Diamond in the dust for Miller
Kimberley is as far from Las Vegas as you can get. Almost 17 000km, and that’s only in distance. For instance, there are 104 casinos in Las Vegas. In Kimberley? Two.
So, does what happens in Kimberley stay in Kimberley — like it does in Vegas? Not so fast, David Miller said slowly: “It’s not the biggest ground, and not the biggest city or town, and there’s not much going on.” If nothing happens in Kimberley, will there be anything to stay in Kimberley?
A one-day series against Bangladesh anywhere except in Bangladesh is as close to nothing happening as cricket can get. Even in Kimberley, where the first of the three matches will be played today.
Pitch is always a good one
But there is a diamond in the dust for Miller: he will play his 100th ODI today. It’s taken him more than seven years to get there, and in the process he’s missed 47 of South Africa’s games in the format.
You could blame the selectors or transformation imperatives for the gaps in Miller’s playing record, or the man himself — he had reached 40 only four times in his previous 16 innings, and was not out just twice, when he was dropped after South Africa’s series in India in October 2015.
But, in Miller’s last dozen trips to the crease, he has passed 70 twice and 100 twice more, all of those innings unbeaten.
Might today’s game, given that it is likely to be played on a surface as flat as the Bangladeshis could be after being hammered by 333 runs and an innings and 254 in the test series, give Miller opportunities to keeping cashing in his chips?
“I feel a good energy about this little town and the pitch is always a good one,” he said.
Certainly, Bangladesh will make tougher opposition than they did in the tests. They prefer their cricket balls white, and they seem to prefer a captain other than Mushfiqur Rahim, who after the tests came in for a media bashing even harsher than the clang he took on the side of his helmet in Bloemfontein last Sunday courtesy of Duanne Olivier.
Later that night, the match won and lost inside three days, several members of Bangladesh’s squad roamed a half-built shopping centre to shelter from a storm outside and, perchance, hunt and gather supper. But Mushfiqur was nowhere to be seen, and when the players settled into a seafood restaurant star allrounder Shakib Al Hasan — who had done an AB de Villiers and opted out of the test series — sat at the head of table.
The badlands tour
Just like Shakib, De Villiers returns today. Just like Mushfiqur, he is no longer his team’s captain. That job is now Faf du Plessis’s, which is a good thing for all concerned. But he will, of course, be happy to count De Villiers among his shiniest gems.
The series moves to Paarl on Wednesday and ends in East London on Sunday. You could call it the badlands tour, which might mean Kimberley has more in common with Las Vegas than thought.
Even so, Vegas has, per capita, more than four times as many churches as Kimberley. Here’s hoping some of the latter’s are emptier this morning and the pews at the Diamond Oval a touch fuller.