Rainfall poor, but SA cricket is tops At odds with democracy
WHAT do rainfall and cricket have in common? Quite a lot really, although one could say cricket has nothing to do with rainfall, while rainfall has plenty to do with cricket.
Anyway, today’s column is going to cover both. (Like bring on the covers, it’s raining!)
Starting with rain: It’s been an El Niño year with low rainfall and a devastating drought leading to heavily-reduced food production and inflationary food prices, low dam levels and water restrictions in parts of the country.
East London has had quite a torrid year (see table below) with just 512mm measured at Chiselhurst so far.
If we exclude November, which still has a couple of weeks to go, it tells us that eight of the 10 full months, January to end October, have had below average rainfall.
Despite all of that, dams this end of the Eastern Cape are looking good but I can’t see that there has been sufficient run-off this year to boost capacity much.
No matter, I can feel it in my bones that things are going to change for the better soon!
For your interest, here’s a selection of local Department of Water Affairs (DWAF) dams with figures released this week: Bridle Drift 62% of capacity; Gubu 94; Kat River 87; Kommando Drift (Tarka R) 46; Laing 99; Lubisi (Indwe R) 51; Nahoon 83; Ncora (Tsomo R) 44; Rooikrans 72; Sandile (Keiskamma R) 72; Umtata 101; Waterdown 92; Wriggleswade 87; and Xonxa (White Kei) 96. And now to Test cricket … Another brilliant performance in Tasmania last weekend by our South African heroes, again despatching the Aussies convincingly to seal the three match series.
At least it took minds off our miserable current Springbok rugby record.
They’re pathetic running around like a bunch of headless chickens.
Enough said. Rather focus on cricket where we’ve put Australia into a spin, giving them a drubbing for a record equalling (for them) five Test defeats in a row. In 1984 Aussie captain Kim Hughes left the after match press conference in tears after five straight losses. Poor Steven Smith looked miserable on Monday, but managed to stay cool.
Angry with player performances, he said: “I am embarrassed to be sitting here.
“Too many times we lose wickets in clumps, eight for 30 today, 10 for 85 in the first innings, and you are not winning any games doing that. It is happening way too consistently.”
And The Australian newspaper chirped: Not even in the darkest times of Australian cricket’s 1980s dark age was it this bad.
A selection of other fans:
“This nonsense is not Australian cricket. We do not mind losing but we want fight and determination. Giving up because it is all too hard is not what we pay money for.”
“Instability in the batting order starts when Mr Warmer (sic) is allowed to play his own game. The result is that numbers 3, 4 and 5 batsmen are continually off their seats wondering which ball will be his last.”
“Australian cricketers think sledging is part and parcel of a good player. Give up on sledging, concentrate on line and length, a straight bat, good footwork and a high standard of fielding.”
“We have bowlers who never learned the skills of swing or seam bowling.
“Look at Abbott's seam; it is absolutely steady unless he chooses to scramble it.
“Warner is a good attacking batsman but has no brain.
“Smith has a brain but really not a bulletproof defence.”
Oops! Now for Adelaide to make it six defeats in a row. How about that and what will they say then? – robinrosst@gmail.com comments from cricket TS Petrus draws a very important distinction (DD, November 7) between the concepts of “ruling” and “governing”.
They should not be conflated, and thereby confused, as they have very distinct meanings in the South African political context.
As Petrus points out, to be the ruling party is the preferred terminology of the ANC as it seeks thereby to arrogate to itself the powers associated with monarchies or dictatorships.
In doing so, it disregards, in a most cavalier way, the fact that South Africa is a democracy with any party in government doing so solely at the will and discretion of the voting citizens.
It is because of this sensitivity and respect for those who elect it that the Democratic Alliance talks solely of its being, or becoming, the governing party in this country, doing so only with a five-year renewable mandate from the people which it enjoys solely at their discretion.
A proper appreciation of this concept underlies the fact that elected public representatives are only servants of the people and those who think and behave otherwise do so by abusing the public trust placed in them at the ballot box.
The recent examples of contrary thinking and violence demonstrated in Nelson Mandela Bay Metro, Tshwane and Johannesburg show that the ANC still has a long way to go in understanding the basic concepts of democracy.
It is well for us all to be mindful of what Nelson Mandela said during the Rivonia Trial in 1964 that: “I have great respect for British political institutions, and for the country’s system of justice. I regard the British Parliament as the most democratic institution in the world, and the independence and impartiality of its judiciary never fail to arouse my admiration”.
As a country, we have much to learn and to aspire to. — Thembelihle Williams, Southernwood