My friends, we find ourselves in the midst of our War and Peace cricketing summer.
Such is its length, spanning three seasons and four presidential terms, it has the potential to blend together in to one forgettable puddle of sameness.
Never fear though, as if you squint hard enough, you should spot enough spicy subplots to add separation to the loop. Lucky for y’all, the block-o-five ODIs starting today against the hard-nosed South Africans has one of low-rent and lofty allure.
On the face, it’s a series that looks and smells like another unimportant television dinner shoehorned in to a sardined schedule.
That’s because it is one.
However, what will set it apart from the other 45 competitions of the summer is the genuine possibility of bar-room affray – and I’m not talking about a confused David Warner going the haymaker because he’s offended by Imran Tahir’s beard, even though that probably will happen at some point.
The stink to which I am referring is the festering beef between Dale Steyn and Michael Clarke from earlier this year, and the fact that it will resume on the perfume-ball paradise of the WACA, a wasteland where rib cages save time by exploding to powder before a ball is even bowled.
Post the Zimbabwean tri-series, the Proteas paceman made it abundantly clear that the Australian captain’s bloke rating had shrunk severely in the wake of the March series played in the Rainbow nation.
They were comments from the mild-mannered gent that not only shocked the world, but gained him entry to a club with disturbing growth that includes the likes of Simon Katich, James Anderson, Lara Bingle – and these days Steve Smith.
After the usual highbrow nature of contemporary sledging was debased by a fiery Clarke remark that overstepped like a paid-up Pakistani paceman, Steyn decided that while he could handle his team being woofed at and accused of ball tampering, he drew the line at having his drinks break interrupted by words.
For those who missed the fun, it was one of international cricket’s great episodes of handbags at tenners.
It was the final day of the deciding Test, and tensions were high as the shadows grew long and the lager warm. Naturally, everyone had the shits, and it ramped up when acclaimed nutbar James Pattinson decided it was time to get all-up in the Proteas paceman’s face as the visitors chased the wickets required for sweet victory.
Ever the diplomat, and sensing an opportunity to win back some moral points for the nation after a tour with it’s fair share of distasteful conduct, Clarke went about cooling the situation by stacking the lip cordon with himself and stationing it in close to Steyn’s earlobe.
It was here that the Aussie captain reportedly deployed a chip which the South African later said he ‘did take personally’, and that he’d ‘wait until I get to Australia’ to do whatever it is you do in these situations, which I assume is to leave a bag of prawn heads in Clarke’s coffin, or alternatively, try and knock his block off in the middle.
Nobody really knows to this day what was said, but reports are that Clarke called Steyn a ‘cheat’. It’s a reprehensible insult, but not as frowned upon as calling him ‘cheap’, a sledge not advisable in a country where people are happy to squander cash on haute couture, rare artwork and firearms.
Either way, we will never know what was said that day until either need money and write more books. Whatever it was though, it poked the Bear Grylls lookalike to the point that he wasn’t even prepared to share a disarming mai tai in the Harare hotel he shared with the Aussie bat in the Zimbabwean tri-series in September.
It’s been nothing but high frost levels and Clarke knows it.
Since Steyn’s remarks, he’s rapidly clamoured to repair relations, obviously in a state of gastro-inducing anxiety over the deadly peppering surely coming his way. To maintain image and lobby for peace, everything from him since has been a public pouring of water on the brouhaha.
He’s assured the world that relations are tip-top, had Cricket Australia release visual evidence of his post-match apology from Cape Town, and then instructed his publicist to kill a journalist who floated the topic at his book launch. A bouquet of grovelling flowers to the Steyn door, it could not more be.
The good news for Clarke is that these were flowers that arrived in South Africa. The bad news is that the seamer dried them out, used a small amount for a delightful pressed floral arrangement, and then the rest as kindling to light effigies of current Australian captains.
Now he’s here in Australia, and the first meeting is on a hectic tickler of a pitch. This inconsequential series is officially alive with the sound of skirmish, so we’re going to need four scary boats to park just off Cottesloe, please.
This is a show of beef that will easily overshadow the Toned Abbs v Vlad Pukin’ G20 big bash. Will Steyn get his revenge, or will it be Clarke going the shirtfront?
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