Taunton – Bulletproof Truth

Counting on Quinton, deputising for De Kock

“Hopefully I can keep riding the wave.” – Heinrich Klaasen, who scored 51 and 123 at a strike rate of 145 in this week’s warm-up games.

Telford Vice | Palermo, Sicily

IT isn’t often that a scorecard names anyone, much less Quinton de Kock, at No. 16. Just as rare is Anrich Nortjé, Lizaad Williams, Lungi Ngidi and Marco Jansen being listed to bat ahead of him, and Tabraiz Shamsi one place behind.

It’s also unusual that, when he’s in a South Africa shirt, De Kock isn’t the designated wicketkeeper. Less few and far between, though noteworthy, are matches when he isn’t in the side despite being part of the squad.

But all of the above, whether outlandish, rare or merely unusual, was true of the South Africans’ first two matches of their tour of England this week, both of them white-ball games against the England Lions.

In Taunton on Tuesday, De Kock was No. 16 in the line-up in what amounted to a practice match involving all 17 of the visitors’ players; 11 of them batting and 11 fielding. Kyle Verreynne deputised for him by opening the batting with Janneman Malan and then keeping wicket. In Worcester on Thursday, in a standard 50-over game, De Kock wasn’t in the XI. Malan and Reeza Hendricks opened and Heinrich Klaasen — who had played as a batter only on Tuesday — wore the gloves and pads.

It was all a little odd considering De Kock has been behind the stumps in 243 of his 247 internationals across the formats. And because he’s missed less than a quarter of the matches — 99 of 346 — South Africa have played since he made his debut in a T20I against New Zealand at Kingsmead in December 2021.

Team management attributed De Kock’s absence to a bruised finger and said he had been rested as a precaution. So he is set, niggle permitting, to go into the ODI series that starts in Durham on Tuesday without having picked up a pair of wicketkeeping gloves in anger for more than three weeks and a bat for exactly a month.

That’s not much of a gamble on a player whose game is so grooved and grounded. De Kock will be trusted, justifiably, to resume batting the way he has in his last 15 ODI innings, in which he has scored three centuries and five 50s. But, in his 30th year, having retired from Tests in December and become a father in January, his priorities are shifting. Even though he has committed himself to South Africa’s foreseeable white-ball future, thoughts will turn to what happens when he goes fishing fulltime.

On this week’s evidence, there is no immediate cause for alarm. On Tuesday, Malan stood firm through five partnerships for his 103. Two days later, Klaasen — who had made a 35-ball 51 batting at No. 7 in Taunton — hammered 123 off 85 balls at No. 5. Verreynne is the straightest swap for De Kock as a serious batter who keeps, even though he has opened only twice in his 39 list A innings. But De Kock’s attributes are useful wherever they present themselves, and it can’t hurt to have two other confirmed ’keepers around.

“Hopefully I can keep riding the wave,” Klaasen, whose strike rate in the two games was 145, told a press conference on Thursday. He conceded that his innings in Worcester might have been cut short by a run out — “I think it was out; I need to buy the umpire a beer” — but was grateful for the support given him by Andile Phehlukwayo in his 67, which helped fuel a stand of 149 that flew off 99 deliveries. The partnership started after the visitors had slumped to 167/5 in the 30th over. “He took a lot of pressure off me when I got into an awkward stage of the innings,” Klaasen said. “He told me to just get to my hundred and he will take care of the rest, which he did.”

Klaasen and Phehlukwayo took their team into the 47th over together, and powered them to a total of 360/7. Keshav Maharaj had Will Smeed stumped and bowled Sam Hain in the first over of the Lions’ reply and without a run on the board, and they were dismissed for 253 in 38.2 overs. Things went better for the home side on Tuesday, when Smeed’s 56-ball 90 was one of three efforts of more than 50 in their 321/4, which overhauled the visitors’ 318/6 with 12.5 overs to spare.

The South Africans’ bowling has been less convincing, with no-one claiming more than three wickets across the two games and only Ngidi keeping the damage down to less than a run a ball.

But their compatriots know they can bank on the bowlers to bounce back once they get down to business in Durham on Tuesday. And on De Kock, if he’s passed fit to play, to do what he does almost as impressively as he catches fish.

First published by Cricbuzz.

Processing…

Success! You're on the list.

Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.

Why Boucher’s return to Taunton matters

“We’ll get a couple of the guys to talk about the pressures of what it’s like to play in England.” – Mark Boucher on a topic familiar to him.

Telford Vice | Palermo, Sicily

A previous South African team’s mission was accomplished 40 days short of 10 years ago, when Vernon Philander’s signature delivery — the seam smiling slyly as the ball veered away a smidgen at a pace that ambushed the drive as surely as a well-tied and wielded fly would fool a fish — took the edge of Steven Finn’s bat.

The ball curved gently through the electrified air towards second slip, where it plopped into Jacques Kallis’ hands. Job done. World domination had been achieved an hour after tea on the fifth day at Lord’s. Civilians know it as August 20, 2012.

The South Africans, captained by Graeme Smith and coached by Gary Kirsten, had arrived in England knowing they needed to win the series to annex the No. 1 ranking and claim the Test mace from the home side. The 2022 version of the team, captained by Dean Elgar and coached by Mark Boucher, rose to the No. 1 spot by dint of Sri Lanka’s innings victory over Australia in Galle, which was completed on Monday.

Some things change: the prize now is neither a ranking nor a mace but a place in the World Test Championship final, which will be contested by the top two teams in the standings as of March 31, 2023. Other things do not change: the 2012 visit started in Taunton, as the 2022 venture did on Tuesday with a white-ball tour match.

It is impossible to put Boucher’s name and Taunton on the same page without being struck afresh by the cold, hard truth of what had happened to him on the same ground on July 9, 2012 — 43 days before the mace changed hands. Time raced in the frozen moments before and after Imran Tahir cleanbowled Gemaal Hussain midway through the first day. One instant, Boucher was crouched behind the stumps. The next, his career was over. He was on his knees and elbows, gloves covering face, squirming in agony. For the first and only time in his life as a public figure, he looked vulnerable. A player who would expressly, in his own words, “walk onto the field as if you own the place” was about to be escorted off, never to return. The ball had launched the right-hander’s leg-side bail into Boucher’s unprotected face, its violence felling him. The white of his left eye was lacerated, permanently robbing him of half his sight.

Boucher was 37. He had played 147 Tests, 295 ODIs and 25 T20Is. In what became his last 20 completed Test innings, he passed 50 three times — including a 118-ball 95 that was instrumental in South Africa’s innings victory over England at the Wanderers in January 2010. There was grumbling that, at that stage, he had suffered 34 dismissals without scoring a century. But in those 34 innings he had batted higher than No. 7 only twice, when he took guard at No. 6.

Even so, the 2012 England series was to have been the last hurrah for a player who was a major figure in shaping South Africa’s way of cricket in that era: always uncompromising, often brutal, sometimes destructive. The alarming dangers in how that flawed philosophy was implemented were exposed at the Social Justice and Nation Building (SJN) hearings last year. It emerged that the ugliness was also aimed at South Africa’s own players, who were abused by their teammates in a range of ways. Some of that behaviour was racist. Boucher was both a perpetrator and, albeit less seriously because he was and is a white man in a white supremacist, toxically male society, a victim in that culture.

Partly because he has cultivated an image of unassailability, partly because it suits some of his attackers to cast him as the embodiment of much that ills not only South African cricket but also the wider problems in a country still stricken by the realities of racism, Boucher’s humanity isn’t often considered or even recognised. For some, he has become less a person and more a symbol. And therefore held up either as a bastion against imagined wokeness and, simultaneously, as a standard-bearer for South Africa’s underground but virulent and real racism.

He is neither. But maybe that’s why the relevant fact that he was back at the scene of his dramatic demise as a player for the first time since 2012 never came up during a 15-minute press conference on Monday.

No doubt Boucher was happy with that. Someone who has banked everything, at the seeming expense of anything, on the projection of square-jawed strength does not want to talk about weakness. But there is no doubt that his experience in 2012, as much as the SJN hearings and their fallout — the disciplinary hearing against him that never got off the ground — would have shaped the person Boucher has become even as the symbol of what he represents, to some, remains untouched.

“A lot of our guys have played a lot of cricket over here recently,” he told Monday’s presser, with reference to members of the current squad’s professional dalliances with English cricket. “So our guys are not foreign to these conditions. We’ll get a couple of them to stand up and talk about the pressures of what it’s like to play in England.”

Boucher himself will have much of value to say. He played in 52 Test series, of which South Africa won 32 and lost only 10. Three of them were in England between 1998 and 2008, when South Africa lost, drew and won. He knows plenty about winning but also about losing, and about losing more than games of cricket. And, also, about personal business that has been unfinished since an hour after lunch in Taunton on July 9, 2012.

First published by Cricbuzz.

Processing…

Success! You're on the list.

Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.

The name’s Kapp. Marizanne Kapp …

“If we want to grow women’s cricket more Tests are needed, because it’s out there where you can try things and learn so much about yourself.” – Marizanne Kapp

Telford Vice | Cape Town

MARIZANNE Kapp doesn’t consider herself a Test player. She doesn’t see colour. She doesn’t enjoy multi-tasking. She doesn’t see why women shouldn’t be in whites at the highest level. If you need a myth busted, it doesn’t take much to see why you should give the job to South Africa’s premier allrounder.

Kapp spent almost four-and-a-half hours at the crease in Taunton on Monday facing 213 balls and scoring 150 — the best performance by a woman for South Africa and the best by a woman’s No. 6 — on the first day of the one-off Test against England. Her batting meant a first innings that had shambled to 45/4 when she took guard, and then slipped to 89/5, survived and prospered long enough to reach 284.

And yet, just last week, Kapp didn’t think she deserved a place in the XI. “I’ve been working hard on my white-ball game,” she told a press conference after stumps on Monday. “When I played that warm-up game the other day I was like, ‘I shouldn’t be playing Test cricket.’ Because I was playing a T20. If you forget about the colour of the ball that’s coming towards you, it helps a lot. If you focus too much on the ball and the fact that it’s a Test match you end up getting out. That’s the mistake I made in the warm-up game. I left balls that were there to drive.”

Kapp faced eight balls for a duck in the first innings against England A at Arundel Castle, and scored 34 off 28 in the second dig. It was the 485th match of a career that has spanned almost 18 years, but only her third game that involved a second innings. All of the others had been limited overs fixtures.

The paucity of red-ball cricket didn’t help Kapp prepare for her second Test, but it hasn’t stopped her from becoming a dependable player with bat and ball. Reluctantly, it seems: “At times it’s so difficult to focus on both bowling and batting; I feel like one always takes preference. But I’ve been working with some special coaches and the confidence is growing.”

Kapp was instrumental in South Africa reaching the semi-finals at the World Cup in New Zealand in March, when she scored 203 runs and took a dozen wickets in eight matches. She is ninth on the all-time list of wicket-takers in ODIs, behind only Shabnim Ismail among South Africans, and also second to Ismail in T20Is. But Kapp’s serious, calm presence on the field is at least as valuable as anything she does that keeps the scorers busy. That, she said, was part of her coping mechanism: “If I focus on the other batter it seems to take the pressure off me. That happened throughout the World Cup. When I give advice I forget the situation we are in and it helps me focus more.”

Kapp’s first experience of two-innings cricket was in an under-19 match between Eastern Province and Free State in Durban in December 2008. She took 4/8 and 3/5 in EP’s 89-run win. It would be almost another six years before she wore whites and played with a red ball — on her Test debut against India in Mysore in November 2014. She went wicketless for 27 in 16 overs and was trapped in front second ball by Rajeshwari Gayakwad. “My first Test was an absolute nightmare,” Kapp said.

Even so, she wasn’t put off the format: “You have to focus longer. It’s still cricket. Yes, it’s challenging. But if you take it ball by ball and session by session, it makes it easier.” Part of her motivation, no doubt, is the imperative to remind us that not only men play all forms of the game: “If we want to grow women’s cricket even more [women’s Tests are] definitely needed, because it’s out there where you can try things and learn so much about yourself. I would like to see women play more Tests. It will be good for the game.”

Good for the whole game, she didn’t have to say.

First published by Cricbuzz.

Processing…

Success! You're on the list.

Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.

Test cricket is a woman’s game

“Just like ODI and T20 cricket for women, women’s Test cricket needs to be appreciated in its own right and not compared to the men’s game.” – Mignon du Preez

Telford Vice | Cape Town

WHAT’S the sound of one hand clapping? Mignon du Preez isn’t a Zen Buddhist, so she doesn’t use koan riddles to free her consciousness from the constraints of logic. But she has a decent idea of the answer to that question.

Du Preez has scored 13 centuries — including an undefeated 203 — in her 542 senior matches for provinces, franchises and South Africa. As an under-13 she made 258 in a 40-over interprovincial match, 196 of them in fours and sixes. Even so, the 102 she made against India in Mysore in November 2014 was unlike any of her other successes.

“India declared on 400, so I knew we would need big partnerships and that a couple of our batters would need to score big runs if we wanted a chance at chasing India’s total down,” Du Preez told Cricbuzz. “I think the biggest change for me was probably my mindset. I was a lot more patient at the crease and I wanted to bat time. However, if I could do it over again, I would definitely want to improve my strike rate.”

She batted for a mite more than four-and-a-half hours and faced 253 balls: a not exactly Bairstowesque strike rate of 40.32. That wasn’t why so few pairs of hands applauded Du Preez’ feat — there weren’t many hands at the Gangothri Glades ground in the first place, and no pairs of eyeballs watching from home.

“To score my maiden Test hundred in my debut Test, as captain, was really special; probably the ultimate dream Test experience,” Du Preez said. “Unfortunately at that time there was not big support for women’s cricket, so it was only in front of my teammates without the excitement of hearing the fans roar or even family being able to watch it at home as it was not televised or streamed back then. However, I am really blessed that I had the opportunity to experience the ‘pinnacle format of cricket’, as it’s referred to in the male cricket environment.”

That innings was special, and not just for Du Preez. In all of Test cricket only David Houghton has also scored a century on debut and as captain — 121 against India in Harare in October 1992; Zimbabwe’s inaugural Test. Du Preez might take comfort from the fact that Houghton’s strike rate was 37.57. There are many differences between the two players. One of them is that Houghton played 22 Tests while that match almost eight years ago was Du Preez’ first and last in the format, and her only first-class game.

Du Preez, who retired from Tests and ODIs in April, provided written answers to questions for this piece while she was on holiday in Greece. Good luck getting other male former Test captains or centurions or indeed players to do that. Unless, of course, money is involved. There isn’t a lot of it in the women’s game. What there is has been sunk into white-ball cricket, which has earned a place in the public consciousness not because it deserves to be there — which it does undeniably — but because administrators, broadcasters and sponsors have recognised its potential as a revenue source.

Women’s Test cricket? Not so much, not least because it is rare. The Mysore match was South Africa’s last before the game against England in Taunton, which started on Monday. It is the 144th women’s Test. Some 400 kilometres to the north and also on Monday the other England team beat New Zealand by seven wickets in men’s cricket’s 2,467th Test. The equations are less skewed in the white-ball formats: there have been 4,418 men’s ODIs and 1,280 women’s, and 1,580 men’s T20Is compared to 1,152 women’s. Men have played 94.48% of all Tests — partly because they had a head start of more than 57 years on women — and 77.54% of all ODIs, but only, relatively, 55.24% of T20Is. “Unfortunately I think it’s easier to market the shorter format of the game as it’s a lot more exciting and appealing to the fans,” Du Preez said.

Did that mean she thought Test cricket wasn’t all it’s routinely cracked up to be? You have read and heard, many times, something similar to Du Preez’ reply: “Look, Test cricket is not called Test cricket for no reason. You will get tested in all aspects of the game. However, I think we will have more appreciation for Test cricket the more we have an opportunity to play it.” Or at least be given the chance to play two-innings cricket more often. Currently, that doesn’t happen at all for women in South Africa. “Yes, I think it will help if they get an opportunity to play the longer format on a regular basis.”

The alternative would be to consider Test cricket purely a man’s game. “No, I don’t think we need to accept that,” Du Preez said. “Just like ODI and T20 cricket for women, women’s Test cricket needs to be appreciated in its own right and not compared to the men’s game.”

There’s a hint of swing there, a gentle admonition of the mentality that sees, before it sees anything else, that boundaries are shorter for a women’s game, that despite that they are not often cleared, and that no female bowlers are fast, even if that is how they are described. Many who can’t stop themselves from thinking those thoughts didn’t think, when they changed the channel from the Taunton Test to see how Emma Raducanu was getting on in her first-round match against Alison Van Uytvanck at Wimbledon on Monday, that they would be short-changed because they wouldn’t be able to watch more than three sets.

The deeper, darker question is whether people of a certain age and outlook extoll the virtues of Test cricket so much and so overtly because, unlike ODIs and T20Is and like an old-fashioned gentleman’s club, it doesn’t often involve women. That view is enabled by the fact that only Test cricket played by women is denoted as such. If it’s labelled “Test cricket” it isn’t explained that it’s men who are playing. It doesn’t need to be because, as we all know, or should know, that’s the norm.

And yet it’s the format, not the gender of those playing, that determines the level of complexity, drama and nuance on display. It’s simply Test cricket because, simply, it’s Test cricket, not because men are playing it. So if we disclaim some matches as “women’s Tests” we should do the same for “men’s Tests”. Or, better yet, remove the apologetic gender specific simper that says, in effect, “We’re calling this Test cricket, but …”

Marizanne Kapp’s 150 at Taunton on Monday, the highest score by a No. 6 in a women’s Test and the highest by any South African woman, is no less an accomplishment because it wasn’t achieved by a man. Indeed, that she was able to perform as she did even though women play so few Tests is a powerful argument to the contrary. Strike rate? A healthy 70.42.

Happily, there were thousands of pairs of hands in attendance to give voice to those truths. But in the silence that followed the applause there was time and space for a more sobering thought: how many fine innings might we have seen from Kapp and Du Preez had South Africa been deemed worthy of playing more than two Tests in almost eight years?

First published by Cricbuzz.

Processing…

Success! You're on the list.

Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.

Testing time for lesser spotted South Africa

“It’s about longer concentration, and it’s more taxing on the body and the mind.” – Hilton Moreeng on turning white-ball players into a Test team.

Telford Vice | Cape Town

HOW do you prepare a team for a match in a format they hardly ever play? Hilton Moreeng, the coach of the South Africa side who will start a rare women’s Test against England in Taunton on Monday, smiled at the question.

When South Africa last played a Test the No. 1 song in the US was Taylor Swift’s “Shake it Off”. On the first day of the match, but more than 15,000 kilometres away in New Orleans, Solange Knowles — Beyoncé’s younger sister — married Alan Ferguson. Who? Nevermind: they separated five years later. Or before South Africa had played another Test. Yes, their drought has outlived marriages. Since the women were last in whites, against India in Mysore in November 2014, South Africa’s men have played 65 Tests.

Only five of Moreeng’s squad of 15 have played first-class cricket, all in Tests; earning six caps in all. Or the same number won by Moreeng alone during his days as a wicketkeeper for Free State’s first-class side in the early 2000s.

With 37 first-class caps, which are also Test caps, England’s squad are six times more seasoned than their opponents. Their most recent match in the format wasn’t almost eight years ago but in January. This year. Not that England have been lurching from one Test to the next. They have played five since South Africa’s most recent; four against Australia, one against India, all but one of them drawn.

Australia and England played the first women’s Test at the Exhibition Ground in Brisbane in December 1934. One or both of those teams have been involved in 173 of the 290 women’s Tests yet played: almost 60%. New Zealand, India, South Africa and West Indies have played 107. Men played 238 Tests before women made their debut. The current Headingley Test between England and New Zealand is the 2,467th between men’s teams — eight-and-a-half times as many as women have played.

South Africa will go into Monday’s match having featured in 173 white-ball internationals since a handful of their players last pulled on a pair of whites. Small wonder Moreeng said they were struggling to adjust. “The ones battling currently are our batters, because we’ve just come from a white-ball competition against Ireland [earlier this month, when South Africa played three matches in each format],” Moreeng told a press conference on Thursday. “What has helped is the prep we had prior to the Ireland tour; a three-day and four-day game where we introduced most of them to the format. The bowlers have adapted much better.

“We know that, in the other two formats, you can build partnerships. But in this one you need to take it session by session. It’s about longer concentration, and it’s more taxing on the body and the mind. Technically players need to be sound. Everyone is starting to understand, and they’re excited to see how it goes.”

South Africa completed their Test preparations in a drawn three-day game against England A at Arundel that ended on Thursday. The star of the visitors’ first innings of 301 was opener Laura Wolvaardt, who batted for more than three-and-a-half hours and faced 148 balls to reach 101, whereupon she retired. That Wolvaardt succeeded will not surprise those familiar with her textbook technique and solid temperament, but it remains astounding that she should reel off a century in her first senior representative two-innings match. In the same innings Lara Goodall scored 51 and Suné Luus made 48. Wolvaardt and Goodall shared a stand of 116. All told in their first innings, the South Africans batted for almost five hours and faced 489 balls. Wolvaardt’s opening partner, Andrie Steyn, and Luus scored half-centuries in a second innings of 325/9 declared that lasted for almost five-and-a-half hours and 535 deliveries.

That was enough to nurture hope in Moreeng: “How batters set up their innings, taking their time and showing application, wasn’t there in the preparation matches that we had. We are very happy to see that on the back of white-ball cricket. Most of our batters have spent time in the middle to be able to understand what’s required.”

As for the bowlers: “They need to make sure they can manage the excessive swing they get with the Duke ball on these pitches, and also the lengths they have to adapt to. They need patience around setting up batters and working towards a plan.”

There were eight South Africa debutants in that 2014 Test. There could be 10 in Taunton on Monday. The only squad survivors from Mysore are Trisha Chetty, Marizanne Kapp, Lizelle Lee and Chloe Tryon. Maybe that’s no bad thing considering South Africa lost by an innings. “We were well in the game, then we lost concentration as a unit after tea and that’s when we lost the match,” Moreeng said, a reference to South Africa losing 6/25 on the second day. “It shows what a lack of concentration can do. We need to make sure that everyone understands the discipline required in this game and how you need to stay focused and stay on the button because every session is critical. We need to make sure we stay focused and competitive in every session.”

Not only to perform well but to refute, with deeds, not words, Dean Elgar’s assertion in April: “It’s a man’s environment when it comes to playing at this level.”

First published by Cricbuzz.

Processing…

Success! You're on the list.

Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.

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.

Processing…

Success! You're on the list.

Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.

SA face tall order at WT20

TMG Digital

TELFORD VICE in Lisbon

SOUTH Africa won’t want for a challenge in the World T20, which will be played in Guyana, St Lucia and Antigua in November.

The first group match, against Sri Lanka, and their last, against one of the two sides from the qualifier in the Netherlands next month, are likely to be their lowest hurdles.

But Dané van Niekerk and her team will have to be at their best to beat their other opponents — hosts and current champions West Indies and England, who won the inaugural tournament in 2009 and have reached two other finals.

Van Niekerk talked a good game in an International Cricket Council release announcing the fixtures on Monday, in which she was quoted as saying: “I think we have a very dynamic side. We have hitters, we have runners, we have variation in the bowling attack as well.

“We are a free-spirited team and we enjoy it because we can express ourselves.”

South Africa’s best performance in the five editions of the event so far was the semi-final they reached in 2014. They will play all their group matches in St Lucia.

Two semi-finalists will emerge from each group of five teams, and the final will be played in Antigua on November 24.

Both semis are also scheduled for Antigua, and on the same day.

In Taunton on Saturday, Van Niekerk did a fine job of leading her side out of the darkness they would have been plunged into three days previously.

Having crashed to New Zealand and England in their T20 double-header on Wednesday, and taken ownership of a few unwanted world records in the process, South Africa got their act together well enough to beat the home side by six wickets at the weekend.

Raisibe Ntozakhe and Van Niekerk each went for less than a run a ball in England’s 160/5.

Then Lizelle Lee and Sune Luus overcame the loss of Laura Wolvaardt to the fourth ball of South Africa’s reply with stand of 103. They won with three balls to spare.

South Africa’s next and last round-robin game is against New Zealand in Bristol on Wednesday.

The final of the triangular tournament is set for Chelmsford on Sunday.

South Africa’s World T20 fixtures:

Nov 12: v Sri Lanka, St Lucia

Nov 14: v West Indies, St Lucia

Nov 16: v England, St Lucia

Nov 18: v Qualifier 1, St Lucia

Knock-out matches:

Nov 22: Semi-final 1, Antigua

Nov 22: Semi-final 2, Antigua

Nov 24: Final, Antigua

SA need to end T20 torture in Taunton

TMG Digital

TELFORD VICE in Lisbon

FOR South Africans, Taunton will always be where Mark Boucher’s career was ended by a bail tumbling into his eye.

As of Wednesday, we have more reasons not to be cheerful about the nonetheless pretty Somerset town where cider rules.

None of those reasons are as serious as what happened to Boucher on July 9, 2012. But what happened to South Africa there this week will hurt in other ways, and for a long time.

To be part of a T20 triangular that featured double-headers for each team would have been exciting, and more so considering Dané van Niekerk’s side were first up to play two games on the same day.

But the good feelings faded once New Zealand’s total of 216/1 hove into view.

It was built on Suzie Bates’ undefeated 124 — which she hammered off 66 balls — and the opening stand of 182 she shared with Sophie Divine, who scored 73.

Only Marizanne Kapp and Van Niekerk got away with economy rates in the single figures.

The total and the partnership were world records for women’s T20 internationals.

Van Niekerk’s 58 was the best effort in South Africa’s reply of 150/6, which earned the Kiwis victory by 66 runs.

As bad as that was for the South Africans, there was worse to come in the second game in the diminutive form of England’s Tammy Beaumont — who reached a century off 47 balls on her way to making 116.

Beaumont and Danni Wyatt put on 147 for the first wicket, and England’s total of 250/3 usurped New Zealand’s freshly minted record.

This time only Van Niekerk escaped without conceding at least 10 runs an over.

South Africa’s captain was also their only player to fire, scoring 72 off 51 deliveries, in their total of 129/6.

On top of that, South Africa earned another unwanted milestone: England’s 121-run victory was the biggest by runs in women’s T20 internationals.

Beaumont survived a missed stumping by Lizelle Lee and a catch on the boundary by Sune Luus, who made a spectacular grab only for her momentum to take her over the rope ball and all.

But those agonies paled next to what Beaumont said on Sky Sports: “We saw the Kiwi girls broke [the world record] this morning.

“‘Robbo’ [Mark Robinson, England’s coach] told us in the pre-match chat not to try and break it but I think a few of the girls got a bit of a challenge on.

“We feel a bit sorry for the South Africa girls having to go two in two, but that’s the way it goes.”

The opponents’ coach telling his players to go easy on you?

One of those players feeling sympathy for you?

Eina.

And it might not get any less painful on Saturday, when South Africa return to the scene of Wednesday’s crimes for the first match of the home side’s double-header.

Van Niekerk could be seen reading the riot act to her team between games on Wednesday.

Clearly, that didn’t work, and just what she can do to restore respectability — let’s not talk about being competitive just yet — can’t be measured in stats.

If it could, it would take a world record effort.