Picture it. Heritage Day morning, the whole country off work, the Durban tropical sun shining in all its glory. The reigning world champions in town. The Proteas men’s team back on home soil for the first time in what has felt like forever.
Every ingredient for a memorable day at the cricket, even more so considering Kingsmead had not hosted any ODIs in six years.
Instead, rows of empty blue seats and open grass banks in the 25,000-seater stadium greeted the players when they lined up for the national anthems.
Perhaps everyone was just operating on African time, fans affording themselves a bit of a lie-in after a busy working week.
But even though a few more trickled in during the course of the day, there was still no strain on the organisers to put up the “SOLD OUT” signs, with vast open spaces still prevalent by the time the Proteas closed out a memorable victory over their arch-rivals.
After such a long wait for the return of international cricket to South African grounds, it was embarrassing.
What’s the reason Kingsmead isn’t sold out? Or is it and people just decided not to come?
This wasn’t some meaningless dead rubber. This was Australia, the equivalent of the Proteas’ greatest rivalry, walking out at a ground with genuine history between these two nations. This was a public holiday. This was South Africa’s first taste of home international cricket in nearly two years of exile. If ever there was a script written for a sold-out, bouncing occasion, this was it. Instead, the empty seats told their own story.
Kingsmead has, of course, been here before. Rewind to December 2013. Jacques Kallis, arguably the greatest all-rounder the game has produced and closing in on 13,000 Test runs, chose Kingsmead for his farewell.
Instead of a legend walking out for the last time with his home fans saluting him, especially after bringing up an emotional century, a crowd reported bluntly as “a disappointingly small crowd” bid Cricinfo’s “greatest cricketer of all time” a timid farewell.
Boxing Day itself drew 14,000. By the back end of the match, that had shrivelled to an average of roughly 6,500 a day. Cricket South Africa’s own spokesman admitted it was “a concern.”
Kingsmead has since lost the Boxing Day Test altogether. It shifted permanently to Centurion after that season, where it has stayed ever since.
Sun’s out, spirits up!
Proteas faithful turned Hollywoodbets Kingsmead into a sea of green and gold ahead of the series opener against Australia.
Which brings us back to Thursday morning, and the uncomfortable truth sitting beneath those empty seats. This was meant to be different. This was meant to be the moment Kingsmead reminded everyone why a city with this much cricketing heritage deserves to be taken seriously again.
Instead, on the one occasion practically engineered for a bumper crowd, Durban’s cricketing public shrugged, much as it shrugged at Kallis’s tearful goodbye thirteen years ago.
The die-hards that were there tried their best to create some form at atmosphere, particularly finding their voice during the Matthew Breetzke, Marco Jansen and Nathan Ellis hostilities.
Imagine the cauldron it could have been were it a capacity crowd.
The first counter-argument would be the affordability of tickets. But unlike Springbok Test matches, where an individual ticket ranged from R850 to as much as R4,000 for the three “Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry” Tests on home soil, an entire family of four (two parents and two children under 18) could attend the Kingsmead ODI for less than R1,000.
Granted, food and drink would still be required, but the home braai could be transferred to the stadium.
Proteas legend Jacques Kallis waved to a sparse crowd that assembled at Kingsmead to bid farewell to the great all-rounder upon his retirement in 2013.
I genuinely feel for Dolphins CEO Heinrich Strydom, new stadium and events manager Krystl Rangiah, and the rest of the Kingsmead staff.
They have made genuine improvements, from the food court behind the North Eastern edge to a complete overhaul of the facilities behind Castle Corner, in order to improve the spectator experience.
There’s a World Cup coming to this country in barely a year. If Kingsmead wants to be trusted with matches that matter when the whole cricketing world is watching, Thursday was the test, and the fans, once again, came up short of the moment.
There will be another opportunity to redeem themselves when the first Test comes to the same venue next month, with the first three days scheduled for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
If it’s not grasped, and filled with the proverbial bums on seats, a serious consideration needs to be undertaken regarding Kingsmead’s viability to host major international cricket events in the future.
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