CRICKET
Neil Sonnekus
Back in the Seventies there was a heavily Expressionist-type style of black art in magazines like Staffrider and on record covers by the likes of one of our greatest bands, Sakhile. It was deeply political in subject matter but highly original in conception.
To reconstruct an image from memory and imagination: a gnarled fist clutching flowers growing out of the head of a dead detainee.
Part of the style was the perhaps more traditional (or street, or kitsch) African technique of exaggerating hands, feet, lips and ears. That time is gone now, except perhaps in one, almost completely unrelated way on the cricket field.
When Makhaya Ntini charges down the field and lets rip one of his snorters, one could still have the illusion that his ankles are higher than his ears, once again creating the illusion of that unique style of Seventies struggle art.
Which doesn’t mean his bowling is bad quite the contrary. He isn’t in the team for nothing and he’s got the stats to back him up.
It’s just that the stiff white (but equally effective) style of the long, straight back is completely, refreshingly absent.
On a completely different note, there is someone on the Proteas team whose very presence undermines the stiff white way.
We all know the Herschelle Gibbs pursing-of-the-lips photograph to show what he thought of corruption charges against him. We all know he smoked dope and that Helen Suzman defended him.
We also know he’s a fine batsman and equally fine fielder. But it’s the style in which he executes them, especially the latter. He catches the hardest-hit and most difficult-to-catch ball without seeming to exert himself, and then tosses it away as a child would a sweet paper.
He makes self-deprecating visual jokes on the field. He even wears a joke. The number on his back is double zero. That is prison humour. Nothing fazes him. Ever. He may not read but he knows how to survive and drive a very expensive sports car. He is Cape Flats cool personified.
Our new flowers are wild, varied, and tough.