Members End: Kids on the run, Peterson ducks press, Tsotsobe’s deals on wheels, and the Aussies’ caffeine habit

Sunday Times - February 23, 2014

TELFORD VICE, Port Elizabeth

Graeme Smith knows where his off-stump is, but for a moment this week he was uncertain of the whereabouts of his seven-month-old son, Carter. The Smiths were in a cafe at OR Tambo International awaiting a flight to Port Elizabeth when a fellow traveller spotted Graeme bouncing his daughter, Cadence, on his knee. “Where’s the baby,” Smith was asked. “He’s in there,” he said, gesturing towards a nearby pram as he focused on keeping Cadence upright. The pram was starkly empty. “Err, Graeme, he isn’t ...” But there was no panic: “Oh, yes - Morgan’s changing his nappy.” With that, dad happily chased after daughter, who had been cleared for take-off as she sped down a corridor as fast as her not quite two-year-old legs could carry her. After the madness of Centurion, normality must have been bliss.

A piebald slew of SA and Aussie hacks were given an inkling that change was afoot in the Proteas XI for the second test when they poured into a beachfront bar in PE just after Arsenal kicked off against Bayern Munich on Wednesday night. There, his attention fully focused on yonder television screen, sat Robin Peterson. Then the news that Quinton de Kock had been added to the squad for the ill Alviro Petersen ricocheted through the group. Soon, Petersen had been dubbed “Alvirus” and the Aussies were tapping away at their smartphones to meet early deadlines. And Peterson? When the reporters looked up a few minutes later, he was gone. The power of the press?

As reported last week, Jacques Kallis has taken to roaring through the streets of Cape Town in a red Ferrari. Now Members End brings you details of Lonwabo Tsotsobe’s chariot of choice - or parts thereof. Apparently, Tsotsobe jolts along Jozi’s highways in an Audi to which he has had fitted the wheels of a Bentley. Why? We do not know and we don’t really care. But we do know that effecting that modification will have cost somewhere north of R150 000. That’s a lot of deals on wheels.

A bloke clutching a scrawled note pitched up at the mobile coffee stall at St George’s Park during the lunch interval on Thursday, and placed quite some order: “Ten cappuccinos, three lattes and a long black, please.” All of it was destined for the Australian dressingroom. And, no, they weren’t ordering a Tsotsobe.