A cricket match, a cricket sage once wrote, is played in the minds of the opposing captains. Were he writing in the post-20th century T20 world and thus disposed to making the compulsory compromises imposed by today’s audience of e-literates, he might not have stopped there.
But, I imagine him adding, it can be won and lost by the hands of an, oh, posing fieldsman. Or a substitute fieldsman. Or a delinquent one. Or an incompetent one. Or an unlucky one.
Just ask Guyana Amazon Warriors’ Moeen Ali. Or Trinbago Knight Riders’ Bryan Charles. But don’t you dare run the risks associated with asking Saint Kitts and Nevis Patriots’ Dominic Drakes. If you do, I guarantee that I can’t guarantee your safety.
Which is not news to those who have been attentively watching the Saint Lucia Kings’ matches in the 2024 Republic Bank CPL. Nor is it news that a good man to ask about catches and fielding is Saint Lucia Kings’ allrounder David Wiese.
South African by birth and Namibian by parentage, Wiese is 39—going on 20! Wired868 has not asked for the evidence of his birth certificate; we prefer to believe the evidence of our eyes.
He is a decent bowler—his career-best 5/23 against the West Indies in 2015 and his 3/43 against Guyana Amazon Warriors in Match 29 say so—and not a bad batsman.
These days, he’s become a clutch player, a finisher or, at worst, an accelerator, someone to motor through the gears when it’s time to step on the gas. So far this CPL season, he has a highest score of 43 and an aggregate of 108 in six innings and 11 wickets in eight innings. Not much to write home to South Africa about.
But where he has really impressed in the 2024 Republic Bank CPL is with his fielding.
At Providence on the morning of Saturday 28 September, when the same two teams who are in Sunday’s final met in their second group stage match, Shimron Hetmyer and Shai Hope held centre-stage for the home side. And Faf du Plessis was the star of the show for the Saint Lucia Kings, who went down to the defending champions by 35 runs.
But in that Match 29, Wiese was everywhere—everywhere, that is, except among the runs and on the winning side.
He only got 14 off the nine balls he faced, not a substantial contribution to the 172 for 7 the Kings made in reply to the Warriors’ mountain of 207 for 7.
But he was the most successful of the St Lucia Kings’ bowlers, dismissing three of the GAW batsmen, including the dangerous Rahmanullah Gurbaz and second-top-scorer Shai Hope. He also caught two others, including power-hitter Romario Shepherd and Keemo Paul.
The execution of the Paul catch was an extraordinary piece of athleticism, something to behold. Let us take a moment to enjoy it.
Paul smacks Noor Ahmad back over his head high to long-on. Wiese jumps high into the air and snaffles the catch close to the boundary cushions. But he finds that his momentum is taking him over the boundary. Uncontrollably.
Quite literally as he is in the air going over the cushions, out of the corner of his eye, he spots Khary Pierre approaching from the opposite direction. Still airborne, he tosses the ball at the left-hander.
Not, mind you, in the general direction of his approaching teammate. No. Accurately. Pierre has no trouble at all completing the catch.
The scorecard reads Keemo Paul c Khary Pierre b Noor Ahmad. Completely unfair, don’t you think?
Truth be told, the scorecard often cannot really tell the whole story, can it? For instance, here’s another piece of information from the same scorecard: Moeen Ali c Khary Pierre b David Wiese.
Accurate but not comprehensive. Pierre was literally within a metre of the cushions when he caught the ball. Because he had had to move back to complete the catch, had he not controlled his body, he would have ended up over the line.
In fact, he did end up over the cushions. But prior to stepping off of the playing surface, he tossed the ball into the air as calmly as you like, without a hint of panic or fluster, grounded both feet on the wrong side of the cushion, steadied himself and then stepped back into the playing area to pouch the ball again.
You’d think he had practised that exact move scores of times before. Which, come to think of it, he probably had. With all due respect to Daren Sammy, possibly under the supervision of David Wiese.
This entire Kings side looks well-rehearsed, like a unit that is ready for battle, strategically and psychologically.
But back to Wiese. In Match 12, he came haring in from long-off to complete an acrobatic catch off Keacy Carty millimetres off the ground. Thirty-nine, remember. Years, not runs.
It’s the kind of thing you expect from a young Dwayne Bravo, Kieron Pollard or Andre Russell—you know them to be capable of the spectacular but nowadays, as a TKR fan, you hope for it, you no longer expect it.
Shadrack Descarte is 25-years-young. In the same Match 12 at the Sammy Stadium in Gros Islet, perhaps inspired by Wiese’s effort, he too showed that he is capable of the spectacular.
He sprinted in off the midwicket boundary to gather a lofted drive off the bat of TKR’s Andries Gous a nano-second before the ball hit the ground. Unabashedly urged on by the elated fieldsman, the appreciative crowd gave him a raucous standing ovation as if he had just scored a century.
Is there a prize for Best Catch of the Season? It’s a safe bet that both Wiese and Descarte are in contention.
Everything that has come near the pair and Pierre has been gobbled up, not like sated kings but like hungry commoners, unsure of where their next meal is coming from.
More importantly, Ahmad and Alzarri Joseph, the spearheads of the Kings’ attack, and Roston Chase, the Kings’ anti-left-hander WMD, are confident that they will get 100% from the terrific threesome. And giving as good as they get, the three main bowlers have been equally reliable in the field.
My sense is that, should one of the Kings contrive to hold a catch that should be dropped, Wiese, sharp as a tack, would be bitterly disappointed and seething inside.
But the guilty fieldsman would be none the wiese, oops, wiser.
Earl Best taught cricket, French, football and Spanish at QRC for many years and has written consistently for the Tapia and the Trinidad and Tobago Review since the 1970’s.
He is also a former sports editor at the Trinidad Guardian and the Trinidad Express and is now a senior lecturer in Journalism at COSTAATT.