Lord’s good to Proteas

THE Proteas start their four-match Test series against England at the Lord’s, the “home of cricket”, today without skipper Faf du Plessis. The South African tourists are already without bowling kingpin Dale Steyn and premier batsman AB de Villiers.

Dean Elgar takes over the captaincy and one of two rookies, Aiden Markram or Theunis de Bruyn, will take Du Plessis’s place. Markram, a former Under-19 World Cup-winning captain, is uncapped and De Bruyn has one Test cap.

England also have a first-time skipper in Joe Root, who takes over a formidable unit that boasts plenty of experience in Alastair Cook, Stuart Broad, James Anderson, Moeen Ali, Jonny Bairstow and the explosive presence of Ben Stokes.

Elgar has seasoned players of his own to call on in Hashim Amla, Vernon Philander and Morné Morkel, not to mention the precocious talents of young Kagiso Rabada and Quinton de Kock.

Lord’s has been a happy hunting ground for South African teams in the past.

SINCE readmission, South Africa have played five Tests at Lord’s, winning four and drawing one. In 1994, Kepler Wessels’s team beat England by 356 runs after Allan Donald and Fanie de Villiers had terrorised the English batsmen.

In 1998, it was Donald and Shaun Pollock who helped steer the Proteas to an emphatic 10-wicket victory.

The match in 2003 was another one-sided affair in favour of the South Africans. Graeme Smith scored 259 in the first innings and Makhaya Ntini took 10 wickets to secure victory by an innings and 92 runs.

The match in 2008 was drawn, but not before Smith had posted 107, Amla 104 not out and Neil McKenzie 138 as South Africa followed-on.

The last time the Proteas visited Lord’s, in 2012, Amla scored 121 to add his name to the ground’s honours board and Philander took seven wickets to earn Smith’s team a hardfought 51-run victory and secure the series 2-0.

There you have it: Lord’s is filled with plenty of happy memories for South African cricketers.

Let’s hope the class of 2017 continues the trend.