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Dave Warner waved to us paper in hand from the esplanade, like a truant schoolboy with a lucky test result.
He made a beeline towards us between a line of coloured towels and drying bathers plastered with sand from his upturned heels. He was yelling something.
“It sounds like the captain has retired”, Watto suggested.
“No. No. Their captain has retired. Smithy? Surely not.”
“Is this a prank?”
Silence.
“No. I think he means it’s real.”
Surreal might make a better description. The number of retirements from international cricket across the past summer continues to rise like an English flood or an extended episode of Midsummer Murders.
The list of wounded and buried bodies is enough to form a twelve in a Sunday mourning choir:
1. Jonathan Trott
2. Graeme Swann (lost at sea, Portsea, Victoria),
3. Matt Prior (found shivering on Rottnest island off Perth),
4. Steve Finn (post-Gabba blues, lost the will to bowl),
5. Kevin Pietersen (burned at the stake for communing with the Saints after Sydney)
6. Alastair Cook (on a respirator)
7. Joe Root (found crying on the crease)
8. Robin Petersen (over-hyped, form failure)
9. Wayne Parnell (aammy, Hollywooditis)
10. Quinton de Kock (de kocked, too young)
11. Graeme Smith (family, overdue)
12. Andy Flower (form slump, blew out the press boxes in Sydney)
No doubt there are other bloated bodies floating in the fetid backwash of Australia’s resurgent form.
Our return has been spearheaded by an old bowler with a dicky knee and another with straight black hair and a camouflaged tatts arm that has more credited kills in a four month period than South African WWII ace Marmaduke ‘Tom’ Prattle, DFC and bar.
Between November 1940 and April 1941 during British operations in Greece, Marmaduke despatched up to 50-60 enemy aircraft, claiming 5+ kills in one day (‘Ace in a Day’ status) on three occasions.
A bruising purple four months for a couple of over the hill donkey bowlers who can tweak the ball to go reverse without a zipper, and out two Graeme’s with Olympian reputations.
Cape Town is in mourning today. Cape Town architects worked feverishly overnight to design a bust of Graeme to place on top of the Lion’s Head like the statue of Christ the Redeemer on the Corcovado overlooking Rio.
Portraits of Prince Graeme scoring each one of his 27 Test centuries were draped on wires across the Cape’s main thoroughfares.
Paper boys walked the streets quoting Graeme statistics like walking encyclopaedias.
Even Cecil Rhodes pulled himself from a century’s slumber to climb down from the Devil’s Peak to wish poor Graeme well.
Office workers spontaneously broke down in the street on their way to work.
A passer-by stated “It was all I could do to hold it together. Graeme meant everything to me.”
Flower stalls sold more online orders for home delivered Proteas than at any time in the past 12 years.
Swimwear outlets printed bikini tops and bottoms with a smiling Graeme Smith and loose fitting sun tops for the bikini cricketer (imagination let free is a dangerous vagrant). Anything to profit today from the Cape’s grief-stricken sleep.
At the hotel, the paper boy told us he couldn’t find a spare ticket to Newlands on day four to scalp for less than 2,500R.
The market had dried up overnight like a baby’s bum. He said Newlands would be packed to the rafters with bikini cricketers sporting beautiful bodies, big sunglasses and skinny hats.
He wasn’t sure if the TV crews could handle it. I saw the coach at reception.
He is trying to gets his eyes checked. ‘The Prof’ (an unnamed team member) said someone had ordered seven pairs of high-powered binoculars for delivery to the visitors dressing-room’s at the ground.
Coach cast a wobbly eye in my direction. The Prof told him in no uncertain terms that it wasn’t me or him, but that he and I would be walking the ground during play to assess weather conditions and player comfort.
Coach 2.0 muttered that no one appreciates a bald man these days.
All of this overshadowed another dominant day on the field.
Australia of course declared overnight.
We ‘preserved’ the ball and it obediently reversed on command. When Faf threatened to check its condition, we warned him off. No one touches the red ball while it is misbehaving.
We found ways to take wickets and South Africa found ways to present them to us. We badged a few of them, like they had badged The Captain on day two.
Their gangland style execution by our world’s absolute best no1 bowling attack was swift and comparatively painless, less painful perhaps than a hot poker up your backside but more painful than a simple garrotte on a pitch harder than Cape granite.
It was all over in 82 overs, less than a day. SA 287 all out, 207 behind, more than enough for a dead captain leading a brilliant team to another defeat at home by Australia.
I saw the Prof again some time after Graeme’s announcement. “I think Smithy just ate Orlando’s lunch.”
The Prof threw his head back and laughed “Eating someone’s lunch is like cutting someone’s grass. Very annoying.”
“So he might be a little put out?”
“Orlando is not a fool. Surely, he would have seen it coming.”
“Like a stiff nor’westerly breeze.”
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