South African cricket is not for sissies.
The national coach doesn't know whether he still has a job? Stuff him. Your shiny new Twenty20 tournament is beset by controversy even before the first cheerleader shakes the first pompom?
So what.
You can't find a pair of batsmen who can stick around together for as long as it takes, say, the ANC to make sure they smack each of their MPs upside the head and inform them which way they will vote, with their conscience, of course, in a secret ballot?
Tell them to man the hell up. The batsmen, that is, not the MPs. Although that wouldn't be bad. Perhaps batsmen and politicians both should woman the hell up, seeing as we can't seem to get much right in a world controlled from the male side of the gender divide.
Whatever. South Africa's batsmen need to sort themselves out quickly. Because they will soon be asked the same kind of tough questions they failed to answer acceptably in England.
Not, you would think, by Bangladesh, who will play two tests in South Africa from the end of September.But then India will arrive, followed by Australia.
So South Africa's batsmen will, by the end of the summer, have faced four of the top five ranked bowlers in the game.
One of them, James Anderson, claimed 20 of their wickets at 14.10 in England. Should India spinners Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin - admittedly unlikely in South African conditions - and Australia fast bowler Josh Hazlewood - far more likely - jam like Jimmy, expect similarly underwhelming results as those achieved in England...