Van Wyk shows why he should have been in World Cup squad

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Cape Town

CHRIS Gayle did not come out to play at Kingsmead on Wednesday. For the first time in more than two months, JP Duminy did.

But that did not matter in the context of the third T20 international between SA and West Indies, what with the series already won by the visitors.

And especially not with Morne van Wyk becoming the the third South African to score a century in the format at this level.

Van Wyk’s 114 not out was the innings of a man who should have been in SA’s World Cup squad. He took his ton off 67 balls, and he mashed seven sixes - two of them over cover - and nine fours. It was batting at its most brutally beautiful.

That powered SA to 195/3 against opponents who looked like they would rather be bowling and fielding on the nearby beach. They batted that way, too, and were dismissed for 126 to make SA winners by 69 runs.

Van Wyk, however, played the game of his life. “When I got to, like, 98 it was the fist time it struck me that I might make a hundred for my country,” he said. “Even the umpire told me to just keep breathing.”

Gayle, who smashed SA’s attack for 167 runs off the 72 balls he faced to win the first two games and with them the series, was ruled out by his ongoing back problem.

Because of another back issue, David Miller’s, Duminy returned a game ahead of schedule from a layoff for a chronic knee condition. He celebrated by dancing down the pitch to the first ball he faced and launching it over long-on for six. He faced just two balls, and bowled six.

A thunderstorm in the morning would have had the Kingsmead faithful holding their heads in their hands. Nowhere else in SA has the weather been as cruel to cricket.

Of the previous 50 games played in the shorter formats at the ground, six had been washed out. How bad is that? Six is also how many matches have been abandoned to the elements out of all 308 international limited overs games played at all 12 other venues in SA.

But the skies cleared, and Van Wyk and Reeza Hendricks were able to post 111: the third century opening stand in SA’s 76 T20s.

Eighty-six runs roared off the first eight overs, but West Indies reeled the home side back after Dwayne Bravo came on to bowl in the ninth.

“They were one-paced until the 10th over,” SA bowling coach Allan Donald said. “Then they became very smart about taking ace off the ball.”

However, Bravo, another “victim” of World Cup non-selection if you believe what Gayle said at the Wanderers on Sunday, turned villain in conceding 23 runs - 18 of them in sixes - in SA’s last over.

Twenty-three runs was also how many Wayne Parnell went for in the fourth over of the West Indians’ reply - by way of a wide, and four fours and a six cracked by Lendl Simmons.

Simmons was caught in the deep off David Wiese in the ninth over for 49 - West Indies only score above 20 in an innings in which they lost their last five wickets for 26 runs. Wiese was not complaining: he took a career-best 5/23, the second five-wicket haul by a South African.

Did it matter, considering the state of the series? “There’s no such thing as a dead rubber when you wear this shirt,” Van Wyk said, wiping at his eye.