Sunday Times

Pitched battles ahead

Playing surfaces have been a talking point on the India tour

- By TELFORD VICE

The Proteas are the goose that lays the golden egg

Evan Flint Newlands groundsman

telfordvic­e@gmail.com

● Newlands doesn’t need to go looking for compliment­s, but they were lined up like free beers on a bar counter after South Africa and India played a test for the ages there last month.

“It was fantastic to be part of; it definitely ranks as one of my favourite test matches,” Faf du Plessis said.

And well he might have, considerin­g his team won in what amounted to three days.

But here’s Virat Kohli: “The pitch was outstandin­g.”

Not everyone agreed.

“It was too sporty. To me it wasn’t a great test pitch. It was too favourable for fast bowlers. There was just too much grass on the pitch for me.” That’s Evan Flint, Newlands’ groundsman.

Flint should count himself lucky. The South Africans went out of their way to slam the surface for the second test in Centurion, and all because it was too slow for their liking. That they won didn’t seem to matter.

To the Wanderers, where South Africa got an extreme version of what they wished for, India got their only win of the series, and the country’s most iconic ground came within two demerit points of getting banned from hosting internatio­nal matches for 12 months.

And all because people are trying to tell groundsmen how to do their jobs.

“It’s never been at this level before,” Flint said. “You always heard via the grapevine — Graeme Smith wants this or he wants that — but it’s never been this … not official because it’s not done on paper.

“But it’s a lot clearer in terms of what they’re looking for.”

Good thing? Bad thing?

“To call it disrespect­ful may be too strong,” Flint said. “But you want to get on with your job and maybe you know more about it — or you should know more about it — than anybody else. So can they leave you to it?

“But I suppose a lot of it comes from them maybe feeling hard done by and not getting what they want in the past.

“The problem comes when you can’t produce what they want, then all hell breaks loose. Like it did at Centurion.”

Bryan Bloy, Centurion’s groundsman, would be justified in taking out a restrainin­g order against anyone in a South Africa tracksuit wanting to have a word.

Or he can borrow Flint’s argument: “I don’t expect AB [de Villiers] to score a hundred every time he bats. It’s kind of the same — you’re not going to get [the pitch] perfectly how you want it all the time.”

Around the middle of this month Flint and his colleagues from Kingsmead, St George’s Park and Wanderers will meet in Johannesbu­rg to discuss next month’s test series against Australia, who will come with a proper pace attack. Flint was unsure whether Du Plessis would be around.

“Either we’ll thrash things out or Faf will give us our instructio­ns,” Flint said. “I think it will be more of a chat and seeing how we can clear things up; at least make it not such a big talking point.

“He listens to what you’re saying when you’re talking about the pitch, and he remembers very well. If you said something to him last year you can’t tell him something different this year.

“He’s a reasonable guy but it seems crazy that it’s come to this.”

Perhaps that’s happened because of South African cricket’s lopsided economy. At the most recent groundsman’s conference attendees were left in no doubt about where their salaries came from: “The Proteas are the goose that lays the golden egg, and if the goose lays the golden egg all that money filters down to everybody. So we give them all that they want to help them lay that golden egg.”

But there’s evidence that lessons are being learnt.

“Even though the conditions are challengin­g, you’re an internatio­nal cricket player, so you should adapt better,” Du Plessis said after South Africa lost the first one-day internatio­nal at Kingsmead on Thursday.

Give that man a beer.

 ?? Picture: Gallo Images ?? Triathlete­s Henri Schoeman and Richard Murray are off to Cape Town and Gold Coast in Australia as part of their journey to Tokyo’s Olympics in 2020.
Picture: Gallo Images Triathlete­s Henri Schoeman and Richard Murray are off to Cape Town and Gold Coast in Australia as part of their journey to Tokyo’s Olympics in 2020.

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