Telford Vice's Blog, page 379

Tick … Tick … Tick … World Cup coming, ready or not

Sunday Times

TELFORD VICE, Cape Town

If AB de Villiers and his men wonder what that ticking is as they step over the boundary today to play the first of three one-day internationals against Sri Lanka in Colombo, it is the sound of their countdown to the World Cup.

SA have eight months and more than 20 games to ensure that, when the alarm goes off, their awakening is not rude. The Sri Lankans, who are ranked a place above the visitors, would prefer the ticking to be followed by a boom.

De Villiers...

SA, not short of questions, need answers in Sri Lanka

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Cape Town

Will Jacques Kallis have recovered from his stiff back in time to play tomorrow? How much will it matter if he has not? And have SA learnt enough from the 4-1 thrashing they took from the same opponents in the same country a year ago to give a better account of themselves this time?

As always at the start of a campaign there are more questions that answers, and that is certainly the case going into the one-day series between Sri Lanka and SA that begins in Col...

Amla, Kallis in spotlight for differing reasons

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Cape Town

If your glass is half-full, Hashim Amla’s century was the most important aspect of SA’s 50-over tour match against a President’s XI in Moratuwa yesterday. If it is half-empty, the fact that Jacques Kallis did not make it onto the park because of a stiff back will make you take an alarmed gulp from that glass.

“After the warm-up (yesterday) he felt some discomfort and a lot of stiffness,” SA team manager Mohammed Moosajee said. “But we’re quite hopeful some of...

Aluta continua … in Cape Town

GQ Magazine

TELFORD VICE, Cape Town

The first shots of my revolution were fired on Sharpeville Day, 1998. Years previously, in the blue midnight smoke of a bar, a friend had told me that you do not grow up until you leave the place where you were born. He left that place and left behind his words to percolate through my soul. I was born in East London on January 25, 1966. I grew up on Sharpeville Day, 1998.

East London is smaller than Port Elizabeth, bigger than Grahamstown and inferior to both....

Money gap between BCCI and the rest looms large

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Cape Town

Compared to SA’s board, India’s will in future bank more than 16 times as much revenue earned from the International Cricket Council (ICC).

The ICC’s restructure, according to insiders, reserves 22% of the money raised during the new media rights cycle – between 2015 and 2023 – and allotted to the full member or test-playing countries for the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). Cricket SA (CSA) have been apportioned 1.3%.

The ICC expects to make betwe...

‘We know what our batting order is going to be’ – Domingo

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Cape Town

SA have spent the first few days of their tour of Sri Lanka talking about the weather. On Tuesday, rain forced their practice session indoors. Yesterday, they were out and about in the jungle heat of one of the hottest times of the year on the Asian island.

If the weather holds today, SA will get cracking with a tour match against a President’s XI in Moratuwa in which all 15 squad members can expect to crossing the boundary.

“The guys practised with good pu...

How much is Kallis worth to SA?

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Cape Town

If Hashim Amla, David Miler, JP Duminy and AB de Villiers each score a half-century in the course of five one-day internationals, and three of them get to within 15 runs of a century, SA should win more of those games than they lose, right? Wrong.

That is exactly what happened in Sri Lanka last July – and SA were thumped 4-1 in the series. At least part of the reason for that bit of skewed logic is that Jacques Kallis was not in the squad. Happily for SA, then...

All aboard for a passage to enlightenment

http://www.GOcricket.com – http://www.gocricket.com/columns/telford-vice/Cricket-News-South-Africa-in-Sri-Lanka–All-aboard-for-a-passage-to-enlightenment/articleshow/37556255.cms

TELFORD VICE, Cape Town

For South Africans, Sri Lanka is where the sub-continent makes sense. It does not intoxicate to the same degree as the magnificent madness that is India. It is not the bedlam on wheels that Bangladesh can seem, and what Pakistan – unseen, unheard and untoured by a South African team since 2007 –...

Lankans will wish Steyn wasn’t there

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Cape Town

Dale Steyn has sent Sri Lanka’s batsmen a picture postcard to let them know, in the nicest way possible, that he is in their ’hood and looking for trouble.

Not long after the SA squad touched down on the lush Asian island, Steyn published a photograph on Instagram yesterday of the view from his hotel room. Louche palm trees, warm terracotta roofs and candyfloss clouds in a satin sky framed a sighing stretch of limpid ocean. If this cricket gig doesn’t work out...

Sharp sense of transition shadows SA to Sri Lanka

Sunday Times

TELFORD VICE, Johannesburg

Around two years ago, SA were preparing to confirm their peerlessness by unseating England as test cricket’s No. 1 team. Graeme Smith captained and Gary Kirsten coached what the world already knew was the best XI in the game, which included the finest allrounder of the age in Jacques Kallis. But the mace would make it official.

On a bright and beautiful evening at Lord’s, the home of the snobs of cricket, the mace became SA’s. Beer and bravado flowed in th...