A corner of a Sri Lankan field becomes forever South African

www.GOcricket.com - http://www.gocricket.com/blogs/telford-vice/Sri-Lanka-vs-South-Africa-2014-A-corner-of-a-Sri-Lankan-field-becomes-forever-South-African/articleshow/39211969.cms

TELFORD VICE, Colombo

It smells of incense and sounds of crows. Bats slip silently on leathery wings across its sky at all times of day and, presumably, night. It is at the mercy of micro monsoons that come and go as routinely as tuk-tuks but with much greater impact. Consequently, the ground staff are on high alert, dragging on covers before the rain arrives if an interval allows, and always fueled by noisy enthusiasm.

The passionless pitch they protect is unlovable and unloved, except perhaps by Mahela Jayawardene. The heat that is the penance for daring to spend a day’s play in the stands seeps into the bones and stays there along with the memories.

In the splendour of an air-conditioned, carpeted room nestled in the main stand, troves of tarnishing trophies are crowded into a glass case along one wall. Near the wall opposite, in the haughty isolation of its own, bespoke case placed just so atop a plinth, a reminder of the day the big dreams of this small island became real gleams gloriously - the 1996 World Cup trophy itself.

Sinhalese Sports Club (SSC) in Colombo is soaked in Sri Lankanness, at least, it is to this foreign eye. But, on Monday, it was the best place on earth for Hashim Amla and his South Africa team.

It was to SCC that South Africa came to defend the series lead they earned in Galle in the first Test. But much more than that rode on this second match, not least the trust of a public in the people suddenly at the helm of a team freshly without giants like Graeme Smith and Jacques Kallis. Were they even thinking about regaining the No. 1 ranking they lost to Australia in March?

“Our goal was not to get back to No. 1,” Hashim Amla said after his team had forced the draw that had done exactly that. “It was to find a winning formula with a newish team. We’re certainly heading in that direction.

“This is a SA team who are very proud and passionate in the way we represent our country. We always want to go down fighting.

“To win a series here, we knew there would be times when we would be at our breaking point. We almost were.”

Amla did not say that his South Africa team have broken a drought of test series victories in Sri Lanka that has endured since 1993, when the Lankans were far from the canny, confident aide they are today.

He did not add that never before have South Africa won the test and the one-day series on the same Sri Lankan tour.

Nor did Amla point out that winning a series in Sri Lanka had eluded two of his most illustrious predecessors as South Africa captains, Shaun Pollock and Graeme Smith.

He also did not see fit to recall that the last time South Africa trod SSC’s unforgiving earth, in 2006, they conceded 756/5 and lost by an innings.

In addition, Amla managed to stop himself from telling those who would have Russell Domingo’s head as South Africa’s coach for the single, stupid reason that he never played international cricket to shut up and sit down.

But Amla did say what Morne Morkel told him when South Africa’s eighth wicket fell with 49 balls still left in the match.

“He got a first-baller in the first innings, so you didn’t want him to have the anxiety of going out there to save the match. But, you know what, he kept re-assuring me. He kept telling me he was up for it.”

That is not unusual. South Africans always believe they are “up for” whatever “it” is. But, too often, that promise has not been matched by what they deliver.

The core problem has been that their teams have tended to believe their own marketing, a crippling error in a game that demands things are done much more than they are said.

Amla’s sentiments above hint that he has at least some of that streak, perhaps just enough to keep the suits confident that he has a handle on the corporate nonsense involved in modern captaincy. But the bigger truth is that he and Domingo are doers rather than talkers, and both should be proud of what they have done in Sri Lanka.

To have got the job done at a place like SSC, which is about as removed from South African reality as Sri Lanka, with its incense, crows and monsoon weather, is from Siberia only adds to that achievement. Bloody well done.