Khaya Zondo's mixed masala

01 October 2015 - 02:18 By Telford Vice

He's played 240 matches across all formats and at all levels, taken guard 275 times, scored 12 centuries and 46 half-centuries in his aggregate of 7783 runs, which gives him an average of 31.63. He's also bowled 3483 balls of off-spin and taken 78 wickets - two of them for four runs in the five deliveries he has sent down in the Africa Cup.Who is he? Here's a clue: he went to the same school as Errol Stewart, Mickey Arthur and Robbie Frylinck, not to mention those two famous Chads: Ho and Le Clos. Still stumped?His high school coach thinks he could be special enough to share a sentence with modern batting's resident genius."He's a versatile player," Fabian Lazarus, head coach at Westville Boys' High, said yesterday.His name is Khaya Zondo and he is part of South Africa's Twenty20 and one-day squads in India, an achievement he earned scoring 154 runs at 38.50 in four innings for South Africa in a one-day triangular tournament in August. The fact that Zondo is black, uncapped at international level and South African means many of his compatriots will have leapt to the assumption that he owes his selection to affirmative action.Those who question Zondo's inclusion should ask themselves whether they would take issue with his selection if he were white - or whether convenor Linda Zondi and his panel had taken a flyer on a "youngster". He is 25.Either way, the only person who can reveal the truth is Zondo himself. Should he get the chance in the first T20 against India in Dharamsala tomorrow, he won't have received any help from the groundsman, Sunil Chauhan."For T20, you need a sporting pitch," Chauhan said yesterday.That was only the first of the confusing comments made by Chauhan."Because of the timing of the match (7pm local, 3.30pm in South Africa) dew will be a factor ... I'm expecting a high-scoring game."That's a properly mixed masala of what might happen. Good luck figuring it out, Mr Zondo...

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