According to Kruger van Wyk there are many things to like about his former coach John Wright, but top of the list is his humour.I remember him waiting a while before telling me that the South Africans were going to give me shit during my debut Test [for New Zealand], says van Wyk. Thinking back on it, that was probably his way of telling me I was in the team, because he was always very dry. John was very much a mans man: he had that old-school toughness and was really comfortable in those sorts of environments. The best thing about him was his sense of humour, because hed listen to things for a long time and then come in with perfect timing. In that respect he was always very good to me.Van Wyk spent the three days prior to his Test debut, in Dunedin against the South Africans in March 2012, flat on his back with a bad case of gastroenteritis. I lost 5kgs and really wasnt in the best of shape, he says. By the time it came to the Test itself he was, however, back in the saddle - slightly lighter but ready to pounce should the South Africans forget he was there and lapse into some ill-advised vloeking (swearing) or off-the-cuff analysis in Afrikaans.Far from the South Africans giving him shit, the Test passed off reasonably amicably. Van Wyk had grown up with players like Jacques Rudolph and AB de Villiers and the verbals were restricted to a good-natured trickle. Chris Martin nipped [Jacques] Kallis and [AB] de Villiers out on the first day and we led on the first innings by 40-odd, van Wyk remembers. They batted well in the second innings [with hundreds to Kallis, Smith and Rudolph], and then at close on the fourth day we were about 140 for 2, with Brendon [McCullum] and Ross [Taylor] at the crease; we needed 300 runs to win with eight wickets standing on a flat track on the final day. Kane [Williamson] was due to come in at five. I think we could have been in for a very exciting final day of cricket, except that it rained on the fourth night and that was it.By his own admission, van Wyk wasnt ready for international cricket when he arrived in New Zealand. He was there because Dave Nosworthy, his former coach at Titans (in South Africa), had been recruited by Canterbury and the South Island outfit needed a wicketkeeper. Mark Boucher wasnt going to relinquish the gloves for South Africa anytime soon and the opportunity seemed like a godsend. This was a chance to reinvent himself, have an adventure and subsume himself in the New Zealand cricketing way.I think we play a boring brand here in South Africa - were one-dimensional, he says. The Kiwis ingenuity is something theyre really proud of. If they need to pick three spinners in a World T20 to beat India in India, theyre going to do that. Theyre really proud of their ingenuity. [Brendon] McCullum and [Mike] Hesson were always prepared to be brave, and thats absolutely great.While the stereotype of the canny Kiwi can be overplayed, theres no doubt that their mentalité, as the French would call it, is to put everything they have to the best possible use - in terms of being prepared to lose as they gamble for a win. Van Wyk says he loved this approach, the idea that they were exhausting every available opportunity to improve themselves, and found himself growing exponentially as a cricketer.He played nine Tests, being knocked off his perch by BJ Watling, but there is no sign of regret. Indeed, you rather feel that his sojourn turned out far better than he ever had reason to expect. Here, after all, was the boy from Wolmaransstad, a veritable Wagga Wagga of the veld. He was too small for rugby and didnt like disappearing into the wastes of the outfield, so became a wicketkeeper. His entire career was a story of scaling heights he didnt naturally reach. Van Wyk and his young family (one boy, one girl) returned to South Africa in December 2015, after nine years in New Zealand, and he became director of cricket at the Assupol Tuks Cricket Academy at the University of Pretoria. Hes hoping to back up words with deeds by inculcating a far more adventurous brand of cricket, saying that hes frequently gobsmacked at the conveyor belt of talent that the African sunshine and good facilities seem to almost carelessly produce. You have to allow players to grow outside of a structure or a game plan, to keep challenging them in different ways. Id say its a state-of-mind thing rather than a technique or set of techniques.Van Wyk has an opportunity to see what Tuks can do when they defend their Red Bull Campus Cricket World Finals title in Sri Lanka early next month. In preparation for the event, van Wyk has been hard at work simulating the kinds of conditions he expects to find in Sri Lanka, roughing up wickets, underpreparing them and leaving them bereft of grass. Twenty-over cricket provides players with the opportunity to be reckless - and youve got to allow them that freedom and license.Prior to the New Zealanders hopping up to Zimbabwe, they spent a week at Tuks Pretoria facility where van Wyks boys were able to rub shoulders with the tourists. It was great, he says, for his left-arm quicks to swap notes with Trent Boult or his fast bowlers to bask in the presence of, say, Tim Southee.Unlike the South Africans, who havent played much recent Test cricket, the visitors look well-grooved. Kingsmead, the venue for the first Test, has been known to be unkind to home sides in recent years, and the New Zealanders will probably be closer to where they want to be than the hosts. Its increasingly tempting, in fact, to see the two teams as different sides of the same ball: South African cricket is in the midst of blithely frittering away its riches (some of those riches heading for New Zealand), its Test outfit less successful than it should be. By contrast, New Zealand make best use of what they have, proud to innovate and bold enough to try. Its the very shift Van Wyk is trying to initiate with his young charges.Wholesale Nike Shoes China . Burke is expected to miss two to three months after breaking a finger in the teams third preseason game. Tinsley, a 10-year veteran, spent the last two seasons in Utah, where the point guard averaged 3. Authentic Wholesale Nike Shoes . The International Olympic Committee released the official list of bid cities on Friday after the deadline for applications had passed. 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The spirit of cricket had been trampled on by Nevills alertness, reinforcing Australias reputation as a team up to no good - or so the opinion went.Nevermind that Karunaratne had ignored the fact the ball isnt dead until it has returned to the bowler, or that wicketkeepers the world over are perpetually trying to catch a batsman out in this way and Nevill was a rare one to succeed. The moment drew out a chorus of tut-tutting that only really abated when Adam Gilchrist emerged to tweet the following: Nothing unethical about this one. Just a little bit lazy by batsman.Later, an instance was found where Darren Lehmann had been dismissed in more or less the same manner by Romesh Kaluwitharana in a 1996 ODI. A little like Mankading, Nevills stumping provided another instance where batsmen should be more conscious of checking their privilege.There was another cricketing point to the farrago, one of far greater import to Australia and borne out further as the fourth day at the SSC went on. If it was going to take an alert Nevills moment of opportunism to manufacture a wicket for the spinners on a turning and deteriorating pitch, then the tourists were going to be waiting a long time to get through Sri Lankas batting. How true this turned out to be, as Kaushal Silva and Dinesh Chandimal set about building a handsome lead.Irrespective of the result in this match, Australias cricketers, coaches and selectors were hoping to see signs of progress over five days, especially in the departments of batting and spin bowling. While Mitchell Starc has been the outstanding Australian performer in the series, and Josh Hazlewood has offered sturdy support, pace was always something of a sideshow in these climes. The greater onus was on the batsmen to build partnerships and big scores, and the spinners to take wickets through unrelenting pressure on helpful surfaces.The inclusion of Shaun Marsh and the batting evolution of the captain Steven Smith allowed for the former to occur at least in part on days one and two. Their partnership was something for the top six and their mentors to take home to Australia with a sense that at least two players had been able to show the way - even if the rest failed to capitalise on it.But the same could not be said for Nathan Lyon and Jon Holland when their turn came to exert an influence on the match. Rather than coming into their own on the same pitch Rangana Herath was able to use to harvest six wickets, Lyon and Holland were frustrated at length by impish Sri Lankan batting and their own inability to find the consistency required of spinners against opponents raised on a steady diet of slow bowling.Lyon and Holland are both bowlers capable of delivering high quality stuff - their best offerings are arguably more potent than those of Herath, being whirred down from greater heights and so able to gain greater bounce while also being loaded with plenty of revolutions. However the ability to land ball after ball in the same small area of the pitch while close-in fielders sweat on batting errors is what counts most in Asia, and on that count both have been found wanting.For this, a large degree of crredit needs to go to Sri Lanka, who have manipulated fields by canny use of sweep shots and heaves over the top at well-chosen moments.dddddddddddd As their latest centurion Kaushal Silva put it: We were positive. When you play on this kind of a wicket you need to manoeuvre the fielders around, you cant have fielders in catching positions. Our guys played shots and reverse swept so they had to put a fielder there. Those are the little things you need to do when batting, especially the sweep we did it quite often in the series, so that helped us to move the fielders so that they had to do something different which is not their plan.Nevertheless, Lyon and Holland needed to be able to counter with their own consistency, and a strong self-belief to stick at the task. Wicketkeeper Peter Nevill has had a ringside seat to this contest, and agreed that neither Lyon nor Holland has been allowed to get into any sort of comfortable groove. Our spinners have done their best to adapt as best they can and I think its been an admirable effort, but their batsmen have played spin exceptionally well and made it very hard for a spinner to settle, he said. Theyve swept really well, used their feet well, so a lot of credits got to go to their batsmen.What will be most troubling for Lehmann, Smith and the selection chairman Rod Marsh is the fact that day four in Colombo was a much better opportunity for Lyon and Holland to influence the outcome than any other juncture of the series. Certainly it was a world away from the scenario they faced in Galle, when a large first innings lead had been conceded. This time around the game was finally balanced entering the second innings, with the narrative to be written by the team that took the initiative through skill and mental sharpness.But rather than Lyon and Holland making use of the lessons they have learned over the past two weeks, it was Sri Lanka who emerged the stronger, as Australias spinners kept on trying to make adjustments in terms of pace, length and arm path. Both men landed the occasional delivery in the perfect spot, eliciting sharp turn and bounce. But they did not do so often enough to corner their opponents, and when the wickets did start to come later in the day, Sri Lankas lead had already assumed proportions never successfully chased on this ground. These belated breakthroughs were arguably serving more to open the game up for the hosts than the visitors - the opposite of what Australia had hoped for.Having made his debut in Sri Lanka five years ago, Lyon is now the most senior member of the Australian team in terms of Test matches played. He is also the song master, entrusted with the job of belting out Underneath the Southern Cross after Test match victories. It will be a source of enormous frustration for him that he has not been able to emerge as a decisive force in this series, and cause for the selectors to ponder the right combination to take to India next year.When the review of Australias defeat is undertaken as the chief executive James Sutherland has promised, more time will be spent analysing Lyons failure to perform as the lead strike bowler on tour than on an opportunistic stumping effected by an aware wicketkeeper. It should be, anyway. ' ' '