By my count I know three South African groundsmen. There’s Chris Scott of the Wanderers who became famous a couple of years ago when he was named man of the match after a particularly damp Test match.
Subsequent to this award, Scott has been the subject of an advertising campaign (I forget exactly what it was that was being advertised) and a front page article in The Sunday Independent. He was also apparently shown on television last Sunday having a cigarette at the Wanderers.
If this wasn’t bad enough in itself, he was not standing behind a grandstand out of view of the playing surface as is required by ICC regulations and South Africa’s no-smoking police. My point is this: if I have to cover the World Cup by standing behind a grandstand making astute observations on the state of play on basis of how loudly the crowd is shouting, then surely groundsmen should have to prepare their pitches while also standing behind the grandstand having a smoke with me. I won’t dwell on the obvious point that you tend to meet a better class of people behind the grandstand, but fair’s fair, isn’t it?
I also know Michael Patrick of the Pietermaritzburg Oval because, well, because I’ve know Michael Patrick for about 20 years. And I know Christo Erasmus of Newlands because he always greets me cheerily when I go to Newlands.
I have been thinking a lot about Christo Erasmus a lot this week. Sunday’s defeat against New Zealand took South Africa’s World Cup fate out of the hands of the team representing the host nation and gave it squarely to the West Indies. To put this simply, for South Africa to progress in the World Cup, the West Indies needed to give Sri Lanka a big smack at Newlands next Friday night.
The Sri Lankans are notoriously uneasy on hard, bouncy, grassy pitches with the ball rearing about their ears. The West Indies, famously, like employing great big fast bowlers who love rearing the ball up around batsmen’s ears. The obvious strategy, then, would surely be to prepare a hard, bouncy, grassy pitch at Newlands and politely ask the West Indies to include as many great big fast bowlers as could comfortably squeeze into the dressing room.
And the man at the centre of this, obviously, would be the groundsman. I asked a few people from Cape Town if Christo Erasmus could be persuaded to prepare a pitch appropriate for this strategy. They all said he was his own man and wouldn’t be turned or bribed or twisted. Not even, I asked, if the United Cricket Board offered him a job for life at a handsome salary with free tickets to the World Cup final thrown in? Not a bit of it, they insisted, he’d still prepare a fair pitch. Which is not what I thought we needed.
Herschelle Gibbs was also asked what he thought about Christo Eramus, the Newlands pitch and grass. His response, as I recall was: ”I’ve never split a pipe with him so I don’t know what he thinks about grass.”
Subsequently, the West Indies match against Bangladesh in Benoni was washed out on Tuesday. This opened up a whole now can of permutations, the best of which, from a South African point of view, would entail South African winning all three of their remaining matches while Sri Lanka beat the West Indies.
Which means we want a dry, dusty Newlands track on which Muttiah Muralitharan turns the ball like a top. Go green? Forget it. Go brown. And dry. And dusty.