Times Media - February 28 2014
TELFORD VICE, Cape Town
The small picture is that SA and Australia are squabbling over ball-tampering. The big picture is that they are engaged in an enthralling test series that will be decided in Cape Town starting tomorrow.
Australia won by 281 runs in Centurion. SA won by 231 runs at St George’s Park. The contests were as contrasting as the pitches they were played on - fast and unpredictable followed by slow and true.
Both teams have played visceral cricket shot through with confidence and both have played as if they had 11 teenagers on debut. Nothing the marketing suits could have dreamt up would have been nearly as arresting as what reality has delivered.
The magnificent madness of Mitchell Johnson’s 12/127 in Centurion was followed by Dale Steyn’s 4/55 reaping the whirlwind in Port Elizabeth.
It has been a series as epic as it has been enterprising. Now, it all comes down to Newlands.
“It’s crazy,” Steyn said yesterday. “It’s against Australia, too - one of the best and biggest teams that you want to play against.
“We’ve got a World T20 around the corner, we’ve got tours coming up, there’s the Indian Premier League, there’s this, there’s that, and here in the middle of it, we’ve played two tests and we are 1-1 and we are here to fight it all out in one test.
“It’s pretty crazy and it’s exciting all at the same time, but it goes too quickly. PE has come and gone. It’s just something I can write about or remember. Those feelings are finished. But they are great feelings.
“When you win, it’s amazing. That inspires you to try and have that feeling again. All these things add up. When that last ball is bowled, when you get that last wicket, that’s what counts.”
“Hopefully, in a couple of days time when the last ball is bowled here at Newlands we can have those feelings all over again because that is what we live for and play cricket for.”
So much for the big picture. Warner was docked 15 percent of his match fee yesterday for insinuating that SA had used underhanded tactics to obtain reverse swing in PE. He singled out AB de Villiers for rubbing the ball on the ground at every opportunity.
Steyn bristled at that: “When we were beaten (in the first test), we went back to the drawingboard and looked at how we could improve our game. When you lose a game maybe that’s what you should be doing.”
Ryan Harris set the record straight: “David’s comments were wrong and that’s been dealt with. SA handled the ball better; they did something we didn’t do.
“(AB) has been doing something with his gloves. Obviously, it’s not illegal or the umpires would have got involved and he hasn’t been charged.”
This time, Harris said, the Aussies had done their homework.
“We were cheating today by scraping the ball on the concrete. If our batsmen can hit that they can hit it in a game.”
That was given short shrift by Steyn: “They probably should have done that before the game in PE.”
Coulda, woulda, shoulda. Could we get on with the game, please?
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