Telford Vice

Not bad for a mad lad

Andre Nel has called time on a career fuelled by an unstoppable, demented internal combustion

27-Mar-2009
Nel is proof that size and belligerence can a fast bowler make  •  AFP

Nel is proof that size and belligerence can a fast bowler make  •  AFP

There comes a time in the career of many of even of the most celebrated players when their legend is laid low by the cold, hard edge of fact. Not so Andre Nel, who has accumulated enough legend in his lifetime to avoid being relegated to the ranks of the second-guessed.
On Wednesday, Nel forsook whatever what might have remained of his international career to take up cudgels with Surrey. What Surrey has seen, Surrey will get: a big, bruising juggernaut who will defy a gushing headwound to keep lurching at batsmen like a derailed steam train in search of the edge of a cliff.
The dressing-room attendants at The Oval should prepare themselves for a sonic boom of a voice attached to a body so lumberingly large and a pair of feet so clownishly colossal that they might think they have nodded off only to awake in some sort of fairytale cartoon. More Gulliver than Gunther, his homemade alter ego, that's Nel.
The Oval was also where Nel played the last of his 36 Test matches, bowling 24.2 overs for no reward last August. The fire was, as always, in his belly. But that was where the sparks stayed. By then, Nel was disillusioned with his lot in cricket, and cricket - in South Africa, at any rate - with him. Not for nothing is his move to Surrey the only time he has made headlines this year. However, as his 32nd birthday approaches, Nel will want to rekindle the flames for a few years yet, and he might well be up to the job. The truth, you see, is that for much of his career he has run on little more than internal combustion.
The late great Peter Robinson summed the young Nel up with a line that, although presented here in the form of an unreasonable facsimile, still rings true. "Looks like a fast bowler," wrote the inimitable "Robbo", "runs in like a fast bowler; even bowls like a fast bowler. He's just not very fast."
Ain't that the truth. Nel is the poster boy for the dangerous notion that any player, blessed with sufficient size and strength, and imbued with the belligerence of a drunk in a midnight choir, can fashion himself into a respected Test bowler worthy of the name.
As if his comparative lack of glittering talent wasn't enough of an impediment to that ambition, Nel also created his own obstacles. A zigzagging delivery stride that misplaced much of his forward momentum, and an action that reminded some of an athlete putting a shot rather than bowling a ball were just the technical issues.
The first hint of the career in soap-opera cricket that lay ahead for Nel came in 2001, when he pole-axed his idol Allan Donald with a bouncer in a first-class match. Nel stood and cried juvenile tears at one end of the pitch even as Donald sat and spilled royal blood at the other.
On tour in the West Indies later that year, Nel was one of the infamous five South Africans who dared to partake in the cultural ritual of smoking a joint in the Caribbean. Two years later he was packed off home in disgrace from South Africa A's tour of Australia after the Tasmanian police discovered he was driving the team bus under the influence of alcohol.
Why couldn't he just shut up and bowl like everyone else, South Africans would ask each other in tones of hushed embarrassment. Then Nel would take a wicket and the same naysayers would be up on their feet making a more noxious noise than the object of their attention ever could
In 2003-04, he managed to schedule his wedding for shortly after the close in the middle of the Centurion Test against West Indies. He needed a wailing escort of police outriders to make it to the church on time.
Then there was the delicious moment in the Wanderers Test against India in 2006-07, when Nel was smashed over his head for six by a man who rivalled him for naked chutzpah. In celebration, Sreesanth, for it was he, whirled into a mad dance that reminded all who saw it that he was a breakdance champion. In fact, more might remember that instant than the fact that it came during India's first Test win in South Africa.
Of course, the gargoyle grin, complete with wicked tongue, was never far from Nel's face. He also pitched himself headlong into many fearful verbal battles with opposing batsmen. At least they looked fearful from a safe distance. South Africans, at heart still a prosaic lot, would shake their heads at his emotional extravagance. Why couldn't he just shut up and bowl like everyone else, they would ask each other in tones of hushed embarrassment. Then Nel would take a wicket and the same naysayers would be up on their feet in joyous acclaim, making a more noxious noise than the object of their passive aggressive attention ever could. That's the thing with Nel: the damned fool can't stop making people like him when they least want to. He brings out the best of their worst.
Of course, many of them were English-speaking South Africans who considered Nel to be the epitome of what they would call, with derogatory intent, a "Dutchman". The term, an epithet, really, is meant to describe not just an Afrikaans speaker but an uncouth, base individual who wouldn't know a fish knife from a builder's trowel.
Andre Nel probably doesn't have much use for fish knives, but he could teach all of us how to get the best out of the tools we have at our disposal.

Telford Vice is a freelance cricket writer in South Africa