by Trevor Chesterfield
When Paul Adams launched himself on an unsuspecting South African provincial scene in the early stages of the 1995-96 season it became a singularly spectacular event.
Yet at the start of his remarkable introduction at Centurion Park and the ensuing headlines, he was always in danger of becoming a political freak show for all the wrong reasons.
A likeable young man with an incredible talent, Adams became the answer to what had been Ali Bacher’s desperate need for a development player to parade before the growing coterie of inquisitive, doubting politicians about the progress of the transformation programme with its targets of quotas and often misguided affirmative action policies.
There had long been mounting querulous criticism within the government run parliamentary sports committee of what had been seen as the disappointment of the emerging players programme. Yet Adams arrival was an entirely non-sequitur event. It had nothing at all to do with Bacher or United Cricket Board (of South Africa) programme of spreading the game among the underprivileged from the apartheid designed ghettoes.
He had been in the system for several years and only because of his action and doubting schoolmasters during the final trials held in April 1995 did he miss the South Africa under19 team tour of England.
It is a pity though, how despite being very much his own person and one with an unusual skill, he was shamelessly exploited from the start and became hostage of a political system demanding success and the UCB’s desire to comply with this difficult need and which politicians failed to grasp. He was not either from some underdeveloped school system with its tainted apartheid education policies.
In those first years of the nation’s democracy politicians were making impossible demands on a system which had neglected a large majority of the nation for more than 200 years. Anyone who spectacularly emerged from the ranks of the previously disenfranchised was always going to be viewed as a circus act.
Only he had been educated at a non-racial (mixed) Plumstead High School in Cape Town, the big co-ed facility in what is a spacious tree-lined suburb with its plus 200 year-old history, not a ramshackle shantytown wreck from the apartheid era.
Although Grassy Park, where he lived is situated close to the fancy streets of Plumstead, it is not a place if you had a democratic choice, willingly want to live.
But it is where he grew up in what is another of those grand apartheid designed peripheral areas to accommodate those ejected from their historic homes by the system designated by the right wing minority government. In this, Grassy Park is close enough to Plumstead to give Adams better education opportunities.
As such, despite his action, he was far from being a freak or sideshow performer.
It was in April 1995, at Centurion Park, south of Pretoria where because of the climate, trials were being held for the under19 national squad to tour England later that year. Heading the selection panel was Jackie McGlew, the former South African captain, four schoolmasters and Khaya Majola for the UCB.
Already ailing with leukaemia which claimed his life three years later, McGlew, in consultation with the team’s coach, Anton Ferreira and Majola, had held a discussion about who would be needed in the make up of the squad. McGlew and Ferreira (a former county player) knew well enough the requirements.
The schoolmasters had their own agenda of who was needed in that team. Their idea of what spinners to select differed from those of McGlew and Majola.
On my arrival, McGlew, my co-author of the first edition of the book of South Africa’s Cricket Captains (published in 1994), and a dear close friend, stood near the first of two nets in the middle of the square and watched a bowler with a highly unusual action deliver the ball to a stocky batsman with a short backlift.
“Have a look at this one and tell me what you think,” McGlew suggested. “As you can see he is a left-arm wrist spinner: turns the ball quite sharply, too. He’s from Cape Town and we picked him in the South African Colts team after the last Nuffield Week tournament. I think he has a lot of promise.”
“Not a lot of loop is there? Interesting grip though . . . and action,” were my comments. “There could be a problem with that action. If that arm straightens . . .”
“You think he throws?” McGlew was matter of fact, questioning, seeking a second opinion as I had been at one time a first-class umpire.
“It is hard to say, Jack, and it would need a lot of study. But I guess on examination he might pass the test,” were my comments.
“We want him in the team for England,” said McGlew. “Khaya (Majola) supports me, so does Yogi (Ferreira). The others think he’ll be a joke; that he will get knocked around.”
As for Adams, it was his first sight of Centurion Park: a venue where seven months later he created an image of bemused mystery among those who had not seen him in action until Western Province played Northerns in a four day Castle Cup game.
Then again, as your average spectator has more interest in sitting in a dentist’s chair than attending a colts game involving teams of unknowns, Adam’s first match at Centurion Park held no relevance.
All this changed in September 1995 when Eddie Barlow as coach of the Western Cape Academy, oversaw the early stages of young Adams provincial career. Games were played in Centurion, the East Rand and Johannesburg.
Most batsmen were troubled by the stock top-spin delivery and fooled by the googly, which he called the “out-spinner” although a young batsman with a long reach found he could handle the spin by hitting straight. Barlow though was enthralled by Adams, aka Gogga (an Afrikaans term that means bug, but in a friendly way).
“From the moment I saw him in the nets the hairs on my neck stood on end,” he remarked when asked his opinion. “He’s a remarkable bowler and I can see a major future ahead of him. South Africa have long wanted a genuine spinner, here is one: a mystery one too.”
I later passed Barlow’s thoughts on to McGlew, still annoyed that he and Majola had been overruled by the schoolmasters when selecting the under19 team for England.
When Adams made his first-class debut, Eric Simons, later to become South Africa’s coach during a disastrous period for the Proteas, which included the 2003 World Cup fiasco, was captain of a Western Province side that included Brian McMillan, West Indian Desmond Haynes and Gary Kirsten. Even at this point there was no fuss about his inclusion, no whispers of the event that might happen. It was typically low key.
Even his first innings performance, apart from his action drew little attention: two for 89 in 24 overs is not going to be well remembered. But his second innings haul of six for 101 in 35.4 overs with Gary Kirsten taking two of the other four, catapulted Adams into the South African A team to play England.
It wasn’t so much that Bacher placed pressure on the selectors headed by Peter Pollock, as the comments made by the former West Indies opening batsman Haynes that prompted the inclusion. As a trial before selection for Western Province, Duncan Fletcher, then the South African A team coach as well as that of Western Province, asked Haynes to face Adams.
The verdict is all Fletcher wanted to hear to convince the selectors of how the ever-shrewd Barlow had selected a novice with the ability to become a genuine match-winner.
“I can’t read a ball he’s bowling to me,” commented Haynes when asked by Fletcher his opinion. “I think we should play him now and see how he develops at this level.”
Few who were present can forget the electric and emotional moment of December 27 1995, at St George’s Park, Port Elizabeth when Adams walked out to bat in his Test debut. It had been eight months after the schoolmaster selectors overruled McGlew and Majola by rejecting him as a member of the under19 side. Now he is the first non-white to represent a democratic South Africa, and still the youngest.
As Barlow later pointed out in a conversation in late 2001, Adams in his first six months of international cricket has a better record than Shane Warne. By the summer of 2003/04, though his career had long been teetering on the brink of extinction and despite occasional revivals it was going nowhere.
It was also Barlow’s view how Adams should have moved from Cape Town to another centre as well as find a career in an English county or club to reinvent himself. For personal reasons he was reluctant to do so. He was by then married with a young family. Yet had he been made a genuine offer to accommodate him he would have gone.
In this Barlow, who died on December 30, 2005 and 10 years after Adams Test debut against England, strongly felt how Adams had been mishandled by a succession of coaches and captains as well as administrators and dogged by injuries. Coaches it is felt who came after Fletcher quit Western Province after the 1998/99 season and Bob Woolmer for South Africa after 1999, and who didn’t understand or appreciate the spinner’s incredible gifts.
He still remains the second highest wicket-taking South African spin bowler at Test level with Hugh Tayfield well ahead. Whereas Tayfield had captains who understood his technique and capabilities, other than Hansie Cronjé, Adams didn’t.
It is depressing how a career, which began with so much teenage spark, flair and motivation, has at 31 lost its spirit to survive.
