Let's look
at the Test
rankings
DO NOT be distressed or despondent about the Proteas' performance in the opening match of the Cricket World Cup in England. It's not as if we lost a Test.
We're still ranked fourth in the ICC's world ratings for Test cricket, and the challenge is to climb over England, New Zealand and India in the five-day game.
There are, of course, gradations of complexity in cricket. Test cricket is akin to chess. One-day cricket is the equivalent of draughts. And T-20 cricket is pocket billiards.
So it's not the end of the world to lose a one-day international. It's like coming second in the coconut shies at the fairground. Disappointing certainly, but nothing to fret about.
In fact there are gradations even within the one-day game. Played in whites and in daylight it so resembles Test cricket that traditionalists are comfortable. Played in pyjamas under floodlights, it becomes uncomfortably close to T-20. The atmosphere seems to encourage batsmen to play shots for which we would have been caned at school.
But, having said that, the Oval had its moments. The Barmy Army have taken to wearing the scarlet tunics of the Grenadiers.
England have taken to wearing light blue pyjamas. Lots of people in the crowd were togged out the same in light blue. Surely they can't all have gone to Cambridge?
Highlight of the match was undoubtedly Ben Stokes's absolutely brilliant catch on the boundary, leaping to take the ball oddly in the back of one hand, almost as if he were planning to bowl a legbreak. I've never seen anything quite like it before.
A bit of sparring round the nightclubs of Bristol obviously hones you to a pitch of athleticism.
Linguistic quirk
IT'S rather an odd linguistic quirk that a one-day cricket match between England and South Africa should be a one-day "international".
The old Mercury style book was stern on such issues. The word "Test" applied to cricket, it said. In rugby the word was "international."
They were right. The term "Test" did not come from some sort of "test of strength". It came from the Test Ground in Hampshire, named for the River Test that flows past it.
The first-ever cricket match between England and Australia was organised way back in the 19th century as a novelty, the Aussies being mainly students at university in England. It was played at the Test Ground.
The novelty went on to become a regular thing – Test Matches -, culminating in The Ashes. The "Test" handle stayed, wherever they were playing. And it spread worldwide.
In South Africa it was translated literally in Afrikaans to "Toets" – the test of strength – and applied equally to rugby (in spite of the Mercury style book).
And now a reversal - South Africa play England in a one-day cricket "international". It's an odd quirk, to be sure.
Still a chance?
CLOSE but no cigar - another home loss for the Sharks. It could have gone either way. I'm not sure who won the fight at the end.
Next it's the Jaguares, away in Buenos Aires. Away? Hey, the Sharks must be in with a chance.
Tailpiece
"DOCTOR, help, I've got a cricket ball lodged in my rectum."
"How's that?"
"Now don't you start!"
Last word
Boyhood, like measles, is one of those complaints which a man should catch young and have done with, for when it comes in middle life it is apt to be serious. - PG Wodehouse
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