The day Sandton came to the SCG

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Sydney

SANDTON came to the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) on Friday. To the lower reaches of the Victor Trumper Stand, to be exact, where the green shirts amounted to but a puddle compared to the sea of blue that roared support for India in the match against SA at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Sunday.

But the green puddle was loud beyond its size, and on the field SA gave it plenty to be proud about - not least a total 408/5 to which AB de Villiers contributed an undefeated 162 that demanded a rewrite of the book of superlatives. Then SA decimated West Indies for 151.

Many of the Saffers had made their way to the SCG from Rose Bay, the Sydney suburb where hordes try to keep one foot in Africa even as the other strives for a toe-hold in the Lucky Country.

“It’s unusual to hear an Aussie accent in Rose Bay,” one of them said. “There are so many of us there.”

So, what’s it like impersonating an Antipodean?

“Australia is such a hard country to live in - everything is so expensive,” she said in accent that was slowly but surely curdling with Aussieness. “You could buy a mansion in Houghton for what gets you a small, two-bedroom apartment here.

“But when I read about stuff like loadshedding and the chaos in Parliament, it’s not so bad.

“We will never close the door on moving back to SA, but for now this works for us.”

Just then a security guard ordered her not to stand on a particular yellow line at the top of a flight of stairs. Dutifully she moved away. Sandton security guards would know better than to do that, even if they gave a damn what the yellow line was meant to signify.

Out on the field, SA were busy erasing all the yellow lines they could find with the kind of abandon that must have seemed reckless to their watching compatriots.

In deepest Rose Bay, they will talk about Friday’s game for years to come - about De Villiers making up the rules and the physics of batting as he went along, about Imran Tahir looking like he would run all the way to Tasmania when he took a wicket, about the magnificent chaos of it all.

And, next time someone orders a Saffer in these parts to do something for no good reason, they just might not comply so sheepishly.