Comebacks never work
EVEN seated around a lunch table among around 20 other leather-clad bikers, who’d made the sweaty trip from Cape Town to Langebaan in 38ºC heat this past week, Nick du Randt was instantly recognisable.
Head covered in a black bandanna, thick gold chain around his neck, rings on his fingers and heavily tattooed sleeveless arms, the Gauteng-based boxing trainer is one of the characters of South African sport.
He is also the only man I know who tipped Tyson Fury to beat Wladimir Klitschko in their recent heavyweight title fight.
I asked him how and why: “Fury is big, surprisingly quick, but most importantly, he has never been beaten. That’s a big weapon any boxer at that level has. He doesn’t know how to lose and has the belief that he’s going to win every fight. Klitschko’s been there before (being beaten), and was facing someone as big as he is.
“I don’t know why Klitschko has activated the rematch clause, because if I was advising him I’d tell him to retire. Should he fight Fury again, the result would be the same, maybe this time Fury even stops him inside the distance,” Du Randt said.
Fight people love talking about the boxing business, and one could spend hours going from subject to subject. I asked him if he’d heard that the once feared, unbeaten Nigerian heavyweight Ike Abeabuchi, had been released from jail at the age of 42, and wanted to return to the ring.
Abeabuchi was a world champion-in-waiting, but his life, and career, went into freefall when he was found guilty in 2001 of battery and attempted sexual assault. Last month he was released from custody and wants to pick up where he left off.
“Bad idea,” said Du Randt. “He won’t get back to where he was. Comebacks hardly ever work – it might if Floyd Mayweather returns, but he’s been retired for less than a year, and was undefeated and the best poundfor-pound fighter on the planet. Abeabuchi can’t succeed at the highest level. Being away from that level of sport and returning to compete again doesn’t work.”
Du Randt was bang on. Comebacks almost always end in tears and disappointment, and one’s not even talking about boxing. It’s from sport’s dictionary of A to Z.
But the subject of comebacks got me thinking about Graeme Smith. Recently, especially in light of the way the Proteas have struggled for form, results and a reliable opening batting pair, there is a groundswell of opinion that says Smith must return for the Proteas.
Please don’t, Biff. Preserve your legacy and let us remember you being the true great you were. One of the finest South African cricketers that we – and the rest of the world – have had the privilege to see. It’s understandable that after a poor year of Test cricket for the Proteas there is talk of getting Smith back in the set-up.
When he retired abruptly during the Newlands Test against Australia in March 2014, Smith did so with career stats that showed he’d played 117 Tests, scored 9 265 runs at an average of 48.25 and hit 27 hundreds.
It’s a record that entitles him to be called a cricketing legend, bearing in mind his comparative stats with other Test openers.
Life is a cycle and sport is one too. SA are struggling right now, but they will be back. There’s simply too much talent in this country not to unearth more leaders and great opening batsmen.
But to deny that the Test team is in trouble is to have your head stuck in the sand. To provide constructive criticism doesn’t mean you’re taking a personal pop at the players. It’s opinion, and everyone has an opinion.
One also needs to remember that when Smith retired, his last 10 Test innings had been scores of 68, 44, 47, 27no, 10, 4, 9, 14, 5 and 3. Looking back, he retired on top, before he’d gone over the edge.
Smith is now impressing as a television analyst and he’s an outstanding ambassador for the game. Should he want to come back, let him do so, like Kallis does, in the T20 environment. Legacies aren’t tarnished in the IPL and Big Bash leagues.
Test cricket, as we came to see in 2015, is a different ball game altogether, even a different sport.