Team physiotherapist Craig Smith is one of the busiest members of the South African A team on tour in England
CRICKET: Barney Spender
THE scene has become fairly typical over the last two weeks. A small clutch of hacks, with markedly different gaits, making their way to the South African A team’s dressing room.
Boolam Rajah, the manager, greets us all with a smile, a trifle forced in these situations, and tells us that he has some news but we need to wait for the coach and the Fizz.
The coach, Duncan Fletcher, not prone at the best of times to offer a broad grin and cheery “halloo”, appears and quietly says that we will have to wait for the Fizz.
“He’s got someone on the table at the moment but he shouldn’t be long.”
The five of us sit down and make small talk around a table, carefully skirting the issue to be discussed. Find anywhere nice for dinner? Did you see that the All Blacks beat the Wallabies? Did you know it’s been snowing in Durban? And so on.
Goolam, looking dapper in collar and tie, taps his pen on the table. “Come on Fizz,” he says, his impatience overshadowed by good humour and the knowledge that the Fizz is a busy man. And at this moment on the tour, perhaps the most important man in the party.
Finally, the Fizz arrives, apologises for keeping us all waiting, seats himself and, when the tape recorders are all on and pointing in the right direction, begins his medical briefing.
It’s concise and to the point. He makes a point of giving the full medical term to describe an injury and then translating it into layman’s English. All questions he answers calmly and fully and honestly. “So, does this rule Brett Schultz out of the tour?” “We are still waiting for a final opinion from the orthopaedic surgeon, but at this moment it doesn’t look very promising.”
No more questions, the Fizz rises briskly and makes his excuses.
“Sorry, I must go, I’ve got someone waiting on the table,” he says.
The Fizz, aka Craig Smith, is well used to these situations, however, having been physiotherapist to the full South African side since they took their first fledgling steps back into international cricket in 1991.
His introduction to the cricket arena, though, came two years earlier when, as a recent graduate from UCT, he was invited by Ali Bacher to accompany Mike Gatting’s rebel England side.
“One of the things that had always intrigued me when I was a student was what went on in the dressing rooms at Manchester United and Liverpool and so on. And here I was, a young guy in my mid-twenties in a dressing room with all these test cricketers. “It’s was all very exciting to be involved. As a white South African I don’t think I really knew that much about what was going on politically and wondered why people were getting upset about a cricket tour.
“As the years have gone on I can see they were right, but at the time we were all quite upset when Dr Bacher came into the dressing room and told us that the ANC were putting pressure on and that the government was now taking a different approach and that it would be best if the tour was cut short. It was very emotional.”
Smith’s apprenticeship, though, had been served. When South Africa were allowed back into world cricket and a short tour to India was arranged at short notice, Bacher was on the phone again and the Fizz was on his way to becoming a permanent fixture in the South African dressing room.
In the last four years there have been all manner of problems to deal with. Fanie de Villiers, Allan Donald, Brian McMillan, Peter Kirsten, to name just a few, have found themselves on Fizz’s bench.
Kepler Wessels was a regular client, most memorably in Sydney, when Smith patched up a gammy knee and broken finger enough to allow the skipper to hobble down the pavilion steps and show the Australians the depth of the South African heart. It was a gesture which contributed mightily to South Africa’s famous five-run win.
The worst moments have probably been when Meyrick Pringle got hit in the eye and when Jonty Rhodes was poleaxed after ducking into a Devon Malcolm bouncer at the Oval in 1994.
“Thankfully, there hasn’t been too much blood and gore, we leave that to the rugby players. Mainly it’s hamstrings, torn muscles, broken fingers and so on. At least that’s what the public sees because that’s what rules a player out. They don’t see all the other bits, all the daily aches and pains.”
In some ways that is a pity, because the public, so quick to attack a player’s failure, is never privy to the behind-the-scenes mechanics which keep him going. Smith’s workbench appears constantly occupied, often by players who, to the naked, public eye, look perfectly fit.
“In many ways I am a facilitator, a maintenance man. The body is just a human machine and with all the constant day-in day-out activity, it reaches a breaking point. It can either snap or the player can continue with a niggle. It may never go away, but I can ease it enough to allow a player to play through it.”
The one blot on Smith’s copybook was the decision to allow Brett Schultz to play in the first Test against England at Centurion Park last November while carrying an injury. Schultz bowled a handful of overs before the buttock injury flared up and restricted his effectiveness.
“That was an embarrassment and the way it came out to the press made the whole management team look like idiots. The player thought he would be okay and I had consulted with the physio who had looked after him down in Cape Town and everything seemed fine. But we erred in not making him do a proper workout off a full run. It was definitely the low point.”
Smith, who celebrated his 31st birthday last week, never played cricket to a serious standard himself, having preferred the rigours of the first league soccer in Camps Bay as well as the delights of surfing, a sport in which he collected under 18 provincial colours.
Even so, he is one of the first names scribbled down on any touring sheet. It helps that he is of a similar age to the players, and he admits that when they start getting too young he may call it a day. “I can’t see myself doing the job when I am 45 and the players are 20 years younger than me.
“I have a different agenda from them. With the full Test side, and even with this A side, you have players who have come through the ranks from school together and they are all vying for Test cricket. And they all aspire to the glory and recognition of being a successful Test cricketer. For me, it is a case of simply going to work. It is a great way to go to work, but you always have to be self- motivating.
“My thinking at the moment is to get to the next World Cup and hopefully win it, hopefully make some contribution which will help the guys win it. After that, we’ll see.”
Whatever the long-term future, at least for the moment the brittle bones of South Africa’s best appear to be in the safe hands of the Fizz. Even safer, some say, than Dave Richardson’s.