When is a thumbnail...just that?

WTC trumps Pink Day - but only on Cricket

At a point during Pakistan’s innings of 329 during the second ODI at Centurion Park on Thursday, Temba Bavuma dived to stop a ball and landed painfully on his right elbow. It was the injured elbow which had kept him out of action for a couple of months before the Test series against Sri Lanka.

Every one of the players knew exactly what was at stake, even those not in the Test squad, and they have been for months. The thought that the injury may have reoccurred, and the desperate reaction of the players around Bavuma, was proof (if any were needed) of where the current priorities lie and of how highly the captain is valued.

Bavuma himself has mostly given up pretending that A is B when everyone knows it isn’t – unless he is contractually or morally obliged to do so. He was neither asked where the team’s collective mind was before the Pink Day ODI against Pakistan:

“The World Test Championship final, it is within our reach, but we still pay due respects to the ODI series and what that means to us as players. We haven’t been lacking motivation and we still talk about the skills that are required for one-day cricket,” Bavuma said.

“But at the back of the minds of certain players…I guess we know that, after this game, the next two weeks are super-important for us. So, it’s important take as much confidence as we can from the last ODI game into the Test format.”

Merely from the way certain players have been rested and rotated, it is not only obvious but fundamentally correct that the Proteas coaching staff – and players – are unapologetically prioritising a format in which a single victory offers a place in a world cup final above another with nothing but desirable statistics on offer.

Talking of Bavuma, you may enjoy this line about Pakistan’s strengths in case you missed it earlier: “Their bowling plans are quite simple. Up front they try to swing the ball, and they keep it tight in the middle and then wait for it to reverse. Their bowlers are probably the best in the world in term of exploiting that. And they have spinners who are wicket-takers rather than just ‘holding’ the game.”

It’s the middle two sentences which raised a smile, in light of Heinrich Klaasen’s post-match comments after the second ODI in which he scored a brilliant 97 off 74 balls in a losing cause in Centurion:

“I’ve played here for 10 years, 13 years. With rain here last night, a green outfield like we had, I have never seen the ball reverse like that in 20 overs. Balls are only 25 overs old in a one-day game, so in 20 overs, that ball was shaping like a four-day game in quite proper heat. So, yeah, other than that, I’m not going to comment on anything,” Klaasen said.

He’s not the first and, presumably, won’t be the last cricketer to note how clever Pakistan’s bowlers have been (for many years) at creating reverse swing. Note how Bavuma said ‘wait’ for reverse swing. In an ODI, that’s akin to ‘Waiting for Godot.’ It doesn’t arrive.

Amongst Klaasen’s many admirable traits is his insistence on speaking unpolished truths, rather than captaincy or diplomatic versions of them. I love him for it, and always have done. Ever since the day he publicly called out the selectors for championing his aggressive batting only to drop him every time he failed and for putting him ‘at the back of the queue again.’

Some might believe Klaasen was casting aspersions on his opponents’ ability to get the ball to swing at such problematic angles in such apparently unhelpful conditions. Perhaps he was. But, as a wise old school-teacher once told me, ‘smoking behind the bike sheds is not a crime, young man. Being caught, however, is a different matter. That’s why you are being punished.”

Klaasen is to be admired, on one level, for telling things as he sees them. On another he may ponder the question: would his bowlers be doing the same thing - if they knew how to? It’s not as though South Africa has an unblemished record in these things…the Faf zipper and Vern’s thumbnail, you remember?

Pakistan’s bowlers (and team mates), as Klaasen explained, have been achieving the ‘impossible’. There is much to admire and, let’s be honest, covet. Unless and until the misdemeanors are proven, Bavuma is more appropriate than Klaasen. But Klaasen earns more nods, winks and smiles…

But who cares. There is a World Test Championship to play for, a tournament far more flawed than a tampered Kookaburra seam.

(PS - Merry Christmas everyone. If you’re doing small gifts, mine’s an Americano!) :)