Members End: Vehicular vice, spin doctors, Oppenheimer ‘bodyguards’, and the 12th-man tango

Sunday Times - February 16, 2014

TELFORD VICE, Centurion

Jacques Kallis was signed for R10-million by the Kolkata Knightriders this week, but you have to wonder whether the bloke needs the money. As evidence that he does not, we offer the low growl and red flash that invades the Newlands parking lot these days. When the Ferrari stops, out of it steps Kallis himself. Then again, what with second-hand Ferraris going for around R2.5-million in SA, maybe that big paycheque is going somewhere fast. Either way, classy car, classy guy.

Herschelle Gibbs is not quite in that league of vehicular vice. In fact, indications are that the once wild child of SA cricket has been tamed. Told that a television commentary crew featuring - as one covering the first test in Centurion does - Gibbs, Andrew Symonds and Makhaya Ntini is asking for after-hours trouble, Gibbs said, “Maybe a few years ago. But now ... Nah.” Then, at the same ground where he once emerged from a disciplinary hearing holding a beer in each hand, Gibbs helped himself to a six-back from the pressbox fridge. A six-pack of bottled water, that is.

Reporters say all sorts of silly things to television cameras. The day before the first test started one of them was opining deeply about how spin would play a minimal role in the match. From behind him came a strident voice all atwang with Australianism: “No, mate - it certainly will.” With that, Michael Clarke strode briskly past the camera.

The next day, two reporters had no less a privileged personage than Nicky Oppenheimer to thank for being able to sidestep some of the red tape required to enter an international cricket venue. As the hacks walked towards the ground, and while were still some distance from their usual entrance, a vehicle gate that has, in previous seasons, invariably been locked rolled back to allow Oppenheimer’s car - which was neither red nor a Ferrari - to glide through untroubled. The journos took their chance and ducked into the ground next to the car, sparing themselves significant footslog and faffing. Thank you, Mr Oppenheimer, sir. Or did the security staff on the gate think the hacks were presidential-style bodyguards?

To be the 12th-man in a test match is to be the XI’s skivvy. But there would seem to be honour - or at least civility - between opposing skivvies. So it was when Dean Elgar and Moises Henriques crossed paths while skivvying in opposite directions in Centurion’s corridors this week. Henriques, so lost he had wandered into and then quickly out of an entrance used by the media, stopped Elgar, asked for directions and got them. The truce over, both scurried off and resumed their errands.