Makhaya Ntini bowls extremely quickly. Stand behind the batsman at any practice session, and one realises anew that the fan or even the competent amateur player hasn’t the faintest idea of just how quick a real fast bowler is. Even five yards back, protected by Jacques Kallis’s bat, there is a moment of terrified glee.
That the second Test at Newlands was one of the dullest in living memory cannot be held against Hashim Amla, or dim the glow of his first hundred in the grown-up version of the game. The strategic circumstances and anti-atmosphere of this most pointless of series will fade, but Amla’s step across the threshold of cricketing adulthood will not.
Just after South Africa were beaten, and just before they were beaten again, Graeme Smith was interviewed by the eternally blithe Dave Papenfus on Radio 2000. Papenfus is that admirable breed of commentator who, like Parkinson, makes his guests feel utterly adored. One hesitates to say he shields his subjects from harsh questions, but in the world of sports writers — most of us Pinocchios — he is Jiminy Cricket and Tinkerbell rolled into one.
Sober reflection and an objective perspective are one thing; but being a wet blanket is quite another. And the soggy rags have been out in force since Sunday. The drippy lament, like Chinese water torture, has involved hammering the same muddy point over and over again, until one is ready to confess to anything.
On Sunday afternoon, cricket went supersonic for the first time. For 10 years the needle had wobbled around the high 300s. But when Saeed Anwar retired and Shahid Afridi was permanently dropped down the Pakistani order, it seemed that the quest for one-day cricket’s final frontier had come to an end.
A few days after The Sunday Times broke the news of Stephen Watson’s article about Antjie Krog, I received two phone calls. The first was from someone whose relationship with English was strained, and who was very fond of the neologism ”fuckdick”. In the 10 seconds that passed before I hung up, he explained that, […]
After action, the old cigarette ad suggested, came satisfaction. South African sport usually takes this one step further: after satisfaction, crucifixion. The afterglow of temporary success has barely winked out when we invariably start apportioning blame for past losses.
”Winner of the World Cup, confronter of Darrel Hair, defender of Muttiah Muralitharan’s action — Arjuna Ranatunga is an elder statesman of cricket. When he speaks, people listen. Of course, they only listen because they’re trapped next to him on the bus, pinned into their seats by his girth and missionary zeal,” writes Tom Eaton.
”Those of us who feel that the 20-over game creates more problems than it solves are invariably called ‘critics’, as if Twenty20 cricket has presented us with a complex tradition of theory and history, to which we apply equally complex rebuttals, dismantling this sporting canon point by point,” writes Tom Eaton.
In the usual course of a day, there is very little about Graeme Smith to remind one of Uma Thurman or Michelle Pfeiffer. Smith is somewhat taller than both women, and is no doubt much more comfortable against short-pitched fast bowling. And yet this week the three seem indistinguishable.