NEIL MANTHORP: Pragmatic Proteas shrug off ICC fixture quirks

Many of you will be familiar with the story of the Champions Trophy but, for those who aren’t, let’s recap.

Pakistan is the host nation, its first ICC event for 25 years and a full decade without any international cricket. The ICC awarded the tournament to the Pakistan Cricket Board more than three years before the first match.

Three months before it started, the Board of Control for Cricket in India — citing a government directive — told the ICC that they would not be playing in Pakistan. It was far from unprecedented. Every global sports competition suffers withdrawals, boycotts and bans, and the games go on without them.

But not cricket. Instead of simply replacing India with the next highest-ranked team, Sri Lanka, the game contorted itself into a twisted compromise allowing the Indian team to play all their matches in Dubai.

And the game got what it deserved with an unlikely quirk of the fixtures which saw the semifinals, and venues, not decided until the final group match between India and New Zealand played on Sunday.

It meant that both the Australian and SA teams had to fly to Dubai at the weekend to be “in place” and able to have a practice session at the venue before one of them plays against India in the first semifinal today. The other would have to return almost immediately to Pakistan for the second semifinal in Lahore on Wednesday. Guess who drew the short straw?

The Proteas left their hotel in Karachi at 9.30am on Sunday and boarded a commercial Emirates flight at 11.30am, and finally checked into their Dubai Hotel around 3pm. A few hours later, it was obvious that New Zealand would lose to India, requiring both teams to return to Lahore to play each other.

On Monday morning they left their Dubai Hotel at 7.30am, boarded a chartered flight at 10.30am and reached their hotel by 3pm, again. A pointless trip? No. Half-a-dozen of the players enjoyed a round of floodlit golf. Heinrich Klaasen had a much-needed steak. Should India beat Australia today and the Proteas beat the Black Caps on Wednesday, they will have to return to Dubai for Sunday’s final.

There has been an abundance of outrage and indignation at the absurdity of the situation and the tournament’s resultant lack of credibility as a “fair contest” with the Indian team settled in one hotel, playing at one venue and not required to do any travelling. But the most striking aspect is that none of it, at all, has come from the South Africans.

The squad have romped to the “Phlegmatism of the Year” award. If shoulder-shrugging was a sport like cricket, they would already have won this tournament and could be installed as early, strong favourites for every occasion in the future when the playing conditions and itineraries at ICC tournaments are jiggled to favour India.

Rassie van der Dussen said “you don’t need to be a brain surgeon to see that playing all your games at one venue, practising at that venue and staying in the same hotel without the hassle of travelling is an advantage”, before adding, with a twinkle in his eye, “but now it’s up to them to make that advantage count”.

It was whimsy at its best, a laconic recognition of the cricket world’s status quo in which the BCCI call all the shots. Or at least, all of them which mean anything or matter. Van der Dussen is a thoughtful senior, disinclined to deliver platitudes or clichés. He is well travelled in life. His response was purely factual without judgment with a delicious “tease” to sign off.

Marco Jansen was closer to flippant about the arrangements. “I don’t know,” he said with his disarming grin and the trademark shoulder shrug, “it’s only an hour-and-a-half flight so it’s like a domestic journey at home. I haven’t played golf in a while, though …” The flight was, in fact, almost two-and-a-half hours but at least he was able to scratch his golfing itch.

Coach Rob Walter summed up the squad’s mood and approach when it was his turn to answer the question: “It is what it is and I don’t think it’s the best use of our emotional energy commenting about a situation which we can’t change … and isn’t going to change. We’re much better off concentrating on playing the best cricket we can, wherever that may be.”

There is something so delightfully SA about this pragmatic acceptance of reality, a determination to make the best of things in a world which is inherently unfair. It’s only sport, after all. And there is the IPL and future employment to consider.

Absolutely no point in poking the bear while so many others are doing that anyway. Rather let it choose the music and then try to outdance it.