superfluous. Sandakan finally got the ball in ha

Winter on the highveld is traditionally cold and dry, but recent days have seen widespread unseasonal rain across it and almost everywhere else in the country. There have been heavy falls of snow on the mountains, and photographs in the newspapers and websites have shown railway stations under metres of water, cars in parking lots floating casually downstream like so many bath-time ducks.In this type of weather, cricket is not exactly front of mind, although it will slide into the frame as the New Zealanders drift south from two Tests against Zimbabwe shortly to prepare for their twin Tests against South Africa next month.Its already a nicely poised series. New Zealand are an open-minded, streetwise lot, while the gifted South Africans seem to have taken their fractiousness to the next level. There has been bickering behind the scenes in the latest round of contract negotiations - the threat of free agency is the thing in South Africa at the moment - and we have a board that demonstrates little leadership or grace under pressure. Last seasons domestic match-fixing debacle shows no signs of finding closure, and from everywhere comes the fidgetiness of widespread discontent.This said, self-laceration has become so inimical to South African cricket that its quite possible to dismiss the angst as so much white noise. South Africa produce good, if slightly unadventurous, cricketers, and it will only need one decent series - and one competitive summer - to remind us all of the countrys cricketing riches.Southern Africa is a naturally fertile cricket crescent. How else does one explain the fecundity that sees a Dale Steyn spring from the copper-mining wastes of Phalaborwa, or Kagiso Rabada need only one spell of bowling (in the televised final of the Under-19 World Cup in 2014) to be fast-tracked to the terminus that is a South Africa cap?One player who has sailed blithely clear of all the sturm und drang for the last couple of seasons is Dean Elgar. Known variously as Deano or Porra, a not entirely onside reference to what some have erroneously seen as his Portuguese ancestry, Elgar seems happiest to play cricket, remain true to his chirpy self and tiptoe past the mines and booby traps. It is a mark, perhaps, of his emotional intelligence, although it might just be that hes largely unconcerned with anything else. Either way, the strategy has served him well. In the Titans dressing room he is known as one of the Three Hyenas, a select group of enforcers, fines dispensers and receptacles of cricketing wisdom who back up their captain and generally charge about in a pack. Roelof van der Merwe used to be a hyena until he hauled his coffin off to the Netherlands (he was replaced by Farhaan Behardien). The third member of the trio is Heino Kuhn.Last season Kuhn opened the innings for Titans with either Elgar (when he wasnt away on Test duty) or Grant Mokoena. He scored 1126 first-class runs in 20 innings at 62.55, not a bad return for a player who was on a pay-for-play contract because he wasnt deemed quite key enough in the initial contracting round.Those young men and their parents who bleat about quotas and lack of opportunities and head to England or New Zealand at the drop of a hat would do well to study Kuhns numbers. Like Elgar, he is no longer a young man, but he has remained loyal to the Titans system, hung around and polished his game. Like Elgar, there has been little toy-throwing, much endeavour and no lack of focus.The reason Titans won the domestic double last season is due to a variety of quantifiable factors, several of which relate to Kuhns contributions to good starts, which, in turn, put pressure on the opposition.Yet every happy dressing room also abounds with currents more difficult to pin down. One has to be Elgars general sense of mischief. He certainly brings a levity to things. When he was asked recently, for example, who he thought should replace Rob Walter as Titans coach, because Walter is heading to Otago, he didnt pause for thought. Albie [Morkel], he replied, because that way we can hunt and fish during pre-season. It wont be like Rob, who always had us out on obstacle courses and training runs.Whatever his secret, South African cricket needs more Elgars at the moment. In all the hand-wringing, we have lost sight of whats important, what remains pure and untrammelled in the game we all love. Elgar has kept perspective and so kept the faith.The first Test against New Zealand is at Kingsmead, where the South Africans have the kind of record thats best ignored. But then its on to Elgars home ground, Centurion, a fortress, and a place where hes very much at home. Cheap Air Max 90 Womens China . Zvonareva, who won the tournament in 2009 and 10, couldnt handle her opponents big groundstrokes in only her third event back after 17 months out with a shoulder injury. Zvonareva made her comeback in January in Shenzhen and played in the Australian Open but lost her first matches at both tournaments. Off White Air Max 90 For Sale .com) - Manchester City midfielder David Silva is expected to miss the next four weeks because of a calf problem. http://www.outletairmax90cheap.com/outlet-air-max-90-2019-cheap.html . Anthony Calvillo, through 20 CFL seasons, was frequently invincible and largely stoic in the heat of competition. But underneath the professional exterior he was, and is, compellingly human. Fake Air Max 90 For Sale . -- Nathan Pancel scored twice as the Sudbury Wolves defeated the North Bay Battalion 4-2 on Saturday in Ontario Hockey League action. Air Max 90 Leather Iron Bronze . -- Arizona knocked off some quality opponents, rolled over a few overmatched ones and grinded out victories even when things didnt go so well. Sri Lankas spin bowlers are as innocuous a group of people as you may care to encounter.The gangs kingpin, Rangana Herath, is approaching the age and shape whereupon Sri Lankan men begin taking abrupt daytime naps on the verandah while the tea they had been drinking is incrementally spilt upon themselves. He has never been known to sledge, through a career that now spans 318 wickets. And such is his commitment to cricketing honesty, that he once famously walked with five balls remaining in a Lords Test, when he wasnt actually out, and only Nuwan Pradeep stood between a draw and defeat. (Pradeep, by the way, had been out comically falling onto his stumps in the first innings, and bless him, has the batting competence of a coconut husk).Dilruwan Perera, meanwhile, seems more likely to produce vomit than a coherent reply when a reporter poses a question. Lakshan Sandakan is chattier, and more excitable - but in the way of a toddler still discovering the world around him. When he appeals, you can almost picture a child on the supermarket tiles, pleading for a chocolate bar.But in Pallekele, and now in the first two days in Galle, these men have led unsuspecting Australia into a dark alley, withdrawn shivs, and merrily stabbed away. They have smiled their way through the brutality. They have benigned their way through 29 wickets. And seven days into the series, its time to start preparing the large black trash bags. It is time to make room in the boot of the black sedan, and pick out a spot in the woods.A spinners menace is often in the turn he extracts. Yet in this series, Steven Smith has repeatedly warned Australia about that seemingly-harmless straight ball. In being dismissed by that very ball by Herath early on day two, Smith was like the police commissioner who read out the description of a known area suspect, then was found in a city dumpster the next day, all rolled up in an old carpet. Usman Khawaja was out to Pereras slider, just the previous ball. Late in the day, the same ball, from the same bowler, took his off stump out again. So stricken by fear of this sliding mass-murderer was he, that not even a stroke was offered. Not a shot was fired in self-defence.Mitchell Marsh and Adam Voges attempted to solve the ccase of the non-spinning delivery through their 8.dddddddddddd3 over morning stand, but were beaten lavishly and repeatedly throughout. Marsh blocked out a Herath delivery to end the 23rd over. When he got to bat again, three wickets had fallen at the other end. In this he was like the inspector who gets knocked unconscious in a gang fight, and finds his team completely overrun when he comes to. People have woken up from long comas with less having changed in their world.Nathan Lyon then fell prey to the same ball. Josh Hazlewood was gone almost as soon as he appeared. Sri Lanka are sometimes criticised for never considering an XI with five frontline bowlers, but the incredible thing about this innings, is that for its majority, two of their four main bowlers were completely superfluous. Sandakan finally got the ball in hand with nine wickets down, and he struck almost immediately, what else, but with a ball that drifted a little, but pitched and went virtually straight on.In the afternoon, like criminals who receive plea deals and begin working for law-enforcement, Herath and Perera picked up their bats, and made Australias bumbling seem even more ridiculous. They swept gaily away as Lyon told Perera, that he can only play f***ing Tests at home because he is the second spinner. They drove Mitchell Starc down the ground, and pulled Hazlewood to midwicket. Just to rub it in, it was with a six that Perera moved to a score that was higher than any Australia batsman had mustered so far in the series. They put on 61 together. Australias best partnership in Pallekele had brought 62.The visitors will now begin day three 388 runs adrift, on a pitch they do not like, facing bowling they do not understand, playing for a trophy they are very likely to lose. All this thanks to the work of three undemonstrative men who, on the surface, appear as inoffensive as a slow, loopy ball that lands on the pitch, and continues in the same direction.If a Sri Lankanised Scorsese character introduced any of these spinners, hed say: Youre going to like this bugger. Hes all right. Hes one of us, no? Hes a good fellow. ' ' '