Faf back where it all began

DESPITE being the central figure in a flare-up that set an intense World Cup quarterfinal alight in Dhaka a year earlier, Faf du Plessis arrived in Australia four years ago an innocuous presence.

Outside of Pretoria nobody really knew who the well-groomed former Affies boy was. In fact, a seasoned columnist wrote ahead of the 2012 tour: “Graeme Smith’s No 1-ranked team comes without the usual bench strength ... there is no specialist batsman in reserve.”

This anonymity allowed Du Plessis, who had yet to make his Test debut, to slip into hotels behind superstars like Smith, Jacques Kallis, Dale Steyn, AB de Villiers and Hashim Amla without too much of a fuss.

How things have changed with South Africa’s return to Down Under. In 2016, Du Plessis is now the leader of the Proteas and a stalwart in the batting line-up.

Hotel staff at the Intercontinental in Adelaide would also not have forgotten him in a hurry. It was here that an exhausted, but nevertheless elated, bleary-eyed Du Plessis returned after completing one of the most extraordinary Test innings of all time. He blunted the Australian attack for 466 minutes – that’s 14 minutes shy of eight hours – to save the second Test of that 2012 tour for South Africa. Having scored a century in the process, and to have done all this on debut, it is needless to say the celebrations carried on long into the night.

After the initial hesitation over the merits of facing Australia in a day-night Test, there is certainly a case of “pink-ball” fever permeating through the Proteas squad at present. It’s almost as if the novelty of playing in South Africa’s first Test under floodlights has awoken the child-like characteristics within the players, including Du Plessis.

“I haven’t faced or thrown the pink ball around, so it’s all pretty new to me. It will be nice to see how it plays,” he said. “I know some of the guys have pink balls in their kit, especially the bowlers.

“We’ve asked around a little bit and read the stuff other teams have been saying about the pink ball. I’ve got no expectations of it. I’m going in without any experience of it at all.”

Du Plessis will at least, though, have two opportunities to assess the pink ball in two floodlit warm-up matches prior to the Adelaide Test on November 24.

AMONTH a go if you’d have said that ahead of the third round meeting between the KZN Dolphins and the Titans it would be the latter still searching for a win and the former riding the crest of an early season wave, someone would have demanded you have your head read.

Pre-season, the word out of the Dolphins camp was of a dysfunctional union, searching for a CEO, that had lost two star players, a coach who’d left in somewhat controversial circumstances and a group of players who did not trust their administrators.

Yet, it is the Dolphins, despite that myriad of off the field problems who will walk out on to SuperSport Park this morning brimming with confidence.Two games into the 2016/17 Sunfoil Series, they’ve posted two wins. One bowler in their ranks now holds the record for most wickets in a franchise match and they’ve produced two players for the Proteas this season, one of whom is action this weekend against the competition’s defending champions.

In recent seasons those kinds of things would normally be the preserve of the Titans, but it is they, with a high profile former national superstar as coach, who are under early pressure in defence of their four day crown. “We have experienced two weeks of sub-standard cricket and we have had the swagger knocked out of us,” said Mark Boucher this week.

In his playing days Boucher thrived when the pressure was at its most intense and now as a coach we will get to see how he gets his players to react as they seek to get their season on track.

The Titans lost to the Knights after gaining a 113-run first innings lead and then capitulating with the bat in the second. Last week in Port Elizabeth, against the Warriors, they failed to take advantage after choosing to bat first and then again suffered a second innings meltdown with only a 100-run ninth wicket part- nership between Morne Morkel and Heinrich Klaasen sparing their blushes.

This week would have been used for them to reset. Morkel and Dean Elgar are in Australia with the Proteas, but Farhaan Behardien, David Wiese and Aiden Markram are all in the squad to face the Dolphins.

It is an intriguing early test for the defending champions and for the mentality Boucher is trying to instil in a dressing that must still be coming to terms with his methods.

Elsewhere, the Lions have spent most of the past week working on their batting ahead of a trip to Kimberley to face the high-fly- ing Knights, who like the Dolphins have won their opening two matches.

The Lions have picked up just a single batting bonus point from the first two rounds of matches, a bitterly disappointing return given the talent in their ranks. Stephen Cook and Temba Bavuma departed with the Proteas last weekend, so the spotlight falls firmly on off-season signing Reeza Hendricks, who will be back in his home town hoping to make an impression against his former team.

But improvement will be demanded of all the Lions batsmen, who have thus far mustered just three half-centuries between them, two of which came from the bats of Cook and Bavuma.

In Cape Town, the Cape Cobras, still enmeshed in controversy over the continued employment of Paul Adams as coach, face a Warriors team brimming with self-belief following last week’s triumph at St George’s Park.

The Cobras players, along with the SA Cricketers Association and members of the Western Cape Cricket board, met with the CCMA this week in an attempt to resolve the grievance between Adams and a number of the Cobras’ players. At the meeting the parties agreed that the conciliation process be extended by two weeks, to give all involved the chance to “agree a clear process to further monitor, assess and address the situation on the ground”.

Adams, meanwhile, continues in his role and has called on many of the players to pull up their socks and give a better account of themselves after starting the season with consecutive defeats.

“It’s been a tough start, but what we’re looking to do, is to draw on the performances of the young players,” said Adams. “The way they’ve played has been inspiring. We now need some of the senior guys to step up and support the younger players.” FIXTURES: Titans v Dolphins, SuperSport Park; Knights v Lions, Kimberley; Cape Cobras v Warriors, Newlands