Vernon Philander: Jack of one trade, Master of one

Just imagine an endless recursive loop in your daily life where you’re stuck doing the same thing over and over again - like eating the same dish thrice a day throughout the entirety of the year, or listening to the same song everytime you put your earphones on or switching on the television only to find out that your favorite channel has been playing the same movie throughout the day; sounds pretty boring, doesn’t it?

He is the most mundane cricketer one can come across, there are no idiosyncrasies about him. Yet he rocks the song he sings, delivers that joke to perfection, wins every bout with the two moves he has and nails the clichéd catchphrase in every single match. But he is, undeniably, boring

As a batsman, when you walk out to face Philander, you know what you’re going to get. There are no traps, no ‘hiding the seam’ or ‘double-bluffs’; you know what you’re going to get. You look at him and he is never the bowler you don’t want to face, he is not intimidating, for he bowls trundlers whilst looking like your next door neighbor who plays grade cricket every Sunday morning. He takes his mark - which is, again, not too far away from the stumps - and jogs towards you with an almost insouciant run-up and lets go off the ball with minimal effort. 

There comes the first one, back of a length, outside off, in and around fifth stump, hitting the corridor of uncertainty. You let it go. Then come the next five in the same over, which are exactly the same. You negate the sixth one and tell to yourself ‘How long can he keep doing the same, eh?’.  In no time, you find yourself finding the 34th such delivery, all in the same spell, and finally lose patience and throw your bat at one. Of course, the outside edge is found and you’re now back in the pavilion. 

But in life, and more so in cricket, things that are boring, and not glamorous, are taken for granted and often go unnoticed, don’t they? Thankless jobs, be it slip-catching or umpiring or wicket-keeping, are usually the ones that are boring and slip under the radar, but Philander, over the course of his Test career, has somehow, through his persona, managed to turn the art of new-ball bowling into a thankless one.

In exactly a month’s time, Philander will don the South African colours for one last time. But just like his Test career, the news of his retirement, too, has slipped under the radar, for there are no pouring tributes coming in, nor is there any talk about who will fill in his shoes. His boring, unglamorous and self-effacive nature has meant that he is gliding out of the game inconspicuously, so much so that his greatness has gone unspoken; not been given due recognition. 

When the curtains come down post the England series, loops will be broken, the roads will be dry and the regime will no longer be monotonous. In this day and age where glamour is paraded and output is undermined, where charisma, panache, and elan are considered to be keystones for public embracement, Philander has proven that validation is inessential and greatness can be achieved no matter how subdued, mundane and humdrum the process is or might seem. Vernon Darryl Philander is a one-trick pony, but unarguably, the greatest and the best one out there in the business.