UAE – Bulletproof Truth

Cricket’s second-class citizens’ time to shine

Never have India, England, Australia, Pakistan, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka staged a men’s ODI or T20I World Cup qualifying match.

Telford Vice / Cape Town

WHICH country has hosted the most men’s World Cup qualifying matches? It was formed as a monarchy in the 15th century, is about the same size as Haiti and Albania, and French is one of its four official languages.

Rwanda. Who’d have thunk it. Ninety-nine qualifying games have been played in the east African republic, all of them from October 2021 to December 2022.

Next up, the more easily guessable United Arab Emirates, which has hosted 81 such matches among its 647 men’s internationals: 37 Tests, 377 ODIs and 233 T20Is. Only 77 of them — not quite 12% — have involved the home side.

Then it’s back to unfamiliar territory. The third country on the list shares a border with Russia and has more heavy metal bands, per capita, than anywhere else in the world. That’s right: Finland, where 48 qualifiers have unspooled in front of spectators perhaps puzzled by the players’ lack of ice-hockey sticks.

But none of the above places will take charge of the tournament to decide the last two teams for this year’s ODI World Cup. Even so, the country that will has a solid track record in putting on this kind of show. Forty-three qualifiers involving 14 teams were played in March 2018 and July 2022 in Zimbabwe, where 10 sides will compete from June 18 to July 9 to complete the World Cup field.

Thirteen other countries and regions, including West Indies, South Africa and New Zealand, have hosted qualifiers. Never have the likes of India, England, Australia, Pakistan, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka staged a single men’s ODI or T20I World Cup qualifying match.

You could ascribe that to the heavyweights of the game not having to bother with this stuff, what with all the other high-level cricket to which they already have direct and first-hand access. But there’s value in spreading the love, not least because hosts earn money from ticket, hospitality and food and beverage sales at match venues and are paid a fee by the ICC; an amount an ICC spokesperson said “we don’t disclose”.

It’s a safe bet that figure, whatever it is, represents crumbs from a table that could soon groan even more heavily at one end. If a new revenue model is approved at the ICC board meeting in Durban in July the dozen full members would reportedly hog 88.81% of the game’s earnings from 2024 to 2027. That would mean 88.68% of the ICC’s membership — the 94 associates — are left with 11.19% of the money.

The logic is that full members earn all of cricket’s revenue and that associates spend more money than they make. The first half of that assertion is particularly true of India, cricket’s unparalleled and apparently infallible money machine, who would keep 38.5% of cricket’s earnings — the biggest single chunk — in terms of the new deal.

None of which will be uppermost on the field in Zimbabwe during the coming weeks. The favourites to emerge from the pack and join Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan and South Africa in India in October and November will be West Indies and Sri Lanka, both former World Cup champions. Ireland, who came close to qualifying directly, and the Netherlands won’t be far behind. The Zimbabweans will be determined to bounce back after missing the tournament for the first time in their history in 2019.

This is what international cricket is when it does not feature India, or to a lesser extent England or Australia. Or Pakistan and Bangladesh, who exist in vibrant sub-cultures all of their own. The closest the rest of the game gets to that level of hype and intense focus is when it is chopped up and reconstituted in bite-sized chunks as foreign players in the IPL.

That’s how much of the non-Indian cricket world consumes the IPL — not as a competition in its own right and with its own narrative, but as an outrageously dazzling showcase that sometimes features their compatriots. Who won? Who knows or cares. It’s more important, for millions, that Faf du Plessis, Devon Conway and David Warner did well.

Players from countries like Rwanda, the UAE and Finland have little hope of enjoying that kind of limelight. Not because they’re without question not good enough but because, even if they are, their talents are unlikely to be noticed in places like Kigali, Abu Dhabi or Helsinki. And because, even if they are spotted, they face an exponentially longer and more complicated path to prominence than those from cricket’s more recognised countries.

So spare a thought for teams like Nepal, Oman and the USA. The World Cup qualifiers are the closest they’re going to get to the global stage. The spotlight will shine on them and their peers alone in Zimbabwe next month.

Cricbuzz

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Lankans go where Dutch feared they would not tread

“They’re just cutthroat tournaments.” — Scott Edwards, Netherlands captain

Telford Vice / Geelong, Victoria

DID the real Sri Lanka team stand up in beating the Netherlands in Geelong on Thursday? Will the side who shambled to defeat against Namibia on Sunday be remembered as aberrations who took a wrong turn on their way out of a bad dream and ended up bang in the middle of Kardinia Park?

No, not least because only three of Sunday’s XI — Danushka Gunathilaka, Pramod Madushan and Dushmantha Theekshana — did not feature on Thursday. And because the two matches were played on the same pitch, albeit that the ball came onto the bat more fluidly on Thursday.

But you would be forgiven for believing the Sri Lankans who strode the field like they owned it only four days after they had looked like they had never been out of their own backyards had not been introduced to each other.

Neither a first-baller suffered by Dhananjaya de Silva, who was trapped in front by Paul van Meekeren — with a delivery that the gizmos said would have missed leg stump — immediately after van Meekeren had yorked Pathum Nissanka, nor the fact that only two Lankans reached 30 could derail the Asian express on its way to 162/6.

Kusal Mendis batted through six partnerships for his 44-ball 79, a commanding innings that endured into the last over and lent authority to a batting line-up who had shown none of that quality in being dismissed for 108 on Sunday. Max O’Dowd’s unbeaten 71 kept the Dutch in touch with the game at least theoretically, but Sri Lanka’s 16-run victory — and their u-turn from the cliff edge of elimination — was never in serious doubt.

The result took the Lankans from third to first place in the Group A standings. Like them, the Netherlands had won two of their three matches and were in second place — good enough to also go through to the second round. But the Europeans faced a nervous evening because they needed the United Arab Emirates to do what they hadn’t yet done in two editions of this event: win.

“They’re just cutthroat tournaments, aren’t they,” Netherlands captain Scott Edwards told a press conference between the games. “We think we’ve played a lot of good cricket in all three of the games. But the nature of these tournaments is that one little slip-up and you can be knocked out. Hopefully the UAE can get up and we’re still going tomorrow.”

After they had toppled the Lankan giants, the Namibians stumbled against the Dutch. Now the Netherlands needed a UAE team who had lost all five of their previous T20 World Cup — or World T20 — games to come good. If the Emiratis won, the Namibians would be marooned in third place and the Lankans and the Dutch would advance to the second round. If Namibia won, their muscular runrate would probably seal them into second place.

Would the Netherlands hang about to see what would happen? “I’m not sure where we’ll be,” Edwards said. “I think we’ll probably have a little bit of a discussion and share a drink together. It’s been an awesome month or so, and hopefully it continues. But, yeah, we’ll just be enjoying each other’s company.”

They did indeed stay and watch. How could they not, considering what was on the line? And the UAE rewarded them for their trouble by scoring 148/3, their highest total batting first in this tournament since they were bowled out for 151 by the selfsame Netherlands in Sylhet in March 2014. At least one of their top order of Muhammad Waseem, Vriitya Aravind and CP Rizwan were at the crease into the 17th over with Waseem scoring 50 and Rizwan finishing not out on 43. Then Basil Hameed hit 25 not out off 14 and shared 35 off 18 with Rizwan.

But the Dutch knew only too well what happened that day in Bangladesh more than eight years ago: they knocked off the target with six wickets standing and seven balls to spare. So the tension wouldn’t have eased when Namibia crashed to 69/7 inside 13 overs. Because David Wiese, the human oil rig, the moose in pads, the mountain man, wasn’t among the batters dismissed.

Wiese had joined Jan Frylinck in the eighth over, when the required runrate was 8.58. Soon it had climbed into double figures, reaching two runs a ball after 14. But Wiese was always going to be the difference between the teams, and he found an able ally in Ruben Trumpelmann. Playing his first match of the tournament, Trumpelmann kept a low profile in a stand that grew steadily until the last over loomed with 14 required.

It shouldn’t have come to that. Waseem had bowled the 17th, and Wiese had skied the last delivery to midwicket. Clearly it was wicketkeeper Aravind’s catch. Instead Waseem ended up under the ball — which burst through his hands and plopped, luridly, onto the turf.

So the decision, after a committee meeting in the middle, to entrust Waseem with the final over took guts and gumption. And when Wiese heaved the fourth ball down long-on’s throat with 10 required, it paid off. With that, every Dutchman and each of their fans in the stadium was on their feet and screaming.

Wiese was gone for 55 off 36, and his dismissal ended the partnership at 70 off 44. It also ended the match as a contest. Wiese walked off slowly, mournfully, tossing and catching his bat, searching the night sky for a silver lining. He didn’t find it.

The UAE finished bottom of the group and are on their way home, but that didn’t matter to them as they embraced and prayed and felt the blood of victors, by seven runs, pumping through their veins. The Namibians finished a place above the UAE, but that also didn’t matter. Africa is a long way away, and on their way there they will have too much time to think about what went wrong and what almost went right.

Sri Lanka’s first match of the second round is against the runners-up in Group B — which will be decided in Hobart on Friday — also at the Bellerive Oval on Sunday. The Dutch can look forward to a clash with Bangladesh, also in Hobart, on Monday.

But those are other matters for other days. For Sri Lanka and the Netherlands, and even the UAE, Thursday was about relief and happiness. For Namibia, not so much. Cooper was right. Some teams came here to have their throats cut, others to do the cutting.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Push comes to shove in Geelong

“There is no pressure at all.” – keep telling yourself that, Dasun Shanaka

Telford Vice / Geelong, Victoria

Sri Lanka vs Netherlands

WITH Dilshan Madushanka gone before the first game because of a torn quadriceps, Dushmantha Chameera freshly ruled out by a calf injury, and Danushka Gunathilaka and Pramod Madushan doubtful with hamstring issues, Sri Lanka would be forgiven for thinking their campaign had been cursed. Victory is probably essential for them to advance, which might not have been the case had they not slipped on Namibia’s artfully placed banana peel in the tournament opener.

But, for Dasun Shanaka, the situation was eminently manageable: “There is no pressure at all. We just need to concentrate on our own performances and what we need to do to make sure that we get into that second round. In the first game we didn’t execute, so we got beaten by Namibia. But we are a far better team than the way we performed in that game.”

Net runrate seems set to play a key role. The Dutch are the only team who have won both of their games, but they also have the lowest runrate among the top three. So victory for the Lankans or the Namibians could shut them out of the next round.

When: Thursday, October 20 at 3pm local time, 9.30am IST

Where: Kardinia Park, Geelong

Squads:

Sri Lanka: Dasun Shanaka (capt), Charith Asalanka, Wanindu Hasaranga, Dhananjaya de Silva, Binura Fernando, Danushka Gunathilaka, Chamika Karunaratne, Lahiru Kumara, Pramod Madushan, Kusal Mendis, Pathum Nissanka, Bhanuka Rajapaksa, Maheesh Theekshana, Jeffrey Vandersay.

Netherlands: Scott Edwards (capt), Colin Ackermann, Tom Cooper, Bas de Leede, Brandon Glover, Fred Klaassen, Stephan Myburgh, Teja Nidamanuru, Max O’Dowd, Tim Pringle, Shariz Ahmad, Logan van Beek, Timm van der Gugten, Roelof van der Merwe, Paul van Meekeren, Vikram Singh.

Namibia vs United Arab Emirates

Namibia’s net runrate is currently more than twice the size of Sri Lanka’s and eight-and-a-half times as big as the Netherlands’. So Gerhard Erasmus’ side, who are currently second in the standings, could finish on top if they win on Thursday. They should have the beating of the winless United Arab Emirates, who are comfortably the weakest team in the group.

Erasmus said they had learnt the lessons of losing to the Netherlands on Tuesday in the afterglow of their Lankan triumph on Sunday: “It’s only human nature to celebrate a big win like that, but it was a very tough thing to do to recover after that. Although we have all the know-how to do that, the experience of how to do that is difficult. It was very tough to mentally reset after that game. We tried our best to do that, and that’s what we’re going to do in the next game.”

Importantly for the Namibians, Erasmus said star allrounder David Wiese had been passed fit after needing attention after crashing to earth in attempting to take a catch on Tuesday: “He’s got a bit of a bump on his forehead and he had a bit of a rugby scrum tape around his head, but it’s all fine now.”

When: Thursday, October 20 at 7pm local time, 1.30pm IST

Where: Kardinia Park, Geelong

Squads:

Namibia: Gerhard Erasmus (captain), Stephan Baard, Karl Birkenstock, Jan Frylinck, Zane Green, Divan la Cock, Jan Nicol Loftie-Eaton, Lo-handre Louwrens, Tangeni Lungameni, Bernard Scholtz, Ben Shikongo, JJ Smit, Ruben Trumpelmann, Michael van Lingen, David Wiese, Pikky Ya France.

United Arab Emirates: Chundangapoyil Rizwan (capt), Vriitya Aravind, Aayan Afzal Khan, Ahmed Raza, Aryan Lakra, Basil Hameed, Chirag Suri, Junaid Siddique, Kashif Daud, Karthik Meiyappan, Muhammad Waseem, Sabir Ali, Alishan Sharafu, Zahoor Khan, Zawar Farid.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Geelong’s unidentical twins

“It was tough to hit through the line. It was more of a nudgy type of surface, where you tried to play as straight as you could because you didn’t want to get found out by the skiddy one.” – Bas de Leede

Telford Vice / Geelong, Victoria

HOW could two pitches, side by side in the middle of the same field and separated by a few centimetres, behave as differently as the surfaces used in the men’s T20 World Cup doubleheaders at Kardinia Park this week?

Weren’t they made from the same strip of earth? Didn’t batters and bowlers have a reasonable expectation that what they saw on Sunday they would get on Tuesday? Shouldn’t consistency be the goal?

Sunday’s pitch was topped by an even thatch of grass. Tuesday’s was a uniform stretch of bald mud. Sunday’s wasn’t easy to bat on, but it also wasn’t unreasonably difficult. Tuesday’s made some of those who took guard on it look like they were holding a bat for the first time in their lives.

About all the two pitches had in common was that they were both 22 yards long. And that they were from beyond the boundary. They were grown elsewhere and dropped into the middle of what is more an Australian Rules football stadium than a cricket ground.

On Sunday, Namibia were able to score 163/7 runs off Sri Lanka to set up a famous victory by 55 runs. On Tuesday the Namibians eked out 121/6 against the Netherlands, and it would be difficult to make the case that the Dutch attack was better than the Lankans’.

“The surface was two-paced with the quicker balls that skidded through staying quite low, and then you had the odd slower ball that held up,” Bas de Leede told a press conference about Tuesday’s pitch, which the Dutch came to terms with well enough to win by five wickets with three balls remaining. “It was tough to hit through the line. It was more of a nudgy type of surface, where you tried to play as straight as you could because you didn’t want to get found out by the skiddy one.

“Sunday’s pitch had more grass on it, so it was slower. This one looked like it had no grass at all. And there were some cracks, which means it was dry. Sometimes it almost soaked up the bounce of the ball and that’s why it skidded on. They were definitely two different surfaces.”

Namibia’s Jan Frylinck concurred: “Yeah, the surface was tough. There was no grass on that wicket. That’s why the other night’s pitch played so nicely. This one was very two-paced. Some of the balls got stuck in the surface and some of them skidded through, which made it quite difficult.”

Frylinck’s 43 was easily the best of the Namibians’ batting, but they needed a lot more where that came from. The Netherlands sealed the deal when their top three of Max O’Dowd, Vikram Singh and de Leede all sailed past 30. O’Dowd and Singh shared 59 off 50 for the first wicket, a stand worth more than the sum of its parts considering the circumstances.

In Tuesday’s other match, even a hattrick by Karthik Meiyappan, the first in the United Arab Emirates’ history, couldn’t stop Sri Lanka surging to victory by 79 runs. The leg spinner had a heaving Bhanuka Rajapaksa caught at deep cover and Charith Asalanka taken behind before he cleanbowled Dasun Shanaka. Remarkably, Meiyappan put his trust in his googly to bowl all three of those deliveries.

The Lankans were on course for a total of around 200 before Meiyappan’s intervention, which helped limit the damage to 152/8. Given the conditions the UAE were always going to be up against it, and they were duly reduced to 63/6 inside 10 overs on their way to a reply of 73.

The result made the Emiratis the only team in Group A who have lost both of their matches, and thus prime candidates for elimination before the second round. The pecking order will be decided on Thursday, when the teams return to Kardinia Park to play their last first-round games. The Netherlands will take on Sri Lanka, followed by Namibia playing the UAE.

The Dutch currently top the standings with Namibia and Sri Lanka two points behind. The Namibians hold the second qualification slot because of their superior net runrate, and they will face the easier task. The Lankans will back themselves to beat the Netherlands, but they will have to do so convincingly to overcome Namibia’s runrate.

Which of the unidentical twins would he prefer for Thursday’s crunch match, Frylinck was asked. His reply began with a laugh: “Can I ask you which one you would like to play on? Obviously the first, the game we played against Sri Lanka, that pitch.”

After Tuesday’s games, members of the groundstaff headed for the middle. All of their focus was on one of the two pitches, which they gave a decent dousing using a hose pipe. Frylinck’s wish, it seems, will be granted.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Group A crackles with context

“There are no guarantees of any success going forward. This game doesn’t work like that.” — Pierre de Bruyn, Namibia coach

Telford Vice / Geelong, Victoria

TOURNAMENTS conjure context out of next to nothing. So after a mere day in Group A we know that Namibia are not messing around, that the Netherlands are capable of engineering gritty victories, that the Sri Lankans are soft in the middle, and that the United Arab Emirates haven’t made much progress towards becoming competitive in global tournaments.

Namibia’s shock 55-run win over the Lankans in the first match of Sunday’s doubleheader in Geelong, followed by the Dutch scraping home by three wickets with a ball to spare despite the UAE’s limp total of 111/8, gave us something to go on for Tuesday’s matches at the same venue.

Sunday’s winners will play the losers. Another win for the Namibians would be a great leap forward to a place in the Super 12, and a second loss for the UAE would be a step towards an early flight home.

But matters are unlikely to be so simple. As disappointing as the Lankans were on Sunday, when their bowlers took their foot the Namibians’ throats, allowing them to recover from 93/6 to 163/7, they should have the beating of a UAE side who have won only one of the 15 ODI and T20 World Cups matches they have played. The Dutch, who would have come unstuck on Sunday if they were chasing even a marginally more decent target, will have to raise their game exponentially if they are to stay in the contest with Namibia. The most likely outcome is victory for Sri Lanka and the Namibians, which would make the Africans the only side with two wins and leave just the Emiratis with two defeats.

The uncertainty is only deepened by the fact that the pitch prepared for Tuesday’s matches, which is adjacent to Sunday’s surface, has significantly less grass. All four teams struggled with the lack of pace on Sunday — three batters succumbed to catches off the leading edge in the Namibia-Sri Lanka game alone — and they could find themselves on an even slower slab on Tuesday. More grist for the context mill.

When: Tuesday, 3pm and 7pm Local Time

Where: Kardinia Park, Geelong

What to expect: A cool, sunny, dry day and evening. And a surface that might behave differently to Sunday’s.

Team news:

Namibia: Change this XI? Why would you do that?

Possible XI: Divan la Cock, Michael van Lingen, Stephan Baard, Jan Nicol Loftie-Eaton, Gerhard Erasmus (capt), Jan Frylinck, JJ Smit, David Wiese, Zane Green, Bernard Scholtz, Ben Shikongo

Netherlands: Similarly, the Dutch should keep faith with the side who got the job done, if only just, on Sunday.

Possible XI: Max O’Dowd, Vikram Singh, Bas de Leede, Tom Cooper, Colin Ackermann, Scott Edwards (capt), Roelof van der Merwe, Tim Pringle, Logan van Beek, Fred Klaassen, Paul van Meekeren

Sri Lanka: Binura Fernando has been approved as a squad replacement for Dilshan Madushanka, who has been ruled out with a torn quadriceps. The Lankans have to find a way to get Lahiru Kumara into the side, perhaps at the expense of Dushmantha Chameera.

Possible XI: Pathum Nissanka, Kusal Mendis, Dhananjaya de Silva, Danushka Gunathilaka, Bhanuka Rajapaksa, Dasun Shanaka (capt), Wanindu Hasaranga, Chamika Karunaratne, Lahiru Kumara, Pramod Madushan, Maheesh Theekshana

United Arab Emirates: What do you do when you lose even though you put your first-choice team on the field? Put them on the field again.

Possible XI: Muhammad Waseem, Chirag Suri, Vriitya Aravind, Chundangapoyil Rizwan (capt), Basil Hameed, Zawar Farid, Aayan Khan, Kashif Daud, Karthik Meiyappan, Junaid Siddique, Zahoor Khan

What they said:

“We’ve got to stay humble. There’s a lot of cricket to be played still in this tournament. There are no guarantees of any success going forward. This game doesn’t work like that.” — Pierre de Bruyn is determined to keep Namibia’s feet firmly on the ground after Sunday’s famous victory.

“We’ve played Namibia before. We know the strengths they have, and we’ve got our strengths. For us it’s to go out there and play our game, not worry too much about the outside noise and focus on what we can do.” — Max O’Dowd on how the Netherlands will keep the focus on Tuesday’s game.

“Somehow we have to win. No matter what, we have to win the next two matches. I think the boys all know that. We are definitely going to put more than 100% in the next two matches.” — Sri Lanka’s Chamika Karunaratne feels the pressure, perhaps explaining his wonky mathematics.

“They have been beaten by Namibia, and they can be beaten.” — Robin Singh, UAE’s coach, isn’t going to let the Lankans forget what happened on Sunday.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Namibia turn tables to crash Sri Lanka’s party

“It’s a massive event in our lives.” – Gerhard Erasmus, Namibia’s captain, on his team’s shock win over Sri Lanka.

Telford Vice / Geelong, Victoria

SRI Lanka had won, surely. If you had fallen gently from the quickly chilling evening sky over Geelong onto the concourse at Kardinia Park on Sunday, no other result would have seemed possible. Somebody had to lose the opening match of the 2022 edition of the men’s T20 World Cup, and that poor team must have been Namibia. Except that, of course, the reverse was true.

So why was the concourse heaving with the happiness of thousands of Lankan fans as they made their way, ever so slowly, out of the ground? Because another of their obsessions, not their boys in blue, were in the house making themselves heard loud and proud.

The Papare Band Melbourne, a bouncing brassy bunch of expatriates who have taken the party everywhere they’ve gone around cricket’s world to support Sri Lanka’s teams for around 20 years, were in full brassy bounce. The clamouring of the crowd to communicate their appreciation surfed on top of their idols’ sweet rhythms, lapping and leaving and lapping again like the waves of the Asian island itself — where similar bands come standard with any respectable cricket match, come rain, shine or a hiding. As the unofficial papare mantra goes: “Even if the ship sinks, the party will go on.”

And on this party duly went, regardless — or perhaps because — of the fact that Sri Lanka’s ship had been sunk by 55 runs in a game they had to win to keep their bid to reach the second round as uncomplicated as possible. The Lankans sailed full steam ahead while their aggressive, incisive fast bowling was reducing Namibia to 93/6 inside 15 overs.

That must have made them think they had arrived, because they promptly dropped anchor by reverting to a dribble of slower balls. In fact they were nowhere in particular, and Jan Frylinck and JJ Smit were able to share 69 off 33 deliveries in a marauding stand that was ended with the last ball of the innings.

Still, Sri Lanka’s beefy batting line-up should have been able to navigate their team to a target of 164. Instead they floundered to 92/9 in six balls more than the Namibians had scored one more run while losing three fewer wickets. But, unlike in their opponents’ innings, there was no lifeboat partnership. The Lankans were dismissed for 108 with an over of their innings unbowled, their lowest completed innings against associate opposition in the format. That earned the Namibians their first victory over a top-10 ranked team. David Wiese had suffered a first-ball duck, but his 2/16 was the tip of an iceberg that bristled with two wickets each for Bernard Scholtz, Ben Shikongo — who took his with consecutive deliveries — and Jan Frylinck.

With that, the result of last year’s meeting between the teams in this tournament in Abu Dhabi was capsized. Then, Namibia were bowled out for 96 and Sri Lanka headed for the showers with seven wickets standing and 6.3 overs still in the bank.

“The tables have been turned,” a beaming Namibia captain, Gerhard Erasmus, told a press conference. “It’s not just about what we did tonight. We put in solid preparation for 12 months as opposed to just the 20 overs we had to bat. It was all down to hard work and preparation.

“There was hype and childish belief last year, and this year it was more that we had played at that level and knowing we can relate to it physically and mentally. We’ve seen it, we’ve tasted it, and because we’ve closed that gap by becoming one step closer to [more established teams] and getting the physical feel for what it’s like, that’s really what gave us the belief this time that this is a game of cricket, and if we execute better than our opponents on the day, we stand a good chance of winning.”

Was he surprised the Lankans had eased up after almost powering through his batting order? “At 93/6 there was some pressure on us. We had to resurrect the innings or finish stronger, and 164 was a lot of runs to get on this wicket, in batting conditions that were quite tough.”

Erasmus said he learnt in the media on Sunday morning that his team had been given “about an 11% chance”, and that “reading that gives you an underdog feeling, and that backed by a bit of real belief — not the childish kind — I think that’s what happened today. We went onto the field on an equal footing to the Sri Lankan side.”

Now for the hard part; easing down from the crest of euphoria gently enough to be ready to do it all again when Namibia return to the scene of their triumph on Tuesday to meet the Netherlands.

“It’s going to take a massive mental reset because you can get carried away with celebrations and historic events like this,” Erasmus said. “Everyone, rightly so, is very glad to have beaten Sri Lanka for the first time, and on the world stage in the opening game. It’s a massive event in our lives, and as such it should be celebrated. But because the recovery between games is so quick we have to put the celebrations on hold. We really want to get our eye in on qualifying for the Super 12s, which is really the main goal.”

Indeed, because Sunday’s success could mean nothing if Namibia lose their other two first-round games. And the Dutch will be buoyant after hanging tough in the second half of Sunday’s doubleheader to beat the United Arab Emirates by three wickets with a ball to spare in a competitive but scrappy encounter that never rose to the heights of what went before. By comparison, it was a cricket match and nothing more.

Bas van de Leede was slippery enough to take 3/19 in three overs in the UAE’s total of 111/8, of which Muhammad Waseem made 41. The Netherlands approached their reply like a docile dog might an injured bird. They seemed to lack plan and purpose, and needed brave running between the wickets by Scott Edwards and Tim Pringle in their seventh-wicket stand of 30 off 27 to tilt the match firmly in their direction.

By the time that was done, the Papare Band Melbourne were long gone, taking with them almost all of the crowd of 16,407 — the vast majority Sri Lanka fans — who had dominated the space earlier. The smattering of orange-shirted spectators who remained were noisily passionate in their support and rewarded for the commitment they showed in the cold. Somehow they didn’t sound the same.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Cricket’s place in cross-country basketball land

The men’s T20 World Cup starts in a place where cricket seems to be an alien irrelevance.

Telford Vice / Geelong, Victoria

“WHO?” Namibia and Sri Lanka. “What?” The opening match of the men’s T20 World Cup. “When?” Sunday. Where was self-evident to the friendly, 50-something man in the Elephant and Castle on Geelong’s McKillop Street on Friday night. But he was baffled by why.

He screwed up his face at the thought of it, contemplated the reassuringly full glass of Carlton Draught on the bar in front of him, and said, “Nah mate. T20? That’s not cricket. And also …” He made a movement that fell somewhere between a shrug and a gesture, his hands pointing everywhere and nowhere. We’re in bloody Geelong, mate. He didn’t say that. He didn’t have to.

Along with a slightly mangy, full-sized, stuffed African lion, four chunky trophies gleam on the mantelpiece behind the bar. They are replicas of the premierships won by the Geelong Football Club — the Cats to you, me and the friendly, 50-something man — in 2007, 2009, 2011 and on September 24 this year, when a crowd of 100,024 saw them beat the Sydney Swans by 81 points in the grand final at the MCG. Geelong, founded in 1859, have claimed the title 10 times in all. Only Carlton and Essendon, who have been champions 16 times each, have triumphed more often.

Geelong is a footy town, first, foremost, last and always. Footy as in Australian Rules, the only kind of football that matters in these parts. In other parts of Australia, it is sometimes derided as “cross-country basketball”. Maybe it’s a Victoria thing. The rest of us wouldn’t understand.

“I’ve watched so much of it on TV,” a South African working on the tournament in Geelong said, rolling their eyes. “Can’t they just play some rugby?” Happily, the South African wasn’t at the Elephant and Castle when they said this. Otherwise the kangaroos couldn’t have been tied down, sport. Even using the scarf in Geelong colours — navy blue and white — that hangs around the stuffed lion’s neck.

At Geelong’s home ground, Kardinia Park, where the Namibia-Sri Lanka game will be followed on Sunday by a match between the Netherlands and the United Arab Emirates, the club’s authentic trophies are displayed behind bulletproof glass. Among the 16 plaques standing two metres tall in “Legends Plaza”, built on an outer concourse, to “give testimony to our greatest sports men and women” and which were “selected by an independent committee from a long list of nominees”, Ian Redpath and Lindsay Hassett are the only cricketers represented. To be fair, figures from the world of Aussie rules garner only one more plaque than cricket. But those for whom cricket is unshakeable at the centre of sport’s universe, and beyond, will take a dim view of their game being lumped in with Geelong’s finest exponents of baseball, wrestling, boxing, tennis, and even real — or royal — tennis.

The inner walls of Kardinia Park are lined with photographs of footballers down the ages. Some feature men looking out balefully from pictures headed “Geelong Cricket and Football Club”, the result of a merger in 1884 that was undone in the 1950s. The city’s wikipedia page doesn’t acknowledge that aberration. It mentions, in its section on sport in Geelong, Aussie rules, basketball, netball, football — as in soccer — horse-racing, harness racing, greyhound racing, triathlon, motor racing, sailing, golf, water skiing, rowing, fishing, hiking, athletics, skateboarding, bodybuilding, powerlifting, and cycling. But there’s not a single word on cricket, even though the Australia and England under-19 teams played a four-day international in Geelong in January 1990, that Australia’s women’s and men’s sides clashed with New Zealand and Sri Lanka in a T20I doubleheader there in February 2017 — maybe because the Lankans won? — and that the BBL came to town for three matches in January.

What does all that say about the decision to start a global cricket tournament in a place where the game seems to be an alien irrelevance, complete with drop-in pitches nurtured far from the Cats’ hallowed sandbox? A few things: that the ICC are confident enough in what they’re selling to put it in unlikely places; that games featuring less fashionable teams playing away from home are more easily consigned to out of the way venues; that the organisers know the tournament won’t be taken seriously until the second round starts on October 22 with a match in Sydney between Australia and New Zealand.

It doesn’t tell us clearly that the Geelong Football Club does not control what happens at their 36,000-seat venue, which is owned by the Kardinia Park Stadium Trust, a statutory authority established in 2016 by an Act of the Victoria state government. The Trust is keen to make more varied use of the facility. Hence its increased exposure to cricket.

No doubt the Trust is inspired by what it sees happening 75 kilometres away in Melbourne. Despite what the C in MCG stands for, it has never been filled by people coming to watch cricket. The biggest crowd for that is the 93,013 who saw the 2015 men’s World Cup final between Australia and New Zealand. That’s 7,011 fewer than the number of spectators at this year’s AFL grand final.

Considering the natives don’t seem overly interested, whether Kardinia Park’s capacity is reached on Sunday will depend on how many south Asian visitors and expatriates make it to the venue on Sunday. Even so, there are at least 7,011 reasons why big, or even biggish, cricket should come to footy towns like Geelong.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Group A’s Goliath and three Davids

“I want to be the man-of-the-series in this World Cup.” — Sri Lanka’s Bhanuka Rajapaksa isn’t short on confidence.

Telford Vice / Geelong, Victoria

FOUR teams, two matches, one day. Or around seven hours of Sunday. Geelong, Victoria’s second city, will kickstart the men’s T20 World Cup with a pair of doubleheaders featuring a Goliath and three Davids. Who will cast the first stone? Who will be shown to be living in a glass house? Who will gather moss?

Enough with the stone analogies already. Except to say that two of Sri Lanka, Namibia, the Netherlands and the United Arab Emirates will want to be the rocks from which the statues of the two Group A qualifiers for the 12-team second round are sculpted.

Closer to the truth is that the Namibians, Dutch and Emiratis will contest a single berth. It was difficult to imagine the Lankans slipping up against any of the other teams in the group even before Dasun Shanaka’s side won the Asia Cup in the UAE last month — which only underlines the islanders’ status as favourites to go through.

It’s tempting to consider Namibia or the Netherlands the favourites to snag the second spot, not least because the UAE have lost seven of the 13 T20Is they have played in 2022; most of them against the modest likes of Nepal, Germany and Singapore. On top of that, they have gone down in all three of their previous T20 World Cup games and 11 but of their dozen ODI World Cup matches. But the Emiratis have also beaten middling Ireland all three times they’ve played them in the format this year. So upsets — and any win for the UAE in this tournament would be an upset — are within their reach.

As a drop-in pitch, Geelong’s surface defies historical analysis and adds to the uncertainty of what might unfold, although the forecast for early rain — which washed out one of all four teams’ warm-up matches on Wednesday and Thursday — could enliven the surface at least for the initial exchanges of the day’s, and the tournament’s, opening fixture.

Sri Lanka look like they have too much firepower in all departments to be undone by Namibia in that match. The return of Dushmantha Chameera and Lahiru Kumara from the injuries that kept them out of the Asia Cup fits that script, and creates the prospect of a showdown with David Wiese, Namibia’s nuclear option.

If the UAE are to flip someone’s applecart, they would do themselves and everyone watching a favour by getting it done early in the piece rather than when it no longer matters. And there’s an even chance of that happening on Sunday — the UAE have won exactly half of their eight T20Is against the Dutch. The Netherlands prevailed the last time the teams met, in Dubai in October 2019, but the Emiratis reeled off four consecutive wins against them earlier in the same year.

You might not expect Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Yoko Ono to have some wisdom to contribute to this conversation, but this is all about the unexpected so sit tight. “Nothing is written in stone, as a career is an unpredictable journey,” Ibrahimovic said. Ono said something similar: “Nothing is written in stone. So don’t prepare yourself for a long and lucrative career. You might die tomorrow. Your gold holdings might become dust. Just make the music you want to make now and enjoy it.”

You heard them. Nothing is written in stone.

When: Sunday, 3pm and 7pm Local Time

Where: Kardinia Park, Geelong

What to expect: Morning rain that should clear before the start of the first match and stay away, thermometers that hover a degree or three under room temperature, and not a deluge of runs — 200 was breached nine times in the 2021/22 BBL, but not in any of the three games played at this ground in January.

Team news:

Namibia: The impact Morné Morkel makes as bowling consultant in his initial foray into international coaching is sure to be closely watched.

Possible XI: Stephan Baard, Michael van Lingen, Jan Nicol Loftie-Eaton, Gerhard Erasmus (capt), David Wiese, Zane Green, Ruben Trumpelmann, Jan Frylinck, Bernard Scholtz, Pikky Ya France, Ben Shikongo

Sri Lanka: Dilshan Madushanka seems in doubt having limped out of the nets holding his hip after bowling four balls during Saturday’s training session.

Possible XI: Pathum Nissanka, Kusal Mendis, Dhananjaya de Silva, Danushka Gunathilaka, Bhanuka Rajapaksa, Dasun Shanaka (capt), Wanindu Hasaranga de Silva, Chamika Karunaratne, Maheesh Theekshana, Dushmantha Chameera, Lahiru Kumara

Netherlands: Scott Edwards, the Dutch’s Melbourne-raised captain, has played 68 white-ball internationals — but is set for his debut in Australia.

Possible XI: Vikramjit Singh, Max O’Dowd, Stephan Myburgh, Bas de Leede, Tom Cooper, Scott Edwards (capt), Teja Nidamanuru, Roelof van der Merwe, Logan van Beek, Shariz Ahmad, Fred Klaassen

United Arab Emirates: At 16, left-arm spinner Aayan Afzal Khan is the youngest player in the tournament. He won’t turn 17 until two days after the final on November 13.

Possible XI: Muhammad Waseem, Chirag Suri, Aryan Lakra, Vriitya Aravind, Chundangapoyil Rizwan (capt), Basil Hameed, Zawar Farid, Aayan Afzal Khan, Karthik Meiyappan, Sabir Ali, Zahoor Khan

What they said:

“I look at the team compared to the first World Cup we played in, and there was a nervousness around. Of course there is again but there is more of a sense of calm.” — Stephan Baard on the progress Namibia hope to have made.

“I want to be the man-of-the-series in this World Cup. It will all come with the hard work that we’ve put in.” — Sri Lanka’s Bhanuka Rajapaksa thinks big.

“I suppose all the pressure is on Sri Lanka and Namibia from our group having played in the Super 12s last year.” – Colin Ackermann indulges in a spot of deflection, Netherlands style.

“What’s passed has passed. It’s a completely new team. There’s not even one person who has played a World Cup for UAE before on this team.” — Chirag Suri hopes for a brighter future for the UAE.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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South Africa hope SA20 will be their great leap forward

“Every year South Africa has played a T20 tournament. Now it’s got to a level that elevates it to something of the standard that we’ve seen across the world.” – Graeme Smith, SA20 commissioner

Telford Vice / London

IT’S called the SA20. Not the SA T20 nor the South Africa T20. CSA’s lifesaving T20 tournament was named on Wednesday. Its inaugural edition will be played in January and February next year. The six franchises each have a USD2-million salary cap. The player auction will be on September 19. Thirty-three matches will be played, and will include double headers and three knockout games. A women’s tournament is planned for the future, perhaps as soon as next year.

Right. What else might you want to know? Maybe how the SA20 will live with the UAE’s ILT20, which is set to run concurrently. The readymade case study is Moeen Ali, who has signed to play in both tournaments.

“I was in the UAE last week networking with their league, and we’ve agreed a way of handling it,” Graeme Smith, the SA20 commissioner, told a press conference on Wednesday. “There needs to be a way for both of us to coexist. I’m looking forward to further engagement with them on that.” Regarding Moeen specifically: “We have aligned on a strategy in terms allowing the player to be comfortable on what he does and where he decides to play. I’m dealing with the UAE league on that.”

But, Smith being Smith, one of the most competitive players cricket has yet seen in his days as South Africa’s captain, he didn’t avoid having a go at the UAE venture — whose six franchises will each be able to sign up to a dozen foreign players in their squads of 18. The SA20 squads of 17 will not feature more than seven foreigners, and every XI will include at least seven South Africa-based players.

“When a league requires the amount of international talent that they do, it makes the player market interesting and tough,” Smith said. “We’ve been able to attract some exciting names — the likes of Rashid Khan, Jos Buttler, Liam Livingstone. But we focus on South African talent as well. Being able to put 60 or 70 South African players on a global platform is something we’re excited about. We’ve seen how that’s benefitted Indian cricket in the IPL.”

The significance of the SA20 paying players more than any franchise T20 league except the IPL would seem to show in the fact that those involved in the BBL — which runs from December 13 to February 4 — and the SA20 will, Smith said, leave Australia early. Currently, that will affect only Khan and Livingstone.

“We have an arrangement to allow players to play for a portion of the Big Bash,” Smith said. “They’ll be there for the first few days of January, and then they’ll move over to us. They’ll be available fully for the South African league.”

Three ODIs England were to have played in South Africa in December 2020, but which were postponed after the English went home due to Covid, will clash with the SA20. “We have worked around it in our scheduling,” Smith said.

SA20 co-owners SuperSport own the sub-Saharan broadcast rights. As for the rest, “we’re currently in the market internationally, both commercially and from a broadcast perspective. There’s a lot of conversations happening.”

The bigger picture is how the tournament, which is key to the cricket industry staying afloat in South Africa, will impact other sectors of the game. At the top of that list is that its positioning in a prime part of the country’s summer means South Africa will play only 28 Tests from 2023 to 2027.

“The structure of the season changes every year,” Smith said. “There are things everyone grapples with in the international game with the growth of T20; trying to understand how all the formats fit in. It’s an interesting discussion going forward.

“Every year South Africa has played a T20 tournament. Now it’s got to a level that elevates it to something of the standard that we’ve seen across the world. It brings a lot of expertise into our game. It’s going to bring financial support to South African cricket that, hopefully, is going to benefit all formats of the game in South Africa. It will increase our player pool and standard, and keep us relevant in the international game.

“We envisage that we will always start after the New Year Test. We don’t see it as an issue for Test cricket. We see it as an issue of growing South African cricket and keeping it strong.”

If South Africa win the third Test that starts at the Oval on September 8, expect an outpouring of unhappiness about what the Hundred is doing to English cricket. If England win, expect a flood of concern about what the SA20 will do to South Africa’s hopes of remaining a Test powerhouse.

Either way, do not expect praise for white-ball innovation and appreciation for the great leap forward the IPL has meant for the entire game in India. Cricket, proper cricket, doesn’t work like that.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Redemption song duet for SA, WI

“We’re here to win the World Cup, otherwise why would we be here?” – Kagiso Rabada

Telford Vice | Cape Town

FEW would have expected batters to dominate in the T20 World Cup, given the pitches in the UAE and Oman. But even fewer would have expected South Africa and West Indies to be utterly dominated at the crease in their opening matches. So the two line-ups will hope to sing a redemption song when they clash in Dubai on Tuesday.

Australia’s attack bristled with quality on Saturday, but not enough to justify limiting South Africa to 118/9. Similarly, while England’s bowlers pack a sizeable collective punch, they wouldn’t have expected to dismiss the West Indians for 55 in 14.2 overs. Batting conditions weren’t straightforward, as evidenced by Australia needing all but two deliveries of their 20 overs to reach the target.

But Bangladesh’s 171/4 in Sharjah on Sunday looked good until Sri Lanka replied with 172/5, and no-one would have predicted Pakistan’s 10-wicket triumph in Dubai on Sunday immediately after India had posted 151/7.

So while the sluggish surfaces are clearly challenging batters, and will continue to be so throughout the tournament, the only option is for them to meet that challenge. Or at least to do so better than South Africa and West Indies managed on Saturday. Wheeled out, unfairly, on Monday to explain all that, Kagiso Rabada had a hearty laugh when it was pointed out to him that his team’s batters had at least performed better than the Windies’: South Africa’s total was more than double that of their next opponents’. Rabada deserved a chuckle — his 19 not out batting at No. 9 was his team’s second-highest score.

That West Indies’ major suffering against England was inflicted by spin will no doubt inform South Africa’s approach. In a combined 6.2 overs, Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid took 6/19 — usually when their victims were looking to attack recklessly strokes. It would not be stretching a point to posit that Tabraiz Shamsi and Keshav Maharaj are easily as good, if not better, than the English slow poisoners.

Unpacking the South Africans’ fragility at the crease is more complex. They shambled into the sunset thanks to a strange mix of freakishness — Quinton de Kock was bowled by a delivery that bounced high above him after he had edged it into the ground — fine bowling — Josh Hazlewood’s away-swinger that had Rassie van der Dussen caught behind was a thing of beauty — comedy — Keshav Maharaj fell over and was run out as a consequence of neglecting to wear full spikes — and questionable strokes — Heinrich Klaasen closed the face of his bat and blooped a leading edge to backward point. Consequently, the Windies would be forgiven for thinking the South Africans could help them get the job done.

South Africa’s bowlers will be confident of building on Saturday’s performance, which was well supported by their fielders. While the West Indian bowlers and fielders didn’t have a fair chance to measure themselves having been given so few runs to defend, they would have taken heart from removing four of England’s top five inside seven overs and with only 39 runs scored.

All involved in Tuesday’s game will know Bob Marley’s stirring 1980 anthem for justice and freedom, “Redemption Song”, and they could do worse than take to heart its central message: “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds.” Batting is a mind game at the best of times, even more so on pitches that ask tough questions. Finding the answers won’t be easy, but there’s more than enough talent, skill, experience and belief in both teams to pass the impending examination.

When: South Africa vs West Indies, Super 12 Group 1, 14:00 Local, 12:00 SAST

Where: Dubai International Stadium

What to expect: What do you say about conditions when you’re dealing with teams who succumbed to the lowest totals of the first four matches of the second round? Maybe that they can only improve, or at least get closer to the 150 which would seem to be the par score in this tournament.

T20I Head to Head: South Africa 9-6 West Indies (2-1 in World T20 games)

Team Watch:

South Africa

Injury/Availability Concerns: None of consequence. Given the amount of strapping on his hand on Saturday, Temba Bavuma looked like he was heading into the boxing ring. But the thumb he broke in Sri Lanka in September seems to have mended well. The tight groin that took Tabraiz Shamsi out of the warm-up game against Pakistan last Wednesday wasn’t a factor on Saturday, when he bowled all four of his overs.

Tactics & Matchups: Quinton de Kock’s aggregate of 255 in the five-match series between the teams in Grenada in June and July was easily the highest: no-one else reached 180. But, having reeled off three half-centuries — two of them unbeaten — in four innings for South Africa and Mumbai Indians in September, he has since failed to reach 30 in his last six T20 innings. His team need him to come good on Tuesday. Thing is, he averages 14.25 facing Dwayne Bravo and 28.20 against Andre Russell in this format.

Probable XI: Temba Bavuma (c), Quinton de Kock (wk), Rassie van der Dussen, Aiden Markram, Reeza Hendricks, David Miller, Wiaan Mulder, Keshav Maharaj, Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortjé, Tabraiz Shamsi

West Indies

Injury/Availability Concerns: Happily, fitness issues are not among the Windies’ problems. But they are no doubt still trying to cover the bases left uncovered by Fabian Allen’s withdrawal with an ankle injury last Wednesday. That said, Akeal Hosein proved himself a capable replacement on Saturday.

Tactics & Matchups: That Chris Gayle is capable of wreaking havoc is hardly a secret. It’s also clear that, at 42, he is in decline: he has scored only one half-century in his last 27 T20I innings, and it’s been more than five years since he made the second of his two centuries at this level. But the good news, for the West Indians, is that he is unusually effective against South Africa than any other opponents — his strike rate of 177.94 in T20Is against them is higher than when he is facing any other country’s bowlers.

Probable XI: Lendl Simmons, Evin Lewis, Chris Gayle, Roston Chase, Dwayne Bravo, Nicholas Pooran (wk), Kieron Pollard (c), Andre Russell, Akeal Hosein, Obed McCoy, Ravi Rampaul

Did you know?

Reeza Hendricks needs seven more runs to become the seventh South Africa player to reach 1,000 runs in T20Is. Roston Chase’s claims for selection are only strengthened by the fact that he had a batting strike rate of 144.33 and a bowling economy rate of 6.92 in this year’s CPL.

What they said:

“We need to rock up with proper intensity and play close to our best. That’s what we’re here to do. We’re here to win the World Cup, otherwise why would we be here?” — Kagiso Rabada

“Chris [Gayle] has been a wonderful servant for West Indies cricket. We still expect great things from him, but he also does a lot in terms of addressing the room and helping the younger players. Sometimes we tend to just look at performances, and we tend to think that the numbers don’t match up.” — Roddy Estwick

First published by Cricbuzz.

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