A Dhoni touch in ‘nervous’ Klaasen

A Dhoni touch in ‘nervous’ Klaasen

When Heinrich Klaasen walked into the intimidating Bull Ring on Saturday (February 10), the arena was mostly silent, with pockets of extreme jubilation. The silence was from South African supporters who thought their team was sunk with AB de Villiers gone. The noise came from the Indian fans, for the same reason. What could Klaasen do, all of one ODI old in which he had made an undistinguished six runs?

As it turned out, he could do a fair bit of eye-opening. He could hit Yuzvendra Chahal for four to get kick-started. He could reverse-sweep Kuldeep Yadav into the point fence. He could step so far across as to smash a ball that almost didn’t land on the pitch and was spinning further away, into the midwicket fence. He could put Chahal under such pressure that the legspinner delivered a second no-ball after a very costly first – and then had to watch the free hit sail into the Johannesburg sky and land into a Wanderers crowd that had re-found its collective voice. He could hit 43 not out off 27, share in one game-changing partnership of 72 in 6.5 overs, and one knockout stand of 33 in 1.5 overs.

Klaasen would later reveal that he was “100% nervous” while walking out to bat in a cauldron atmosphere, all the top four gone and an equation that read 100 runs to get in 11.1 overs. He did a good job of hiding that. It’s not for nothing that Shukri Conrad, the head coach of South Africa’s National Academy, once said Klaasen could be his country’s MS Dhoni.

On Saturday, he not only went one better than Dhoni’s score, the Indian wicketkeeper having made 42 not out, but did it at a match-turning strike-rate of 159.26, as against Dhoni’s 97.67. Two weeks back, Klaasen, 26, was telling his girlfriend that he didn’t have tickets for the Pink ODI. Today, he had just outdone the man who is the patriarch of the wicketkeeper-batsmen profession, and was earning a Man of the Match in his first-ever Pink ODI while keeping South Africa alive in the series.

“It’s an unbelievable experience that I had today. I always dreamed about it,” said Klaasen later. “Told Aiden (Markram) now that two weeks ago, I told my meisie (girlfriend) I don’t have tickets to come to the Pink Day. The crowd was unbelievable and I’ve never experienced anything like that. Especially, there were some stretches on the field when the crowd were just ballistic. I couldn’t hear any nicks or stuff like that. Unbelievable vibe.”

South Africa had been thoroughly outclassed in the first three ODIs and at 3-0 down were looking listless. The Pink ODI, one of the biggest cricketing occasions in the calendar and one in which South Africa have a spotless record, arrived at the opportune moment, as did the return of AB de Villiers from injury.

“It’s a massive, massive confidence booster for us. We didn’t have the confidence but just to get the first win has just lifted the spirits in the change room,” acknowledged Klaasen. “And the belief in the change room, it’s nice to have AB back again, the environment changed when he is back. He is a huge influence but to get to the first win on a special occasion like the Pink ODI means a lot to us and we’re proud to keep the record clean.

“Talking to (Claude) Henderson, our spinning coach, I just said that I wanted to get the first knock out of the way, get settled with the nerves and all those things. It’s been a long time coming, last season as well, just wanted to get that first knock away in four-day cricket. Just to settle down a bit at this level, that means a world to me. It’s better than hundred, better than anything else to win a match for your country.”

The settling down was particularly needed for Klaasen because he was still upset about how he got out in the third ODI, beaten by the turn and pinged right in front of the stumps by Chahal. It was payback time. “I was quite disappointed in my debut game. I enjoy playing against spinners, I do get out a lot against them but I do enjoy playing against them, it’s a good challenge,” he said. “The way I got out in my debut game, for me it’s tough, that was a soft dismissal, I didn’t like it.”

Chahal almost swung the game irrevocably India’s way, when David Miller survived a dropped chance and being bowled off a no-ball in the same over, the 18th of the innings. South Africa were 108 for 4 then, but Miller and Klaasen then exploded in a flurry of boundaries. Klaasen said that there was a method to the madness.

“I know between myself and David, we can let that run-rate go up till about probably 12-13, especially at the Wanderers where the ball tends to fly quite a bit,” he said. “It was definitely a momentum changer for us, getting that free hit on David’s wicket. He’s a cool, calm and experienced cricketer and he just said, ‘Anything in our slot we need to back and whatever we do we need to do fully.’ And then at the end of the over after a couple of boundaries, the value of David being there and myself being there at the start of the next over – it’s bigger than just having a slog at a couple of balls. So we were very calculated in our approach there. Maybe it didn’t look like it! But it was all calculated and planned out, what we wanted to do.”

The required run-rate was 9.40 at that stage, and Klaasen was not worried, while explaining that everything was ‘calculated and planned out’. It’s no wonder Conrad saw a touch of Dhoni in him.

But only a touch. The moment when Klaasen hit Chahal to the midwicket fence after fetching the ball from outside the strip. It could have been almost comical, but Klaasen connected well, having picked his spot beforehand. “That’s where the gaps were… so I needed to do something about it,” he smiled. “I can’t describe it but for me that was my only boundary option, he bowled quite wide and got a lot of turn and bounce, that was my go-to shot at that moment and I pulled it off.

“On that wide line he got a lot of turn and bounce, so to run down the wicket was for me quite a high-risk shot. I do like over extra-cover, but my option was maybe from the backfoot over extra cover, or the one over square-leg. Those were my two options there for the boundary.”

Klaasen’s use of the sweep proved particularly productive. It’s a shot he learned to master on a trip to Sri Lanka in 2015 with the Emerging Squad, where he hit a century in one of the unofficial Tests.

“It comes naturally to me, but I work hard on it,” he said of sweeping, conventional and reverse. Three years ago we went to Sri Lanka on a National Academy trip. So there, we learned all types of sweeps. Since then, I’ve brought it back into my game and it works, it takes off a lot of pressure. Especially against good spinners, it’s difficult to hit them down the ground if you don’t use your feet well. So that just changed up their lengths and it suits me a little bit better.”

It suited his team much better, and thanks to Klaasen and company, South Africa are not just alive in the series but will go into the remaining matches with the demon of wrist-spin reduced to human proportions.

The mystique of the wristique

The mystique of the wristique

“What the wrist?”

They are probably whispering these words in hushed, shocked, thunder-struck tones in the South African dressing-room.

Three matches into a One-Day International series that has brought the top two sides in the world face to face, there is clear daylight between the protagonists. India have played like a champion outfit, full of purpose and courage. Inspired by a captain who is batting as if from a different planet and powered by a pair of wrist-spinners that have wreaked well-documented havoc, they have jumped all over South Africa, meek and timid, hesitant and indecisive. South Africa is the home side, but India haven’t so much bearded the lion in its own den as systematically dismantled it, using non-violent subtlety of the highest quality as their weapon of choice.

Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav have been exhilarating to watch. Take the cricket ball out of their hands, and these two could so easily be mistaken for unremarkable young men. Chahal, thin and bespectacled, looks every inch the chess player he used to be, if you like stereotyping. Kuldeep could be the impish boy next door, naughtiness oozing out of every pore.

It is, however, the cricket ball that has shaped the destinies of this odd couple, the Gen Next of spin bowling in a country acclaimed for having produced several of the greatest spinners of all time.

There is a mystique associated with being wristique that not much else can parallel in cricket. The big fast bowlers can evoke dread; they will threaten body and limb and wicket, they can terrorise with the ferocity with which they hurl the little gob of leather. They will glare and snarl and spew expletives in the knowledge that if something comes back their way, they can always reply in kind with the next mean, well-directed bouncer. But the tiny spinners? So what if they have the heart of a paceman? They can’t rely on speed, so guile it is that is their inseparable companion.

And it is this guile, this craft and cunning, this ability to embarrass rather than intimidate, that adds to the aura. To watch batsmen hopping around on a quick, bouncy track against express fast bowling appeals to our basal instincts. But when top willow-wielders are reduced to blubbering, clueless entities by wrists of wonder, it triggers waves of awe and feel-good, of admiration and envy. There is, after all, something to say for killing ‘em softly.

When you talk cricket and wrists in the same breath, you instantly are transported to the world of Gundappa Viswanath. Of Mohammad Azharuddin. Of Zaheer Abbas. Of VVS Laxman. Men who didn’t dismiss the ball from their presence as apologetically caress it into gaps, cajoling rather than commanding it to keep its tryst with the boundary boards. Men who made it impossible for captains to set fields. Men who could hit two successive deliveries pitching on the same spot and doing the same thing to two diametrically opposite sides of the park. Men that even the bowlers didn’t terribly mind being scored of, you suspect.

All these gentlemen played their early cricket on matting tracks with a strong emphasis on back foot play. As the ball got bigger, they had to bring their wrists into play to keep it down. It wasn’t the only way to negotiate the climbing delivery, but it was the way that worked best for these maestros. Viswanath benefitted from Tiger Pataudi’s wisdom as he went about strengthening his wrists – lifting a bucketful of water in each hand 20 times in one go, three or four times a day. Laxman went from classically orthodox to stunningly wristy through a combination of a growth spurt and the Azhar influence during his formative cricketing years in Hyderabad. Where others bludgeoned the ball, these wizards twirled them to the fence. How many of us haven’t wanted to bat like them, sure in the knowledge that beyond in our dreams, that was impossible to the power of impossible?

And what about the sheikhs of tweak? Of the Shane Warnes and the Muttiah Muralitharans – an offspinner who used his wrist, so completely in keeping with the unique Murali persona – and the Abdul Qadirs and the Mushtaq Ahmeds? And our very own L Sivaramakrishnan and Anil Kumble?

LS was the one that opened my eyes to the wondrous world of legspin – purely from a viewing rather than a practicing perspective. I first saw him ‘live’ at Chepauk in early 1985, against David Gower’s Englishmen. He had begun the Test series in a blaze of glory – six wickets in each of the first three innings – but England had found ways to counter him subsequently. In his backyard at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, the wisp of a lad sent down 44 overs for just the scalp of Tim Robinson, though with a little more support from behind the stumps, he could easily have finished with better returns than 1 for 135.

Watching him at the ground didn’t offer the complete viewing experience that one is exposed to today. There were no giant screens that beamed replays, and from 100 yards away and seated square to the strip, it was impossible to see what he was trying to do. Two months later, television images from Australia seared the LS intrigue into the heart. Saucer-eyed and so reedy that you feared a gust of wind would blow him away into the distant horizon, he bamboozled the batsmen with his repertoire. Seasoned voices like Richie Benaud – still typically restrained – and Bill Lawry, rambunctious as always, took a shine to the teenager from Chennai.

One particular delivery to Rod McCurdy is indelibly etched in memory. McCurdy was a fast-medium bowler with modest batting skills, agreed, but still… As the ball looped out of Siva’s right hand, McCurdy plonked his right foot outside off, the bat moving in that direction. Once it started to drift in towards him, the foot was hastily withdrawn, the bat magnetically following suit. When the ball broke away on pitching. McCurdy was facing the bowler chest-on, his bat scurrying this way and that and missing the leg-break by a mile. The look on his face was pure genius – panic, embarrassment, admiration, envy, relief, self-deprecation. The earth could have opened up and swallowed him whole, and he would have gone happily, with a smile.

Warne, of course, was the consummate showman, equal parts bluster and bravado, equal parts mystery and magic. ‘Hollywood’ had a sense of occasion, a propensity for drama, a penchant for limelight, a skill bestowed only on the blessed. There was never a dull moment when he was at the bowling crease – the measured walk, the short acceleration, the ball fizzing off his stubby fingers and turning like the devil had made it its home. Every delivery was an event, even an innocuous full-toss that batsmen feared could explode mid-air. In such knots had he tied up Darryl Cullinan, the South African batsman, that when Chris Harris was bowling at him in New Zealand, Adam Parore screamed from behind the stumps, “Well bowled Shane!”

Chahal and Kuldeep have a long way to go before they graduate from breathtaking performers to effortless showmen. They may never graduate to that category, but so what? So long as the charm is intact, the mystery unsolved.

What the wrist, right?

South Africa scraping the barrel in more ways than one

South Africa scraping the barrel in more ways than one

The way things are going, South Africa will be lucky to have a fully fit international-class team on the park by the time their six-match One-Day International series against India draws to a close. That’s an exaggeration, of course, but injuries have hit South Africa hard. They started the series without AB de Villiers for the first three ODIs, lost Faf du Plessis after the first ODI and then lost Quinton de Kock after the second. It may be only three players, but those are three that are practically irreplaceable.

As a result, South Africa will be heading into the third ODI at Newlands in Cape Town on Wednesday (February 7) as the definite underdogs. A month ago, both teams had arrived at the same venue with the home side the favourite in what promised to be an exciting Test series. The long format lived up to its promise, but while much the same was expected in 50-overs cricket, South Africa’s crippling injuries have made it one-way traffic so far.

That is not the only thing that has changed in a month. Newlands is still one of the prettiest venues in the world, and the Table Mountain still provides a backdrop like no other — but it’s parched. The lush outfield has hints of brown appearing all over, and the water crisis that had hit the city has only worsened. The rationing of water has gone from 80 litres per day down to 50 litres in households, and the outfield hasn’t been able to be watered everyday due to the severe water shortage and consequent restrictions.

“We all know that there is a drought here and we respect that,” said Shikhar Dhawan on Tuesday. “We are aware that we have to save as much water as we can, because people need it. We respect that.”

Borewell water has been used to water the pitch, which is also going to be a completely different animal than the seaming, bouncing track that was dished out for the first Test. Even Flint, the curator, indicated that the ODI deck would be a normal one, with runs for the taking.

Teams (from):

India: Virat Kohli (capt), Rohit Sharma (vice-capt), Jasprit Bumrah, Yuzvendra Chahal, Shikhar Dhawan, MS Dhoni (wk), Shreyas Iyer, Kedar Jadhav, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Kuldeep Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Manish Pandey, Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Ajinkya Rahane, Shardul Thakur.

South Africa: Aiden Markram (capt), Hashim Amla, JP Duminy, Imran Tahir, David Miller, Morne Morkel, Chris Morris, Lungisani Ngidi, Andile Phehlukwayo, Kagiso Rabada, Tabraiz Shamsi, Khaya Zondo, Farhaan Behardien, Heinrich Klaasen (wk).

Whether that translates into South Africa actually getting the runs remains to be seen. They have read Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav worse than a third grader handed an advanced calculus book, and though a variety of wrist-spinners were pressed into action at the team’s nets on match eve, you can’t really expect net bowlers to replicate the level of skill and control that India’s spinners have.

Kagiso Rabada, one of the few players from the home side to have held his own with the team floundering, said that the multiple injuries could be a ‘blessing in disguise’ in terms of widening the pool of players to choose from. “It gives other players are chance,” said the pacer. “We’ve got players who have been playing in franchise cricket for a while and doing pretty well. Those three names that have dropped out of the team are pretty much irreplaceable at the moment. So, it just gives guys a chance to widen the pool so other players can experience international cricket. Widening the pool is great. Perhaps it was a blessing in disguise.”

India’s playing XI looks settled and primed, which means there should be no changes unless fitness issues crop up. South Africa will be handing a debut to Heinrich Klaasen, the Titans wicketkeeper who had been added to the squad after the first ODI. With de Kock ruled out now, Klaasen finds himself the only wicketkeeper in the squad. He has been in good form in the domestic one-dayers, which will help him, but tackling India’s bowling attack will be a different challenge altogether. Given de Kock’s injury, it also looks likely that Aiden Markram will push himself up the order to open alongside Hashim Amla.

It’s been a rough initiation for Markram as a captain, though if he wanted a test by fire to understand all the extreme pressures of captaincy, he’s certainly getting a crash course.

The forecast for the match is sunny skies, which would ordinarily be good news for cricket. For the South African team, and the Cape Town residents in particular, that is far from welcome. A spell of rain and a washed out match may be just what the team requires to get their bearings back, while it’s certainly what the city requires to start getting itself back on its feet.

SuperSport’s tryst with Indian epics

SuperSport’s tryst with Indian epics

 

While Kohli himself didn’t rate much of the century in the first innings, years later he might pat himself on the back for a gritty knock. © BCCI

Epic (adjective) – heroic or grand in scale or character

Epic was originally but not exclusively associated with a long poem in the main, but also embellished books and films that focussed on extraordinary deeds in no little adversity. Over time, it has taken on entirely different connotations; ‘epic joke’ and ‘epic fail’ have established themselves as commonplace in modern-day vocabulary, never mind how far removed from the intended definition they might have strayed.

In this age of hyperbole, epic is a word used so often that true epics can sometimes slip through the cracks. Or can they, really?

More than a half-dozen years later, Tendulkar lit up SuperSport Park again, this time in a Test match. India were so far behind the eight-ball after the first innings that all they were playing for was the proverbial pride. Staring an innings defeat in the face, India nearly avoided that ignominy, thanks in the main to a spectacular hundred by the maestro. It was his 50th Test ton, made epic by the occasion rather than the context, the magnitude of the accomplishment applying temporary soothing balm on the gaping cuts emanating from a crushing defeat.

Would it be wrong, for starters, to prefix Virat Kohli’s 153 at SuperSport Park earlier this week with epic? On his own, the Indian captain made nearly 50% of the runs his team managed in the first innings of the second Test. As impressive as that is, it was as if he was batting on a different surface, against a totally different attack, compared to his mates. As the rest floundered and stuttered, Kohli stood regally tall, at once an irresistible force and an immovable object. Beyond a point, South Africa stopped trying to get Kohli out. In the conditions that existed in Centurion, that is as massive a compliment as anyone could have received. So then, that’s settled – Kohli’s 153 will go down as an epic.

Is a glorious battle wonderfully fought but without the sweet aftertaste of victory more suited to the epic bracket than a successful one? Does the romanticism lie in the effort and not necessarily in the result? Kohli most certainly doesn’t believe so. “I would have been happy with a fifty had we won the match,” he was to say. “Because we lost the match, this knock doesn’t really mean much.”

Surely you don’t mean that, Virat? The wound is too raw, the hurt too recent, the heartbreak too wrenching, but when at some distant stage in the future he puts his feet up and reflects on a career most singular, he will appreciate this 153 for what it was. An epic, if there ever was one.

Tendulkar’s knock of 98 might not have gotten India fully over the line, but it mattered just as much as those impactful hundreds. © AFP

It was on this same platform, but in an entirely different setting, that inarguably the most glittering jewel in the Indian cricket crown produced a knock for the ages. SuperSport Park was buzzing with an electricity unmatched before or since when India and Pakistan squared off their in 2003 World Cup Super League clash. The subcontinental Derby was easily the match of the tournament, an investment of emotion and effort from not just the playing cast but also from the respective support groups – within the changing room and beyond. It was, with George Orwell and Mike Marqusee’s permission, war minus the shooting. The vuvuzelas were out in full force, the cacophony deafening. The vibrant colours, the air crackling with tension and excitement, the promise of a battle royale and, for once, the action justifying the hype.

Sachin Tendulkar was in the mood. Boy, was he! India were chasing 274 in the final before the final, maybe the final beyond the final even. Up against them, the might of Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis, the fury of Shoaib Akhtar, the guile of Abdul Razzaq, the street-smart of Shahid Afridi. The little man chopped these giants to size, making his statements early and with finality. Akhtar took the new ball behind Akram, and banged the fourth ball in short and a tough wide. Tendulkar slapped him deep over point for a humongous six, triggering a hasty confabulation between skipper Younis, Akhtar and Akram. “For the first time, Shoaib told the captain, ‘I don’t want to bowl, I am not able to bowl’. That one shot destroyed his confidence for the rest of the game,” Akram was to reveal, more than a decade later.

Tendulkar’s marauding knock didn’t haul India over the line – that was left to the ice of Rahul Dravid and the youthful fire of Yuvraj Singh. But with such ferocity and vehemence had he dismantled the pace threat, and such was the psychological havoc he wreaked on Akhtar, that whatever else followed was merely an offshoot of his uninhibited onslaught. Akhtar might claim the last laugh, denying the cramping maestro a most memorable hundred by having him caught at point off a lifter. But the 98 added to the drama and the mystique, much like Gundappa Viswanath’s unbeaten 97 against West Indies in Chepauk. Given the context, there is a greater emotional connect with these epic 90s than equally felicitous and impactful hundreds.

The only Indian Test century at SuperSport Park that resulted in victory came from WV Raman on the 1992-93 tour, against an attack comprising Allan Donald, Fanie de Villiers, Craig Matthews and Brian McMillan. © Getty Images

More than a half-dozen years later, Tendulkar lit up SuperSport Park again, this time in a Test match. India were so far behind the eight-ball after the first innings that all they were playing for was the proverbial pride. Staring an innings defeat in the face, India nearly avoided that ignominy, thanks in the main to a spectacular hundred by the maestro. It was his 50th Test ton, made epic by the occasion rather than the context, the magnitude of the accomplishment applying temporary soothing balm on the gaping cuts emanating from a crushing defeat.

Tendulkar’s and Kohli’s aren’t the only Indian centuries in Centurion across formats in international cricket to have come in defeat. Yusuf Pathan produced a typically belligerent 105, off a mere 70 deliveries with eight fours and as many sixes, as he nearly pulled the rug from under South Africa’s feet. With the series ODI level 2-2 and India on 119 for 8 chasing 251 for their first series triumph on South African soil, Pathan mocked the length of the boundaries with a scarcely believable counter against Steyn, Tsotsobe, Morkel and Botha. It was epic-like in conception and execution, but not quite an epic, and not necessarily because it eventually came in a losing cause.

The only Indian hundred of four at SuperSport Park that resulted in victory came on the famous Friendship tour of 1992-93, the first series in South Africa since their return to the international fold. On a tricky track against Allan Donald, Fanie de Villiers, Craig Matthews and Brian McMillan, Woorkeri Raman sacrificed natural attacking instincts to conjure a measured 114, his lone hundred for the country. Of silken-smooth strokeplay and timing to die for, the left-hand batsman last week marked the 30th anniversary of his Test debut, in the famous Hirwani Test at Chepauk. Raman himself had a pretty good debut – 83 in the second innings in his hometown, and a wicket in his first over in Test cricket, but it was Hirwani who stole the show with a record-tying 16 wickets on debut.

Today, Hirwani is the bowling coach at the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore, while his bade bhai Raman is the batting coach. Now, will that qualify as an epic coincidence?