WTC Final Hype 'Overwhelming'?

Tanzania, Belgium and America also present

The hype has been a little overwhelming even for those of us invonormal lved only on the periphery. The intensity of the build-up to tomorrow’s Test match is not something any of the South African players have experienced before and it would be naieve to assume they are coping ‘as normal.’ The relative normality of their journey to the World Test Championship final has been followed by an complete absence of normality in the week before the match.

Temba Bavuma has been subjected to at least eight, lengthy one-on-one interviews in which he has relived his formative years growing up playing tennis-ball cricket on a patch of street in Langa which the kids called ‘Lord’s’. And now he’s here, captaining his country in a match for the title of World Test Champions. Overwhelming?

“If you’d asked me that three years ago I would have said ‘yes’. It’s been an amazing journey, full of highs and lows, but I think I can now concentrate on the cricket side of things, on the job we need to do on the field because that’s really all that matters. It would be nice to have some silverware… I can fantasise but you don’t always get the chance to write the story,” Bavuma said.

Shukri Conrad’s influence may be extremely important in the outcome of the contest. Or rather, in shaping the attitude of the players who will decide the outcome. Like all coaches he cannot hit, bowl or catch a single ball. But he can spot the player with glazed eyes and remind them of their skill and – more importantly – that, for all the hype, it is still a game of cricket. Conrad knows grass roots and how to reconnect players with their first, innocent love of the game.

In other news, a delicious piece of Australian journalistic badgerism from the Melbourne Age correspondent, Daniel Brettig, extracted a couple of eye-catching quotes from Graeme Smith who has been in town for a while – ostensibly to be inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame along with Hashim Amla.

Brettig reminded Smith of Steve Waugh’s (understandably) acerbic comments 18-months ago following CSA’s decision to keep every SA20 contracted player in the country and send a hotch-potch ‘C’ team to New Zealand for two Tests. Waugh said South Africa “obviously don’t care about Test cricket” and were “disrespectful.”

“These things are a little more complicated behind the scenes, they’re not always simple. I know how it happened. It was in the calendar before things moved on, things got squashed, and you ended up with a bit of a mess,” Smith said.

“I respect Steve, and I respect his opinion, but sometimes guys must take the opportunity to ask and figure out. It’s just a WhatsApp away to say: ‘Smithy what happened here, can you give me some insights’, and we can save a lot of public abuse between each other.” That much was straightforward. As was this: “I’ve played 117 Tests and been captain of our team. I know, no matter how we feel about the future of Test cricket, we hope it remains intact for more than five or six teams and there’s an opportunity to keep it strong.”

Personally, I felt the air turn cold in my lungs when I read this: “But we know T20 is the growth into the future, with the Olympics, developing the game. To develop this product, CSA has had to take one or two tough decisions.” Test cricket made Graeme Smith. He has said so many times himself. Perhaps he is just much better at ‘progressing’ than those who loved and appreciated the greatest format under his leadership.

And finally… all the rage in the sports writing business at the moment are AI transcription programmes which are quickly removing the onerous task of doing the job manually and having to listen to everything twice. Some are better than others. Temba Bavuma’s pre-match press conference started thus…

“Good morning, everyone. We have South Africa, Tanzania, Belgium and America at our table this morning.

Please remember to ensure you have a microphone in your hand before you ask a question…”