast bowling allrounders. Maybe it was drummed into him early. His first-class debut was for Free State against West Indies in Bloemfontein in December 2003. The visitors batted for all but three overs of the first two days to total 618. But Du Preez’ breezy positivity served him well even in the throes of all that. Four of the six bowlers went for more than a hundred runs each. Not Du Preez, who took 3/75 — among them Shivnarine Chanderpaul, who was bowled for 245 to end a desperate drudge of an innings that lasted almost eight hours into which 369 balls disappeared without trace. That done, Du Preez, batting at No. 10, clipped 56 off 66 balls. Then he dismissed Wavell Hinds and Ramnaresh Sarwan. “I always hated bowling in ‘Bloem’,” Du Preez said, a reference to the unfailingly somnambulant surfaces at his erstwhile home ground. “I don’t think I took one five-for there.” Not quite: he claimed one in first-class cricket and another in a limited overs game. But he spread 14 five-wicket hauls in first-class, list A and significant T20 games among other grounds — despite playing 86 matches of all sorts in Bloemfontein.

Now 38, and after a playing career that never reached international heights but took him to Leicestershire on a Kolpak contract in 2008 and, in 2012, back to Asia for the Uthura Rudras in the Sri Lanka Premier League, he is now coaching. The Free State women’s team were among his first charges. “Sometimes it’s tough because there tends to be more emotion after a bad game. But they’re tougher than a lot of the guys — if they get cut during a game they go back onto the park and play.” Perhaps the most important skill he learnt was to knock on the dressingroom door before he entered: “Yes, that’s crucial.”

Eleven years after her preponed wedding, his wife, Nicola, would expect no less.

First published by Cricbuzz.

Pakistan offers plenty to ponder

“There were heavy security measures put in place, particularly for the overseas players. They even shut down roads that were the route from the airport to the hotel. It was over the top in a way, but I felt safe.” – JP Duminy on playing in Pakistan.

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

IS 10 days long enough for a team to play three T20s in two cities 1,200 kilometres apart? And that after one of the sides involved have had 15 white-ball games — no two of them consecutively at the same venue — across 45 days in a couple of different countries a hemisphere apart? That’s already a tall order. Now add this: the country hosting the three T20s is Pakistan. And the place that team will come from, and several of their players will need to return to after the 10-day window, is India.

South Africa are about to lurch into three ODIs and as many T20s against England at home, and another three in each format against visiting Australia. Then it’s off to India for three seemingly gratuitous ODIs.

That jaunt ends on March 18. In other years the South Africans in the IPL, which starts on March 29, would stay on in India. Not this year. If two security experts who are to visit Lahore and Karachi give the all-clear in the next few weeks, South Africa’s squad — which promises to be similar to their T20 side — will journey from Kolkata, where the third ODI against India will be played, to Pakistan.

That won’t be simple. For reasons bigger than cricket, but not unrelated to it, there are no direct routes by air between India and Pakistan. Instead the South Africans will have to go via Colombo, Kuala Lumpur, Dubai, Abu Dhabi or even Istanbul on flights ranging from almost nine hours to more than 33 hours. That done, and the three T20s played, some of the players will need to make the trip in reverse. Quinton de Kock, Faf du Plessis, Lungi Ngidi and Imran Tahir are sure to have to hurry: all or some of them will likely be required for the IPL opener between Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings. Others who could be in a similar but slightly slower boat are Kagiso Rabada, David Miller, Chris Morris, AB de Villiers — who seems set to come out of international retirement, at least at T20 level — and Dale Steyn, who are sprinkled between Delhi Capitals, Rajasthan Royals and Royal Challengers Bangalore.

That has led to fresh doubts that the Pakistan tour will go ahead, as mooted, in March. And not only because those now running Cricket South Africa’s daily affairs may be less than keen to see through a commitment made in November by a now removed administration that is under investigation for mismanagement.

The IPL ends on May 24 and South Africa are next in action in the Caribbean in July. So they would appear to be time enough. But whether the tour happens at all is dependent on a favourable report by the security professionals, who are, understandably, insisting on carrying out their inspection under match conditions in both Lahore and Karachi, the likely venues for the T20s.

They had hoped to do so during Bangladesh’s three T20s and Test in Pakistan, a tour scheduled to end on February 11. But the same company is part of the security details for the ongoing under-19 World Cup in South Africa, which ends on February 9, and consequently they have been unable to go to Pakistan. Their next opportunity will be during the Pakistan Super League (PSL), which is set to run from February 20 to March 22 — and Pakistan in full for the first time, having been staged mostly in the United Arab Emirates in the past.

One of the security specialists told Cricbuzz they had confidence that “Pakistan have the ability to write and implement a very rigorous security plan”, as they had for the teams from Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, West Indies and Bangladesh who have been to the country since international cricket resumed there in May 2015. Since then, a World XI that included Hashim Amla, Du Plessis, Miller, Tahir and Morné Morkel have also played in Pakistan. That followed more than six years of Pakistanis not being able to watch their team play at home in the wake of a terrorist attack on the Sri Lanka team bus in Lahore on March 3, 2009 that killed eight and wounded nine.

But, the expert said, while South Africa’s players would likely be safe they would also be trapped in a sanitised bubble: “That means no team dinners outside of the hotel and no going to places of entertainment. I was in Lahore between 18 and 24 months ago, and the roads are closed from the team hotel to Gaddafi stadium. They actually clear the road of traffic.”

JP Duminy’s recollection of the security arrangements for the two ODIs he played, in Multan and Lahore in October 2007, is that they were “not as hectic but they were quite heavy”. He was comparing his experience then to when he played for Islamabad United against Peshawar Zalmi in the PSL final in Karachi in March 2018. Only three of the tournament’s total of 34 games that were not played in Dubai or Sharjah. The other two were in Lahore. “We flew in the day before, we practised, we spent the night, we played the game in the evening, and we left in the early hours of the next morning,” Duminy said. “We were in the country for between 36 and 40 hours. It was literally hotel, stadium and airport.

“The country was still under the microscope. There were heavy security measures put in place, particularly for the overseas players. They even shut down roads that were the route from the airport to the hotel. It was over the top in a way, but I felt safe.

“Those were the … not restrictions, but regulations for us to go. We were given assurities by the security company that it was safe to go. So we were fine.”

Would he go again, given the chance? “Yes, I think I would. If the green light was given by the security company: they would need to go and do a recce there.”

To Pakistanis, who live their country’s realities daily, this may seem an overly precious attitude, especially as it emanates from South Africa — where the streets are a long way from safe. The difference could be that cricket is precious to Pakistanis in a way that it isn’t to South Africans. But are the public willing to put up with being treated like undesirables if that’s what it takes to get the game back on their grounds at international level? If the past few years are the yardstick, it seems they are. Or that, unlike foreign players, they don’t have the choice.

First published by Cricbuzz.

Morris in the money for 2020 IPL

Six South Africans in IPL squads have not played a single game.

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

CHRIS Morris could buy a luxury villa in South Africa’s most exclusive neighbourhoods with the Rs. 10 crore Royal Challengers Bangalore pledged for his services in the 2020 Indian Premier League player auction in Kolkata on Thursday.

The lanky allrounder with a wingspan to match went for more than R20-million, and almost seven times his base price of Rs. 1.5 crore. But he was among only three Saffers who found buyers for their wares. The others were Dale Steyn, who was snared — at the third time of asking — by RCB for Rs. 2 crore — and David Miller, who went to the Rajasthan Royals for Rs. 75 lakh. Steyn and Miller sold for their base prices.

South Africans will no doubt read the fact that the money earned by Morris, Steyn and Miller can’t touch Pat Cummins’ Rs. 15.5 crore — the IPL record for a foreign player — as a further sign of decline in a game plagued by damagingly inept administration that has been a significant factor in the wilting of performances at international level.

Closer to the truth is that the South African IPL contingent have punched above their weight. Fifty-four Saffers were on the books of the tournament’s franchises in its first dozen editions. There were 10 in the inaugural event and one more than that last year, but of the first intake only AB de Villiers and Steyn made it to 2019. Of those originals, Graeme Smith, Mark Boucher and Jacques Kallis now hold prominent positions in South Africa’s administrative and coaching structures.

De Villiers is the only South African among the four foreigners — Dwayne Bravo, Chris Gayle and Shane Watson are the others — who have featured in all 12 IPLs. At the other extreme are the six Saffers who were on rosters but never got a game: Ashwell Prince and Loots Bosman (both with the Mumbai Indians in 2008), Robbie Frylinck (Delhi Daredevils in 2011), Jonathan Vandiar (Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2011), Gulam Bodi (Delhi in 2012 and, impressively in its own way, 2013) and Cameron Delport (Kolkata Knight Riders in 2018).

Six South Africans were retained by their franchises this year — Quinton de Kock, De Villiers, Faf du Plessis, Kagiso Rabada, Imran Tahir and Hardus Viljoen. That’s one fewer than those who were released — Beuran Hendricks, Colin Ingram, Heinrich Klaasen, David Miller, Morris, Anrich Nortjé and Steyn. Their IPL-minded compatriots will be happy that Miller and Steyn landed deals to swing the national equation into positive territory. But there will be disbelief that players of the stature of Ingram and Nortjé went unsold, as did Klaasen and Andile Phehlukwayo.

The IPL is despised and delights in almost equal measure in South Africa. It is a monster that feeds on the energies of the national team’s best players, as well as a showcase for the calibre of cricketers the nation produces. But it will not be ignored, not least by estate agents who work in South Africa’s most exclusive neighbourhoods.

First published by Cricbuzz.