A sprinkling of cheeky humour always resided in South African cricketers, but former spinner Tabraiz Shamsi revived a classic, dating back to Jacques Kallis. When Surrey declared on 820/9 against Durham at the Oval in the County Championship after being put in to bat, Shamsi looking at the scorecard quipped, “Still 180 short.”
It was a riff on Kallis saying from the dressing room playing Australia who had notched 434 in a an ODI were 20 runs too short. Proteas had chased down the target famously back in the day.
Shamsi of course was referring to Surrey being 120 short of a 1000 runs, when famed South African cricket twitter account Werner retorted, “If only Ryan pulled his weight.” Ryan Patel batting at No 3 only scored 10 off 22 balls, nicking to the keeper off Raine.
Surrye opener Dom Sibley hit 305 with just 2 sixes striking at 64.21 with 29 fours. Sam Curran at No 4 struck 108, which looked average in comparison to Dan Lawrence’s 178 off 149, and Will Jacks’ 119 off 94, both over run a ball, before both were dismissed by Hogg. Rory Burns also had 55, but Surrey were a long way off 1000 run score.
Some big ticket accounts chipped in. Dale Steyn, remarked, “We’ll have a bowl…” a tongue-in-cheek observation on Durham’s decision after winning the toss against Surrey.
Sreevats Goswami said, “Feel for Ryan Patel..” The Kookaburra ball used got its fair share of disses including the curse-word, but the lineup of England “dropouts” as described by a tweeter, had indeed fallen short of 1000 on a tar road of a pitch.
Sibley and Burns always get a lot of snarky love from fans, and got their share of wise cracks about the strike rates.
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Elsewhere in County cricket, Jimmy Anderson sent Derbyshire batter Jewell’s stumps cartwheeling for 4 in a game, which was his second wicket after batters failed to offer a shot. He is 43.
