Times Media
TELFORD VICE, Cape Town
THE next time Morne Morkel runs a ring around himself at the top of his mark he will have a milestone of sorts in his sights.
Morkel’s 2/18 for Kolkata Knight Riders against Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League (IPL) opener at Eden Gardens on Wednesday means he has taken 49 wickets in all the competitive matches he has played since the start of last season.
His half-century, then, is just a ball away. And victim No. 50 could be AB de Villiers or Virat Kohli.
KKR’s next match is against Royal Challengers Bangalore at Eden Gardens on Saturday. RCB’s batting line-up harbours the twin peaks of De Villiers and Kohli.
Either of their quality scalps would look good on Morkel’s mantlepiece, which is creaking under the weight of his success as fast bowling’s finished article.
A galumphing giraffe when he arrived on the international scene in the Boxing Day test against India in 2006, he has found a way to pull all of his long levers in the right direction efficiently, effectively and, most importantly, consistently.
So much so that he was SA’s leading wicket-taker at the World Cup - a none too shabby achievement in an attack that bristled with Dale Steyn and Imran Tahir. Overall, only Mitchell Starc, Trent Boult and Umesh Yadav took more sticks than Morkel.
But his freshest memory of the World Cup will be staring through his tears at Wayne Parnell, who much like a vet tending a wounded puppy had come to take care of him in the awful moments after Grant Elliott had smashed Steyn out of Eden Park and SA out of the tournament.
Mercifully, whatever else the IPL asks of Morkel an emotional investment will not be required. All he will have to do is play cricket.
“The past couple of months were mentally testing and trying,” Morkel was quoted as saying on the IPL website. “We have moved on now and my focus is with the Kolkata Knight Riders and I want to deliver my best for this team.”
He did exactly that on Wednesday by bowling with confidence and aggression on an unusually well-grassed pitch, striking twice in a dozen deliveries to help reduce Mumbai to 37/3 in the sixth over. They never recovered and KKR won by seven wickets.
South Africans who watched Morkel’s progress last season will not have been surprised by that performance. But they will be interested to know that 2014-15 was his second leanest of the past six southern summers.
The 47 wickets he had taken before Wednesday is one fewer than his tally for 2009-10. In the next four southern hemisphere campaigns he claimed 52, 61, 51 and 39 victims.
The fluctuation is partly explained by varying opportunities - but only partly. In his bumper 2011-12 season, when Morkel dismissed 61 batsmen, he bowled 2495 balls. In 2013-14, when he sent 39 packing, he sent down 2049 deliveries.
But regardless of what the stats say good fast bowling is like pornography: we know it when we see it. In those terms, and no others, Morkel is a porn star.
Comments
No comments yet. Start the conversation.