SA players unscathed by IPL injuries

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Johannesburg

Hearts would have been in throats in April when Marchant de Lange took his strapping but fragile self off to the Indian Premier League (IPL) to play for the Mumbai Indians.

However, De Lange has returned home with all 2.01 metres of him in one piece. Or, as he said yesterday, “perfectly”.

Happily, AB de Villiers, Dale Steyn, Jacques Kallis, David Miller, Quinton de Kock, Faf du Plessis and Imran Tahir, all of them central to SA’s plans for next season, have also emerged unscathed from the IPL.

Miller, Dolphins coach Lance Klusener said, “is carrying a few scrapes and scratches (from his 16 games for Kings XI Punjab), but otherwise he’s 100%.”

De Kock, who played in seven games for the Delhi Daredevils, had his first training session with the Lions yesterday. “He’s pretty tired, but he’s fit,” coach Geoff Toyana said.

De Lange is not tired, but he is fit. “I didn’t play a lot but I did a lot of off-field training and gym work,” he said.

“I followed the same rehab programme as I did before I went to India, and I was also a little bit wiser this time with regards to the personal management of my own body.”

De Lange lurched into the limelight in the touring Australians’ match against SA A in Potchefstroom in November, 2011, the 14th first-class match of his career. On that rare thing for Potch - a lively pitch laced with inconsistent bounce - he took 5/56 in the first innings.

His next first-class game was also his test debut. He claimed 7/81 in the first innings against Sri Lanka at Kingsmead.

De Lange has hit the headlines since, but usually because he himself was hit - by injuries. Stress fractures became his specialty.

Not this time. “All my injuries are sorted,” he said. It helped that De Lange was picked for just match in India. He dismissed Delhi’s Dinesh Karthik and Manoj Tiwary, and kept the runs down to a respectable 32 in his four overs. But even if De Lange had taken 10/0 it would have made little difference: his sole chance to impress came in the 12th of Mumbai’s 15 games.

“I’m still trying to get to the bottom of why I didn’t play more,” De Lange said. “Sometimes it has to do with the coaches or the four foreigners rule, or sometimes it’s just about what’s best for the team.

“But it was frustrating. I was fully fit for every game.”

To catch coach John Wright’s eye enough to be named in Mumbai’s XI more often, De Lange would have had to get past players of the calibre and experience of Lasith Malinga and Kieron Pollard - who filled two of the four spots foreign players are limited to in 10 and 15 of Mumbai’s games respectively.

So, what De Lange do with his down time?

“I talked to Malinga quite a bit, getting his thoughts on the game.”

All good. But, for the sake of his continued sound health, here’s hoping De Lange did not take any tips on bowling mechanics from “Slinger” Malinga.