Dowdy home summer awaits South Africans

TMG Digital

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

SUMMER. It’s a word that, for millions of South Africans, means cricket, cricket and more cricket.

And last summer they got that and then some in the shape of tours by India and Australia — teams that are as readily respected as they are detested.

From Virat Kohli’s sickening strutt to Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft and their silly sandpaper, 2017-18 had it all.

So much so that it’s as if Bangladesh were never here last season — they were, for two Tests, three ODIs and two T20s — along with Zimbabwe for that ill-conceived day/night Boxing Day — cough, cough — Test at St George’s Park that was over almost before the lights needed to be turned on.

But best we get used to that kind of fare, fellow South Africans, because the coming home summer’s bunfight looks nothing like the banquet that went before.

It starts with a one-day international against, yes, Zimbabwe in Kimberley on September 30.

Two more games of the same are followed by a trio of T20s against the Zimbos. Joy.

Pakistan arrive in December to play three Tests, five ODIs and three T20s: unarguably the highlight of the season for South Africa-based fans.

Nevermind which Pakistan turn up — the dazzlers or the dreadfuls — they won’t be boring.

At the very least some of their players might be spotted in a strip club long past curfew, like they were in February 1998.

The resultant furore led to the first Test, at the Wanderers, being postponed by 24 hours. It started, with delicious irony, on Valentine’s Day.

Wisden took a dim view: “Not for the first time, a Pakistan tour mixed enthralling cricket with mayhem. Even as the teams gathered for the first Test in Johannesburg, there was a strange atmosphere of peevishness in the air.”

Alas, the same can’t be said for the next team to come to South Africa’s shores in the coming months, Sri Lanka, who will play five ODIs and three T20s starting in March.

Unlike India and Pakistan, and like Bangladesh, and Lankans have yet to come to terms with South African conditions to any respectable degree.

At least, that’s the perception. The stats of the matter say Pakistan have won 40.23% of the matches they have played in South Africa and Sri Lanka 30.30%.

But what would you rather pay good money and sit in the sun to see: Pakistan’s Babar Azam hammering a hundred — his most recent, albeit against those hapless Zimbabweans, came off 72 balls — or Rangana Herath, bless his cuddly soul, trundling through another featureless spell of bowling?

Or, indeed, get up in the middle of the night to watch the three ODIs and sole T20 South Africa will play in Australia in November?

Probably the latter. But it is what it is, and we can’t expect to see the Indians and the Aussies every summer.

So, Saffer cricket lovers, you have been warned — ’tis the season to be otherwise occupied.

Unless, of course, you’re that rare being: the proper supporter.

See you out there.