The Road to Lord’s paved with pitfalls for Proteas
ODIs in England can hand the advantage to Imran Khan’s boys
● Imran Khan has other things on his mind these days, but he should be pleased to know that Pakistan will beat Australia in the World Cup final at Lord’s on July 14 2019.
If Khan doesn’t come to the sticky end that too often is a consequence of getting into politics, it would be good to have Pakistan’s prime minister on hand amid the old farts in the grandest pavilion in cricket to do the honours and hand over the trophy.
For the captain of the team who took one foot off an early flight home to win the 1992 World Cup to embrace the survivor among the several captains Pakistan will go through before next year’s edition of the tournament is concluded is too valuable a nugget of history to go unpolished.
How do we know it will present itself for polishing?
Call it a spurious theory, but Pakistan
The Pakistanis start their rubber on May 8. That is 293 days worth of advantage
have the best chance of winning because they are the only foreign team who have confirmed one-day internationals in England between now and the start of the tournament.
Five of them, the last one only 11 days before England play South Africa in the World Cup opener at The Oval on May 30.
India’s three-game series in England, which ended on July 17, will be the last ODIs there until the Pakistanis start their rubber on May 8. That translates into 293 days worth of advantage.
It wasn’t how things happened before the 2015 World Cup, when 26 ODIs were played in Australia and New Zealand involving South Africa, Sri Lanka, England, India, Hong Kong and Papua New Guinea.
This time ODI teams will be in action. Just not where it matters. Except Pakistan.
India will play 27 games in the format at home and in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Australia and New Zealand.
The Aussies are in for 16 ODIs, in India and the UAE as well as at home.
England will play 15 — five each away in Sri Lanka and West Indies before that home rubber against Pakistan.
New Zealand have lined up three against Pakistan in the UAE, and home series of three, five and three games each against Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh: 14.
Thirteen is all that’s been written for West Indies; five in India, three in Bangladesh, five at home against England.
South Africa? Five in Sri Lanka, three at home hosting Zimbabwe, another three in Australia, and 10 back home against Pakistan and the Lankans.
That adds up to 21, which means South Africa will be among the best prepared teams by the time they line up with England for the national anthems at The Oval.
It all starts for them in the first match of the series against Sri Lanka in Dambulla today. There’s not much use in cross-referencing performances across formats, but South Africa need to make a fist of things in the ODIs in the wake of the mess they made of the test series.
“The guys, especially those who played in the test series, couldn’t wait for the one-dayers to start: you can see they’re excited,” Wiaan Mulder, who wasn’t part of the test squad but is in the mix for the ODIs and should be part of the World Cup plan, told reporters in Colombo this week.
“The guys who came in, we have so much energy and that’s what they asked of us.”
That much was obvious from the one-day tour match the South Africans played in Colombo on Thursday.
Faf du Plessis came good with 71 but Quinton de Kock, Amla and Aiden Markram — all veterans of the test series — failed with the bat. David Miller, Reeza Hendricks and Mulder — all freshly arrived — scored more than half the runs.
Then another new face, Junior Dala, along with Mulder and Tabraiz Shamsi, who should never have been left out for the second test, claimed eight wickets.
It was only a tour match but, given what we’ve seen in the past few days, it was a start.