The Leading Edge
The tale of a plastic bag... how dare it at such a big cricket test match?
Everything stopped for a moment or seven at Newlands on Friday as an empty, orange plastic bag inched its way along and up the sloping section of the sightscreen at the Wynberg End, bumping left here, tilting right there. 11.20am, said the clock.
AB de Villiers had seen it first, as well he might have considering he was facing at the Kelvin Grove End.
He held up a hand to halt the bowler, his mostly white glove gleaming in the summer sun. With that De Villiers and Faf du Plessis, both umpires and all 11 players on the field stopped whatever it was they were doing and stared at the sightscreen and the slow progress of the empty, orange plastic bag.
Clambering after the bag wasn't an option seeing as it was on a white sheet covering that section of seats directly behind the pitch - you could easily do yourself a nasty.
The temerity of the thing; a mere plastic bag. How dare it?
But what to do except wait for it to make its way, with a certain sad whimsy, out of the batsman's eyeline so play could resume.
Impotence was all around as some of the most famous figures in sport waited for that to happen...
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