Dhanawade’s 1009 runs against juniors was just not cricket

THERE were at least four cricketing stories that made international headlines this past week, with two of them provided by South Africans.

Temba Bavuma’s classy maiden Test hundred at Newlands was one of those historic moments that will be relived over and over.

It’s one for the archives and a real fighting knock by a man who will, hopefully, be a permanent fixture going forward in the Proteas middle order. He hooked, drove, pulled and swept in a manner that had even the sledging English applauding him and shaking his hand at the end of it.

We have waited years for that moment – the first black African to score a hundred for South Africa – though for me it came 10 years too late. Better late than never, though.

Those lauding it as a triumph for Cricket SA’s transformation programme are getting carried away. Had transformation in cricket been working effectively we surely would have had a “Bavuma moment” by 2005, which was a whole schooling generation after the country was unified under one umbrella.

The other headline came when Hashim Amla surpris- thing I have seen and read over the past years have been unanimously in support of Amla’s brilliance at the crease.

He is a South African cricketing great, has scored over 7 000 Test runs, holds the national Test record at 311 not out, and has had a stellar career. As far as I know, the media and public adore him, so I disagree with Domingo who reckoned he hasn’t been appreciated.

But yes, Amla had critics, who surely weren’t criticising the man himself ? My reckoning was that they – me included, rightly or wrongly – felt that the captaincy had burdened him, especially in a difficult 2015. He was making mistakes, at the crease and in the field. Amla admitted as much in his own brave and dignified resignation speech.

“My decision was made two weeks ago after giving it a lot of thought. .. it is based on the fact that I think somebody else can do a better job.”

The message there Pasop England!

Another cricketing headline was West Indian Chris Gayle’s inappropriate remark to a female Australian reporter on live TV when he told her that he “wanted to look into her eyes” and he invited her for a drink, before telling her: “don’t blush, baby”. Rightly so, he was hauled across the coals, although perhaps his “punishment” was too lenient.

He apologised, saying he was “joking”, but he knew it

is: was a live interview and he crossed the boundary.

Perhaps the story that didn’t create world headlines like the above three was the most interesting.

In Mumbai, a 15-year-old cricketer, Pranav Dhanawade, scored a world record 1 009 runs, not out, in a two-day schools match. He faced 327 balls and hit 129 fours and 59 sixes. The team finally declared at 1 465-3. On the first day they had bowled out the opposition for 31.

It amounted to child abuse, because we later discovered that the opposition was made up mostly of 13-year-olds and a few 14-year-olds and was “selected” at the last minute.

After day one, Dhanawade had scored 652 runs off 199 balls. When asked to comment he said: “I want to get to 1 000 runs, I only have 350 to go.” Say what? “Only” 350 to go? Surely the admission right there and then was that it was easier pickings than playing your baby brother in the back yard who himself has one hand tied behind his back?

Where is the sportsmanship when an Under-15 team is allowed by schools to traumatise the younger opposition in the manner in which they did?

The flip side of the coin is that Dhanawade comes from a poor family and his father is a rickshaw driver in the teeming streets of Mumbai.

He said he told his son “to go big” in the hope that his innings would make him visible to the cricket associations in Mumbai and even get him selected for one of Mumbai’s official Under-16 sides.

One can sympathise and understand that sentiment; when you are raised in near poverty you need to be someone extraordinary – or extremely lucky – to be able to break out of that poverty and let’s hope that Dhanawade will be given the opportunity to.

Irrespective of the opposition, he must surely be rather talented.

Yet, it was the manner in which the game unfolded that sticks in the throat. Bowl a team out for 31 and then score 1 465-3 in reply. What emotional effect would that have on the 13-and-14-year-olds at the receiving end of that treatment?