“Leaving New York, never easy,” Michael Stipe sang on “Around the Sun”, R.E.M.’s 2004 album. Twenty years later, South Africa know the feeling. Having found ways to overcome Nassau County’s unhelpful conditions in their wins over Sri Lanka and the Netherlands in the men’s T20 World Cup, they almost came unstuck against Bangladesh on Monday.
Not that Nassau is New York, in the same way that Geelong is not Melbourne and Benoni is not Johannesburg. Nassau is on Long Island, which stretches eastward from Manhattan into the Atlantic. New Yorkers would scoff at the notion that Nassau County is part of their city, which consists of the boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island. And nothing more, even though Brooklyn and Queens are, geographically, also on Long Island. Nassau County is, however, in New York State. And that’s something altogether different.
Why does this matter? It goes to credibility, your honour, as too many lawyers have said during the 501 episodes of Law & Order that have aired. If we can’t even get right where Nassau is, how can we be believed when we say the pitch there isn’t much good for cricket?
Don’t believe us. Believe the Aiden Markram who said at the toss that he had chosen to bat – the first time a captain has done so in the six games played there – because he thought the strip selected for Monday’s match would have been becalmed by the matches played on it on Saturday and Sunday.
Or believe the Aiden Markram who looked aghast and gestured at the surface using his hand, apparently meaning the ball didn’t bounce as high as he had anticipated, when he drove past an angled delivery from Taskin Ahmed and was clean bowled to reduce South Africa to 23/3. Three balls later, and with 10 deliveries of their powerplay remaining, Tristan Stubbs blipped Tanzim Hasan Sakib to cover and they were 23/4.
The sting of the by now customary early dismissal of Reeza Hendricks – he has scored seven off 13 in three innings – was eased by Quinton de Kock slamming Tanzim and Taskin for sixes in the first two overs. In the third De Kock pulled lustily at Tanzim and was bowled by a delivery that perhaps kept lower than he thought it would.
Against the Netherlands on Saturday, Stubbs and David Miller rerouted an innings that leant heavily at 12/4 with a partnership of 65 off 72 that was the biggest factor in South Africa’s successful pursuit of their target of 104. Miller was again the lynchpin on Monday – his 35th birthday – when he shared a run-a-ball stand of 79 with Heinrich Klaasen. The South Africans added just 11 runs off the 15 balls of their innings that were left after Klaasen was undone by another low-bouncing ball, from Taskin, and bowled.
Would their total of 113/6 hold the Bangladeshis, even considering the pitch and the slow outfield? Canada’s 137/7 in Nassau on Friday was enough to beat Ireland, and India’s 119 there on Sunday was too big for Pakistan. South Africa’s 106/6 against the Dutch was the highest winning chase at a venue where Sri Lanka and Ireland were bowled out for 77 and 96 batting first.
Bangladesh seemed to have blown their chance when they slumped to 50/4 in the 10th, but Towhid Hridoy and Mahmudullah kept them in it with a partnership that reached 44 off 45 before it was ended by Kagiso Rabada trapping the former in front, leaving Bangladesh to score 20 off 17.
In fact, the stand was momentarily over six balls earlier, when Sam Nogajski gave Mahmudullah out lbw to Ottneil Baartman. Replays said the ball would easily have cleared leg stump, and Mahmudullah survived. Importantly, the ball crossed the boundary – but what might have been four leg byes didn’t count because the ball was dead the instant the batter was given out on the field. In that circumstance, only if a no-ball is called can runs be added. Bangladesh’s famously volatile supporters can hardly be blamed for feeling aggrieved, and denied victory, by that regulation. Hridoy’s dismissal will sit similarly uneasily. It was also reviewed, and this time the gizmos gave Richard Kettleborough the benefit of the doubt – not all, but enough, of the ball would have hit the top of leg, and Hridoy had to go.
Mahmudullah batted on to face at the start of the last over, which began with his team requiring 11. Keshav Maharaj bowled the 20th for the first time in his 30 T20Is, and it showed. His initial offering, to Mahmudullah, was wided. The next two – one a full toss – yielded three runs. Then came a yorker-length delivery, which Jaker Ali hammered high to long-on, where Markram took a comfortable catch. Illingworth got it right with the next ball, which the South Africans sent upstairs after he turned their lbw appeal for Rishad Hossein’s wicket. The evidence revealed Hossein had been struck outside the line.
Happily for Bangladesh the resultant leg bye put Mahmudullah on strike with two balls left and six required. Maharaj bowled another full toss, and the greybearded 38-year-old launched it seemingly beyond the long-on boundary. But Markram judged his leap perfectly and came down with the ball, and without touching the cushion. “It could have gone a metre or two further, and we would be having a different conversation,” Markram said in his television interview.
In walked Taskin to face the last delivery with six still required. The third non-bouncing delivery of the over followed, and Maharaj’s heart would have been in his throat at the prospect of being no-balled as the ball sailed close to the batter’s waist. He wasn’t, and a spliced single into the covers was all that accrued.
The target was the lowest yet defended by South Africa in a T20I and the lowest not reeled in by Bangladesh. But had they been awarded those four leg byes – how is it fair that they weren’t? – they would have forced a super over. Leaving New York State, never easy. But better to do so with two points than none.
