Beauty lies in the eyes of Benoni

Benoni is bleak even when the sun shines. It didn't for most of Friday, and the bleakness hardened into a monochrome meanness under gunmetal grey skies that whistled with a nasty north-westerly wind. Cricket weather it wasn't. At least, not in South Africa. In the Netherlands? Maybe.

You didn't need to know it was cold to know it was cold, even if you were watching on television from a warmer place. Fielders betrayed an abrupt reluctance as they stabbed their hands at the onrushing ball. They were watched by a light dusting not of snow but of 1,800 fans, not many of them without heavy jackets, blankets and beanies.

It says plenty that Benoni's most prominent living natives - Hollywood's Charlize Theron, Grace Mugabe, despised widow of Zimbabwe's despot former president Robert Mugabe, and Charlene Wittstock, once an Olympic swimmer, now princess of Monaco - don't live there anymore. Oliver Tambo, a contemporary, colleague and comrade of Nelson Mandela who would shudder to see what a wretched rabble their beloved ANC has become, had the misfortune not only to have lived in nearby Wattville - since renamed Tamboville - but also to be buried there alongside his wife, Adelaide Tambo; national heroes both.

Willowmoore Park is in keeping with its squat, unambitious, prosaic surrounds. It seems a waste that, in December 1948, Denis Compton took to this unlovely stage to score 300 in a session-and-a-half. Also that it is here that South Africa should have to come to take the first of their last two throws of the dice to qualify directly for this year's men's ODI World Cup. The constant threat of rain remained unfulfilled for long enough, and the Dutch didn't do much to stop the South Africans from banking another 10 World Cup Super League (WCSL) points on Friday.

Vikramjit Singh and Max O'Dowd shared 58 before the visitors lost all of their wickets for 131 runs in 35.2 overs with Sisanda Magala and Tabraiz Shamsi claiming three each. Scott Edwards told a press conference that a significant chunk of the credit for that happening belonged to the visitors: "Everyone in our top six; I don't think they got us out. Their better balls were actually missing, and we found ways to get ourselves out."

South Africa reached their target of 190 in 30 overs with eight wickets standing, and with the unseparated Temba Bavuma and Aiden Markram making 102 of those runs off 69 balls. Bavuma finished 10 runs shy of what would have been a fourth century in his last eight Test and ODI innings. "It gives you confidence," Bavuma said of his purple patch. "As a leader you want to be able to lead with authority. You want to be saying the right things, but you also want to be doing the right things."

The home side will have a last chance to advance their WCSL tally against the same opponents at the Wanderers on Sunday. If the result is similar only an unlikely 3-0 sweep by Ireland of Bangladesh at Chelmsford in May will force South Africa to go to a qualifier in Zimbabwe in June and July. Should that befall Bavuma's team they could tell Grace Mugabe, in person, that Benoni does not send its regards.

While Friday's match was going through its motions, some 7,200 kilometres away, across the Indian Ocean and the equator, the scene couldn't have been more different. Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad was lit up like Willowmoore Park will never be for the sold out opening match of the IPL. More than 100,000 people - around 56 times as many as braved Benoni's boundaries - watched Gujarat Titans take on Chennai Super Kings in the warm embrace of an evening that followed a 28 degrees Celsius day. David Miller and Magala would have been there, too. Instead, as per CSA's understandable orders, they were wrapping up in Benoni.

Cricketminded South Africans would have planned to keep an eye on both games. But, on Thursday, SuperSport shocked the nation by announcing it would not broadcast the IPL after "unsuccessful commercial discussions with the rightsholder".

Cue outrage from would-be warriors behind their keyboards. What do you mean you're not showing the IPL? You always have, along with what can seem like every smidgen of sport - important or relevant or far from it - in the world. Besides, with the state-owned South African Broadcasting Corporation an unmitigated disaster of governance and delivery an

d everything else, what choice is there for sport-watchers who are no longer 12; or young enough to be able to hook up the dingle to the dangle to the dongle and latch onto a stream, legal or not.

These unfortunates seemed unable to understand the difference between the equivalent of the USD55 many of them pay monthly for the service's premium package - expensive in South Africa but a pittance in global terms, considering the one-stop shop that is SuperSport - and the reality of the bidding process on the open market, and how that translates into what they see on their televisions. You get what you pay for. And sometimes you get more than what you pay for.

But, less than an hour before the start of the opening ceremony in Ahmedabad, came the happy news that, "following new conversations with the rightsholder", the tournament would indeed be seen on the screens of more affluent South Africans. Thousands of keyboards groaned in relief - their hammerers were becalmed.

Normal service had resumed, off the field and on: suddenly no-one remembered November 6, when the Dutch put South Africa out of the T20 World Cup. Benoni is no-one's idea of gracious Adelaide, but maybe it isn't so bleak.

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