You can bet on Stolk becoming a Protea after under-19 duty

There is a small problem with the cricket oval at the Old Eds sports club in Houghton if you are a 17-year-old called Steve Stolk. The boundary on the Third Street side of the ground is a little too close to the road. Sixes belted there tend to bounce off the hot tarmac.

A few from Stolk have ended up in the street in the under-19 tri-nation series involving SA, India and Afghanistan. At least one of them did so on Monday during his entertaining innings of 40 from 21 balls against Afghanistan. It took him until the third over to let rip, perhaps the frustration of the loss to India on Saturday at the same ground firing his arms.

Kahil Ahmed, the leggie, went for 18 in that third over off Stolk, before he was dispatched for another six, Stolk’s final of the match, in the eighth over. SA won at a canter and qualified for a final that never happened. Joburg is a wonderful place in the summer, but sometimes the rain comes at just the wrong time, as it did on Wednesday.

Whether SA would have beaten India in the final we will never know. India had the rub of them in the tri-nation series. Last Saturday they posted a slightly under-par 256 against India, but were undone by an over-par Uday Saharan, the India captain. He rode an early storm when two wickets fell for just two runs to score 112 and reinforce India’s status as favourites to win the ICC Under-19 World Cup that starts in Potchefstroom and Bloemfontein on January 19.

MOMENTUM

But the win against Afghanistan, as a member of the SA management said, was about “momentum”, that magical, mythical and mysterious dimension where form meets and needs skill, mentality and, well, luck.

SA will start the World Cup against the West Indies in Potchefstroom. Ireland will play the US on the same day, while Afghanistan shall enjoy the delights of Buffalo Park the next day against Pakistan.

The question, so often asked, is who will make it from under19 to the big stage, the grandness of international cricket, such as it is in its ever-shifting shape, finding space in the traffic jam that is global franchise cricket?

Well, Stolk should do, for one. He’s 17 and of a goodly size for an opener, broad of shoulder and solid of girth, and he calls adult males “sir” when he meets them. Actually, they all do. At Old Eds I sat beside a friend who has been working with them in their off-field competencies, and everyone of that SA team who walked past doffed their cap and said “hello, sir”.

It is, perhaps, a mark of their humility that playing for SA Under-19 is either the start of their journey or their peak, a moment when they reach heights few others do. They are in no rush to let this time pass them by, to look further ahead than they should to the land of the future.

ATTRITION RATE

Getting to the under-19 national team requires rolling through an attrition rate that is already heavy. Times that attrition rate by 100 and you come close to the likes of, say, Aiden Markram, who was player of the tournament at the 2014 under19 World Cup.

So, who will follow Markram and, please don’t let this be a jinx, Stolk? David Teeger, the captain, has something about him, a natural sense of leadership and calmness, which he has needed to overcome the bile that has followed his statements over the Middle East war.

Riley Norton, the all-rounder in Teeger’s team, is the first man-boy to be picked for both the SA schools rugby and cricket teams in six years. Not a large percentage of the 15 who have made both teams since 1974 have gone on to the heights predicted nor expected of them. Conrad Jantjes, who also played football for SA at schools level in 1996, played for the Boks. Herschelle Gibbs made both squads in 1992 and, well, he did what was expected on and off the field from him.

Off the field is where SA will be hoping Stolk will thrash a few deliveries from January 19. He will be playing at a ground near you. Wander down and watch, even just to be able to say “I was there when …”