What South Africa learnt from England

“I’m not coming here to be a super hero. There’s no need for them. You just need guys to come in and do their jobs.” - Quinton de Kock

Sunday Times

TELFORD VICE in London

SOUTH Africa learnt at the Oval on Thursday that turning up for only half the game isn’t going to earn many wins, and that opponents who have a reputation for batting like the blazes are also allowed to bowl out of their skins. And take ridiculous catches.

But, most importantly of all, they found out that Hashim Amla was human — and that seemed to chill the marrow in their bones.

When Amla splintered a bouncer from the slinky, slippery, seriously quick Jofra Archer into the grille of his helmet in the fourth over of South Africa’s reply to England’s 311/8, it was as if everything that had gone before in the World Cup opener was null and void.

Faf du Plessis hadn’t marshalled his resources superbly, surprising all by handing Imran Tahir the new ball and making 17 bowling changes in all. And those bowlers hadn’t responded magnificently to the challenge of stepping out of their comfort zones of pace now, think later.

South Africa hadn’t been impressively calm in the days before their biggest game since that desperate night in Auckland four years ago when another World Cup dream died. They hadn’t refused to be sucked into England’s overthinking.

“When we came off after bowling we said England are probably the more nervous of the two teams,” Quinton de Kock said. “We thought 312 wasn’t a bad score [to chase] especially after the first 20 overs when we thought they could easily get 350. We backed ourselves to chase that down …”

All of the above had been true until the moment Archer’s delivery slammed into Amla’s headgear. All of it was undone immediately.

De Kock isn’t a man for such metaphysics. Instead, he has the memory of watching the calamity and its aftermath from the other end of the pitch.

“The worst thing about ‘Hash’ getting hit is that it was almost like a wicket. It says on the board there’s one down, but it’s actually 30/2.”

In fact, all of South Africa’s wickets were intact when Amla wobbled off for concussion tests, which came back negative. But you couldn’t blame De Kock’s arithmetic. Players like Amla are easily as valuable as two of their lessers.

The damned unfairness struck De Kock: “‘Hash’ batted well in the two warm-up games [scoring half-centuries in both]; he’s been making it look easy.

“Getting injured like that is not something you want for him. But he said he was fine and it sounded like he was fine.”

South Africa were not fine. They never recovered and were done for 207 in 39.5 overs. De Kock made 68 and Rassie van der Dussen 50, and they shared 85 — easily the biggest stand in an innings in which eight others never made it to 20 and the last five wickets tumbled for 40.

“I’m not going to say we should have beaten them but we should have done better,” De Kock said.

His own demise came with a needless hoist to fine leg: “In my head, I know I want to [play a sensible stroke]. And then a certain ball gets bowled and out of nowhere a shot just comes. Just reflexes, I guess.

“It’s something I’m trying to work on. Today it happened again. One day I can get out like that and the next day I can hit it for six. It’s a matter of managing it.”

So he wasn’t asking for miracles, because South Africa didn’t require a miracle to win on Thursday. They were required to bat properly.

“I’m not coming here to be a super hero. There’s no need for them. You just need guys to come in and do their jobs.

“Everyone would like to be like AB [de Villiers], but there’s only one guy like that going around at the moment and he plays for England.”

That would be Ben Stokes, who followed his bustling 89 by hurling himself headlong towards the midwicket boundary to transform, with his hands reversed, a six for Andile Phehlukwayo into a wicket for Adil Rashid. Footage of the catch online hit two-million views well inside 24 hours.

It should be to South Africa’s relief that Stokes gave the more rabid sections of the English press something obvious to rave about rather than tell their readers how this bunch of Japies are just like all the others — chokers-in-waiting.

They aren’t. Happily for them they have several chances left to prove it.