We could see devils in the donga that lurked at the Wanderers for the match against India last January. Thy cricket fairies’ will was done: St Virat’s team won.
TELFORD VICE in Paarl
Our Groundstaff,
Who art in shorts,
Hallowed be thy craft,
Give us this day and others our daily pace and bounce, but not a lot more,
And forgive us our doubts given the pitches you have prepared these past few seasons,
As we forgive those who have prepared bastardly surfaces to thwart South Africa,
For thine is the roller,
The mower and the watering hose,
For ever and ever,
Howzat?
Your columnist is happily free of the kind of faith that, without a smidgen of evidence, somehow makes people mistake ancient fairytales for truth.
But he has sent up — or is it down? — that prayer nonetheless.
And he has a far better chance of his plea falling on fertile ground than if he had fluttered it at the god-shaped vacuum we imagine is inside us.
Why? Because the International Cricket Council (ICC) has issued the commandment that a covenant will be deemed to have been broken if a pitch is deemed poor enough.
And that will cost the home team points in cricket’s new testament: the good news gospel of the World Test Championship.
Which goes a long way to explaining why the surfaces for South Africa’s series in India last month were heavenly compared to the hellish pitches of their previous rubber there four years ago, when the game was still run according on old testament rules.
Talking snakes convinced people to eat all-revealing apples — “Try it; it’s delithioussss …” — an animal rights activist with a thing for boats went on a 40-day lost weekend, which ended in a drunken orgy, and home teams were free to subject their opponents to 22 yards of fire and brimstone.
The cricket produced was, predictably, biblical. And not in a good way. Here in South Africa, for instance, we could see devils in the donga that lurked at the Wanderers for the match against India last January. Thy cricket fairies’ will was done: St Virat’s team won.
So the promise of salvation when England arrive next month to play four Tests is, though not divine, exactly the type of intervention South Africa need to help them repent the sins of their recent past.
Apparently the wealthy find it more difficult to enter paradise than a camel does to pass through the eye of a needle. Thing is, no-one wonders how big the needle is.
Similarly, you can’t know how good — or poor — your team is if they tilt the balance in their favour by preparing pitches according to the rites of the dark arts.
But the truth of a fair surface will, eventually, set them free.
South Africa have dwelled in the valley of the shadow of this deadly dodginess for too long.
Let a decently South African pitch be their guide and they shall not want for neither runs nor wickets.
That will maketh the visitors to dive into green pastures in vain bids to stop boundaries.
That will also leadeth the South African bowlers beside the still waters of liquidised opposition batting orders.
They will fear no match referee for they will be on their right side forever.
Their groundstaff will preparest a pitch for them in the presence of their opponents.
Though they will anointest their heads with helmets and make sure their protective cups do not runneth over their whites, they should fear not.
Goodness and mercy will surely follow them for all five days of every Test they play at home, and they will dwell in the ICC’s good books for the entire summer.
You might call this blasphemy, or plain bloody lunacy. But you can’t blame a cricket columnist for going just a little mad in this silly South Africa of ours.
There’s too much seriousness out there not to preach some piffle into the ears of the faithful. And the faithfree. Not to mention the agnostics.
We’re not sure any more which forces are good and which are evil, and no book is good enough to tell us the difference.
In the beginning there was light. Does that mean in the end there will be darkness?
Amen to that. Not.
First published by the Sunday Times.
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