Tourists,
Pleasing to see the Australians file off the plane at Jo’burg and head straight for the nets, leaving The Captain to fondle The Ridiculous Mace for the camera’s and bleat the usual platitudes for the press.
The Vice Captain would have immediately retired to his sick bed to nurse his sore Social Finger and employ a highly-skilled slightly-built four-and-a-half foot female therapist to walk up and down on his worrying recurrence of Shagger’s Back.
Best cure known to man.
At least the administrators have had the decency and sense to tell the WAG’s to stay at home, at least for the duration of the first test, as there’s a bit of serious business on here.
Pup has always been a player who has been plagued by niggles, but battled on through the pain with a smile on his face, but it’s a real concern that now at the age of 27, those niggles are getting to a stage where they prevent him from playing from time to time.
Nothing worse than a fragile Captain, who is forced to take regular leave of command.
It must have the medico’s scratching their heads.
Trust the Seth Efreakens to pull the first swifty of the caper by naming a 4th XI for the only tour match, on the grounds that the blokes who would have regularly made the 2nd XI are busy with domestic Twenty20 cricket over the weekend and “can’t be spared”.
While the game was never going to amount to much more than centre wicket practice, the mind games are already being played.
The PJ Hughes kiddie, for example, could come out and stroll to a century against a sub-standard attack in his first representative appearance for Straya, and then think he is the best thing since bottled scotch.
The Kat has promised to take young Phil under his wing and guide him through the tour, extolling the virtues of dedication, application, and controlled violence, [“now, son, if you ever feel the need to throttle the Vice Captain, for heaven’s sake, just make sure you do it gently”], but it will be no easy task with a young fella who knows he’s shiit hot and will have difficulty keeping his big head small enough to fit through the dressing room door, let alone a bloke who has never experienced one of cricket’s swift and spectacular falls from grace.
Just ask Dave Warner, who’s yet to do anything for Straya, and suddenly finds himself back in club cricket, after probably unwittingly condemning himself with the willing complicity of the selectors to stereotype, and seriously jeopardizing his chances of ever playing first class cricket into the bargain
[Joisus! NSW even resorted to opening with Greg “Snail” Mail in the recent Shield match against Victoria, when he couldn’t score a run in recent district cricket, and has proven himself over the years to be a spectacularly consistent failure at the first class level].
At least Hughes might get some appreciation first up of why Seth Efreaken crowds are known world-wide for their warm heartedness, kindly spirit, and magnanimous appreciation of the game.
The local punters will no doubt remind the Strayans that the only Kaffir [and we are not talking about limes here] they have ever picked in living memory is not only dropped, but suspended indefinitely, on account of mental instability, and an over fondness for the drink.
It will be interesting to see how MJ Clarke gets on as a leader of men, given the undoubted tensions in the team, and his now unabashed and public hankering to pinch Punter’s job.
The Veldt is a dangerous place, where seemingly sane men can go completely mad overnight; cracked by the mental torture of quick turn around test cricket, and/or sent troppo with a whiff of the braii up their nostrils, and a skinful of Castle Lager under their belts.
The proof of course, will be in the pudding, or in this case in the boerewors and the soasties.
