The Heat never really turned up

THE DURBAN Heat finished off their maiden Mzansi Super League campaign with a bit of momentum. They won on the road, defeating the Cape Town Blitz and then the Tshwane Spartans on Wednesday.

Belatedly, they showed what they could do as a team. Those late wins were not enough to stave off the dreaded wooden spoon, but they did at least show some pride in performance after a grim three weeks.

“It’s nice to finish off with a win, but it has been a disappointing campaign for us,” captain Albie Morkel, said at Centurion.

In many ways, he echoed everything that AB de Villiers had said about the Spartans. Understandably, too, because their stories were very similar. Great squads on paper, with a solid foundation of experience, and some ominous overseas players arriving at the end of the tourney.

“Forty for four, again,” Morkel said of the situation his side were in.

“We have found ourselves in that situation too many times, and that was a major problem for us.”

Only this time, Morkel roused himself and bludgeoned 57 not out off just 28 balls to secure a twowicket triumph with a ball to spare.

Morkel was satisfied, but he still wore the look of a man who wanted more. A lot more.

“I don’t want to make excuses but the weather in Durban really didn’t help,” he pointed out.

“Four of the five home games were heavily disrupted by rain, and that made things very difficult.

“When that happens, it is hard for batsmen to get into form. Then we are walking into a situation where we are chasing 11 or 12 an over right away, which is not easy.”

Those may sound like excuses, but anyone who has played cricket in Durban for long enough knows that it is a depressing truth. It rains, and even more so when a big match rolls into town.

It was difficult to even get atmosphere going at Kingsmead because one eye was always on the weather. The Heat must have winced on the road, especially at the partisan venues that they visited.

But by then, the Heat were already fizzling out, their campaign compromised by a batting card that simply didn’t fire.

“When you don’t have confidence as a batting group, that eventually filters down to your bowling and your fielding. You are constantly under pressure, and that was a problem,” Morkel bemoaned.

It was a learning curve, to be sure, and one that may see plenty of personnel changes when the next player draft rolls in.

This was a year for experimentation, and one where some things were allowed to slip, on and off the field.

But on that token, the Heat can’t have been proud of the amount of misfields, dropped catches and general sloppiness. Those are basics.

Perhaps, as Morkel pointed out, that was the domino effect of a team always under pressure with the bat.

There was too much of that, and whoever leads the team in future will have to address the attitude within the team. At times they looked like they were not trying.

The results certainly did not match their considerable parts, and that explained the look on Morkel’s face.

It has been a tough long month under the Heat badge.