Klusener prefers the smell of a goat to a dollar

Lance Klusener is the most important and least complicated member of this South African team. Of course, these matters are connected, because the South Africans suffer from an earnestness that can be contagious.

Klusener has none of that. He grew up in the rawness of the bush, was raised outside the game, was not groomed for stardom with all its desperate expectations and nowadays does not bother much with appearances or speeches or advertisements and all that rot. He does his bit and then returns to the fertile land where he can fish or shoot.

Cricket does not get to him. Pressure cannot reduce him to a shivering wreck because he does not think it exists. It's only a cricket match, a game and not life itself. He has been over the hill and smelled the way of the world with its hunger, its fears and its prayers for rain. His journey is outward and he brings openness to his team.

Klusener first saw the light of day on a sugar cane farm in Eshowe, a village in the northern parts of Natal, the part they call Zululand. Like most farmers' sons he had a black nanny and played with Zulu children. Naturally, he spoke their language and learned their customs and throughout he has respected the people and land he saw around him. In some respects, he is South Africa, or rather what it wants to be.

Most particularly, he liked the Zulu philosophies and agreed that 'better a goat than a dollar' because a goat can be cooked or milked. He has tried to stay true to these beliefs, avoiding the traps of celebrity for he has seen the world and knows his place in it.

Inevitably, he was eventually obliged to go to school. Perhaps he took a similar view to education as Hucklebury Finn, but he went along anyhow as a boarder at Durban High School, a traditional establishment that had knocked down its drafty, ancient buildings and somewhat softened its regime of cold showers at dawn. DHS is Barry Richards' old school and still produces lots of promising cricketers.

Klusener was a quiet schoolboy. His time had not yet come and he did a lot of thinking and watching. Moreover, he does not bother much with words. After winning his fourth Man of the Match award of this World Cup, he was asked what he thought and replied: 'Champagne's nice' (which left the interviewer with a lot of time to fill).

He was a small fellow whose chest did not yet contain the power of a weightlifter. He did not excel as a cricketer, spending most of his schooldays as opening bat for the Second XI. Although he has been a late developer and none the worse for that, he was a fully-formed person before he came to cricket and fame and all its tomfoolery. His strength is natural and comes from a farm and not a gym. There is nothing manufactured about him or his cricket.

After DHS, for whose First XI he did eventually play, Klusener went into the army where he enjoyed himself so much that he stayed beyond the requirement and became a corporal. Not much puts him off his path, and certainly not the discipline of 4.30 bugles or the roaring of sergeant-majors.

Klusener continued playing cricket, mostly for the country districts where a rough and ready form of the game was preferred. Casting aside the respectability of his schooling, Klusener took to hitting the ball as hard as possible. Catching the mood, he also decided to bowl as fast as he could. It was an approach that suited him down to the ground. To his surprise, and the consternation of various opponents, Klusener found that he could bowl quite fast. He had found himself, had found a style in keeping with his temperament. It is always better that way because it reduces the tension within.

He started belting runs and breaking stumps. Word spread about him, through the papers or perhaps the drums. Natal's selectors sent for him. Luckily Graham Ford was their coach, a man capable of drawing the best from such varied forms of men as Pat Symcox, Jonty Rhodes and this 22-year-old farmer from Zululand.

Pretty soon, Klusener found himself in the South African team. He kept taking more wickets and scoring more runs than he was supposed to do. And he kept finishing on the winning side.

Klusener has become a top-class cricketer. When he is missing, he is missed. And his absence from the last few Tests against England last season made an enormous difference.

Suddenly, the lower order was shaky and there was no one to break a deadlock in the middle of a long afternoon. This is not to imply that Klusener is a plain fellow. Simplicity and stupidity are not the same thing at all. To the contrary, he is a thinking cricketer who takes wickets with subtlety and will-power.

Now Klusener has come into his own. It has been his World Cup, and Moin Khan's and Tom Moody's, because they are different from the rest of their comrades. Repeatedly, Klusener has walked to the wicket with his team in trouble. Armed with a heavy bat, he seems calm and confident. 'We'll get these,' he tells his partners. 'Just leave it to me.' In Napier, he hit the last ball of the match for six. Here he has belted the ball over the ropes time and again. No field can hold him.

Before he bats, he often reads a book or magazine, in the middle he thinks and acts, and afterwards he is quiet because it was only a game and he mustn't get carried away.

In the winters, Klusener goes fishing in the mountains and hunting on the plains. He goes with his chums. He leads a balanced life because he grew up outside this game and its hyperbole and its World Cup.

Perhaps its easier for him, than for those whose sporting journey of necessity began before their lives were properly underway.

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