Down and out South Africa need to look up

“We’ve not really been able to put enough runs on the board, and the attack that we wanted to have, we don’t have. Therefore we needed more runs to work with.” - Ottis Gibson

Sunday Times

TELFORD VICE at Lord’s

FATHER Time stooped over the stumps atop the Mound Stand at Lord’s on Sunday, offering South Africa solace for their sorry World Cup campaign even as they went through the motions against Pakistan.

The scythe that curves over the figure’s shoulder ends in a point as sharp as the criticism levelled at Faf du Plessis and his squad. That’s nothing compared to the unseen but not unfelt scythe that has ripped through their confidence.

There were times during their match against New Zealand at Edgbaston on Wednesday when it seemed they were not done, most of them while Rassie van der Dussen was batting and Chris Morris was bowling.

But there were other times when they looked dead in the water; when whatever David Miller did in the field failed to earn a dismissal, and when Andile Phehlukwayo blooped a waist-high no-ball to Kane Williamson, who slapped what wouldn’t have been a catch to Lungi Ngidi, who put it down.

Perhaps most ominously, Phehlukwayo and Quinton de Kock, two of the few consistent performers for South Africa, had their worst games of the tournament up to that point.

De Kock lost his leg stump to Trent Boult’s yorker in the second over, and didn’t notice the edge that would have ended Kane Williamson’s flinty innings at 76 and, probably, won the game for South Africa.

Instead, Williamson went to his century off Phehlukwayo in the last over with a mighty six, launched over midwicket with a knee grounded, and clinched the match next ball, which he sent scurrying through backward point for four.

But even victory would only have moved South Africa’s problems forward to Sunday’s match, not solved them.

As Ottis Gibson said: “We’ve not really been able to put enough runs on the board, and the attack that we wanted to have, we don’t have. Therefore we needed more runs to work with.”

An injury-stricken pace attack, robbed of Anrich Nortjé before the tournament started, denied Dale Steyn before he had played a game, and without 36 of the 60 overs Lungi Ngidi could have bowled before Sunday, soldiered on with reinforcements as best they could. But there was no rescuing the batting from itself.

The fairytale of Hashim Amla making the squad despite his form and family concerns suffered a cruel ending just 23 balls into the tournament courtesy of Jofra Archer’s bouncer, which crashed into the grille of helmet. With Amla seemed to go South Africa’s belief that they could be a batting force, never to be seen again — they have reached 250, hardly an imposing score, only once.

Miller, JP Duminy and Aiden Markram have batted as if they would rather be anywhere else besides on the world stage, holding in their hands an opportunity to write their names in lights, cameras and actions.

The best you could say about all that is Phehlukwayo and De Kock will be back. They are 23 and 26, and part of the future. So are Kagiso Rabada, Ngidi and Markram, who will still be under 30 when the next World Cup hoves onto the horizon.

But Du Plessis, Amla and Steyn will surely no longer be around, and Duminy and Imran Tahir have already said they’re done.

South Africa will likely soon have a new coach and they will need a new captain in due course, and that will be just the start of it.

But, for now, they are blessed with a fine leader and they should play for him.

“Cricket means a lot to me and the performance of this team means a lot to me, but I certainly can't, if results don't go our way, start running in the other direction,” Du Plessis said.

“That's not my character. So I'll keep pushing forward and facing north, and hopefully that will be good for the team and good for myself as well.”

So, how does Father Time, who has been part of the lore of Lord’s since 1926, when he was donated by Herbert Baker, the architect of Grandstand, offer the South Africans solace?

During the Blitz in World War II, a cable anchoring a barrage balloon — part of London’s defence against German bombing raids — snagged the weathervane and ripped it clean off the roof.

He was struck by lightning in 1992, and in 2015 Cyclone Niklas swept in from the east, killing 11 people in Germany, Australia and Switzerland, and leaving Father Time clinging to his post but jutting out horizontally.

And every time repairs were carried out and he was put back together and returned to the splendour that Du Plessis and his players saw on Sunday.

But only if they lifted their heads and looked up.