Faf’s fellas were in fine fettle thanks to his leadership
● Cricket billows with unrequited romance, of stories told by bleeding hearts. Or fingers.
At the Wanderers on Monday, the penultimate day of the tumultuous test series against Australia, Faf du Plessis removed his right glove after being struck by Pat Cummins to reveal an index finger in trouble.
South Africa’s captain had flung his bat to the ground in pain when he was hit on the same finger not 24 hours before. He had broken that finger during the first one-day international against India in February, and missed the rest of that series and the T20s that followed.
Now he had been hit again, and his finger was swollen and bleeding. It was, surely, time to prioritise: his team were 410 runs ahead with seven wickets standing and the start of the Indian Premier League was only five days away.
Perhaps because he had not scored a century in his previous dozen completed test innings and forgiving comparisons with Mike Brearley were beginning to be made, perhaps because he had suffered a first-baller in the first innings, perhaps because he wanted to prove a point to the ugly Aussies, Du Plessis pulled his glove back onto his battered hand and batted on.
He was 43 not out and had faced 91 balls. He faced 87 more before being dismissed for a damn fine 120.
Could the episode be written up as the epitome of how this South Africa team wants to play? Or was that being too romantic?
“No, it’s not,” Ottis Gibson said. “I like that in Faf. That’s the character of a champion and a leader. That why, when he wasn’t making hundreds in every game, I wasn’t too worried. I knew he would come good.
“The other stuff [besides runs] he brings to the team — his leadership, his character — speaks volumes for him as a person.”
Du Plessis has always talked a good game. But, in a team that needs an example to follow, it helps that he is capable of playing a better game than he talks.
And especially so in a season that started quietly on the field in the shape of tests against Bangladesh in Potchefstroom and Bloemfontein, but even then was set on its roller-coaster way by the end of Haroon Lorgat’s tenure as Cricket South Africa’s chief executive.
Soon the Global T20 League was just an expensive idea on the scrapheap, then the Boxing Day day/night test against Zimbabwe at St George’s Park dissolved into a day-anda-bit of farce, and then the Indians and their arrogance arrived.
Only then did Steve Smith bring the most despised side in cricket to South Africa.
It takes a strong team blessed with an even stronger leader to keep their eye on the ball amid all that, and Du Plessis and his men have done so with aplomb.
Played 24, won 15, lost nine — six when Du Plessis was out — tells part of the story.
Not only did South Africa win eight of their 10 tests, they took all 200 wickets on offer.
They’re a superb team, and they are Du Plessis’ team.
And if that’s too romantic a notion, too bad.