Telford Vice's Blog, page 385

From casino casualties to millionaires: how umpiring has changed

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Johannesburg

Rudi Koertzen remembers his first pay packet as an umpire all too well: “It was R75.” For that princely sum, Koertzen and his colleague, Lou Rautenbach, officiated in a Benson and Hedges game at the Victoria Ground in King William’s Town in the late 1980s.

“We were staying at the hotel at the casino and I thought I could double the money,” Koertzen said. “But it never got to that stage, and the next morning after we flew back to PE I had to borrow R10 from...

Play cricket in England or India – you choose

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Johannesburg

England for education, India for impact. According to Shaun Pollock, that is the choice facing cricketers good enough to land deals with counties or Indian Premier League (IPL) franchises.

A dozen of SA’s top players have signed up for IPL sides this year. Of those, JP Duminy and David Miller, who have each scored two half-centuries in three innings, were flying the flag highest by featuring among the top four run-scorers in the tournament going into yester...

Who will get SA’s revs up after Steyn?

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Johannesburg

“Half my career, I was on one knee,” Hugh Page said yesterday, while Brett Schultz gave a novel explanation for the injury that ended his time at the top: “My bum muscle exploded.”

Dale Steyn knows how those two fast bowlers of yore feel. Little went wrong with Steyn’s body for 29 years. But, for his 30th birthday on June 27 last year, he gave himself five injuries – the side, groin, glute, neck and ankle problems he had after the Champions Trophy in Englan...

CSA dump World Cup-winning Jennings

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Johannesburg

Ray Jennings is out of a job less than eight weeks after reaching the pinnacle of his coaching career by guiding SA’s under-19 team to World Cup glory.

Cricket SA (CSA) said yesterday former Strikers coach and Lions assistant coach Lawrence Mahatlane would replace Jennings. Shukri Conrad, previously coach of the Strikers, the Lions and the Cobras, has been appointed coach of CSA’s academy.

“My passion has always been about the development of young cricketers...

IPL: A race within a tournament within a search for Smith’s replacement

GOcricket.com –

TELFORD VICE, Johannesburg

Faf du Plessis has successfully captained most of the teams he has played in from the time he was first able to strap on a pair of pads. AB de Villiers has almost always been a member of those teams. He has also unquestionably been the best player.

Du Plessis’ bracing sense of reality and steady calm has shone out above his...

Why SA’s batsmen lead bowlers in IPL

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Johannesburg

South Africans loom large on the batting hit parade early in this year’s Indian Premier League (IPL) but are conspicuously low on the bowling charts.

The T20 format’s regulations weight the game in favour of batsmen, but Justin Kemp said environmental factors created by the move of the tournament from India to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had further tilted the balance away from bowlers.

“You’ve got to take the grounds into consideration,” Kemp said. “I wa...

Government not walking its own talk, say GCB

Sunday Times

TELFORD VICE, Johannesburg

None of Gauteng’s black African, coloured or Indian schools offer cricket, less than 1% of the Gauteng Cricket Board’s (GCB) annual expenditure comes from state funding, and prominent black clubs want to withdraw from the province’s Premier League.

Consequently, officials say, the number of black players who stay in the province’s system long enough to reach franchise level and be considered for the national team is set to dwindle.

All of which makes sports...

‘Proteas need Gerrie Nel’s common sense’

Sunday Times

TELFORD VICE, Johannesburg

“Perhaps they’ve gone sideways,” was Lance Klusener’s opinion on whether SA went forwards or backwards in 2013-14.

Played 29, won 16, lost 11 sounds like a decent return for a season’s work. But the Proteas are not most teams.

“When I sit down in front of my TV, I want to see them win,” Klusener said.

SA had to fight back from their first loss in 16 tests to draw their series against Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates in October.

Against India, they emerged...

Leading Edge: Every purist should be thankful for the bastard formats

Sunday Times

TELFORD VICE, Johannesburg

The cricket season is dead. Long live the cricket season. What used to be the great game of summer has become a vehicle for whichever T20 tournament shakes, rattles and rolls from the 57 channels and nothing on that flicker from yonder television.

Which T20 tournament? Who knows. Who cares. It could be the Indian Premier League, the Bangladesh Premier League, the Caribbean Premier League, the Big Bash League or Peter Piper’s Pack of Pickled Peppers Premier...

Members End: Voldemort, Malfoy, Dumbledore and Harry

Sunday Times

TELFORD VICE, Johannesburg

Just when you thought India’s bumptious cricket bosses could not get any more bumptious comes the news from the land of bulletproof bumptiousness that the Indian Premier League (IPL) has made itself the competition whose name shall not be spoken on the internet unless a pile of money in rights fees has changed hands. Any resemblance between Srini and Lord Voldemort is, apparently, coincidental. So, if you read online of something called the “Indian T20 Le...