De Zorzi's serious approach to silliness

Tony de Zorzi's new day job is strictly for serious people. Comedians need not apply. Opening the batting in Test cricket is not for them. It's for exemplars of earnestness like Jack Hobbs, Gautam Gambhir, David Warner, Kepler Wessels and Gordon Greenidge.

There are exceptions. No-one could accuse Herschelle Gibbs, Chris Gayle, David Boon, Mark Butcher or Virender Sehwag of being dour. But, mostly, openers are buttoned-down and strait-laced. They're about rolling with the punches, not with the punchlines. It's not difficult to understand why - facing the best fast bowlers armed with new balls on fresh pitches isn't funny.

And then there's De Zorzi, who after the drawn first Test at Queen's Park Oval in Trinidad is two innings into his new position; his first seven innings were at No. 3. Was the chief danger of batting on the painfully slow Port-of-Spain pitch the potential to run out of patience and lose concentration? "I think the pitch was very dangerous," a deadpan De Zorzi told a press conference from Guyana on Tuesday. "That's why the runs I scored were very high quality ... No, I'm joking."

The match was only De Zorzi's fifth Test and his first outside South Africa. But he made 78 and 45 and seemed at home despite the outlandish conditions. How had he managed to be so sure of himself at the crease? "I'm glad it looks like that. It doesn't always feel like that for the first couple of balls."

De Zorzi's lightheartedness was given full rein in an episode of the South Africans' video tour diary, which was shot on a beach in Trinidad. He had control of the microphone, and used the opportunity to lampoon his teammates for more than 13 minutes of sometimes edgy inanity. Some of the footage would have crossed the boundaries of acceptability in squads not as comfortable with comic and cultural confrontation as South Africa's.

Dane Paterson wore Milwaukee Bucks jersey No. 34, which had Giannis Antetokounmpo's last name across the shoulders in a cramped curve. "Apparently that's his favourite basketball player, but I don't think he knows how to say the name - so let's go find out," De Zorzi said before asking Paterson to do just that, which he could not.

When the red-headed Kyle Verreynne emerged from the Caribbean in search of sunblock to stop himself from turning ever pinker, De Zorzi said loudly enough for all to hear, "There's a salmon walking out of the ocean! It would be rude not to ask - do gingers get sunburned?"

To Kyle Botha, the squad's massage therapist, whose imposing Afro hairstyle makes him look not a little like Colin Kaepernick, the quarterback who has been shunned by NFL teams because he dared take a knee for social justice during the playing of the United States' national anthem, De Zorzi said: "Colin, love the hair."

As a shirtless David Bedingham walked along the beach, De Zorzi accosted him with: "He's got four abs! Look at this hunk of a human being! Jenna, hold onto him tight!" Bedingham and Jenna van Niekerk plan to marry in February.

All of which was accepted in the jovial spirit in which it was offered. "It was another opportunity for me to talk nonsense, so I enjoyed it," De Zorzi said of the outing. That he was given the chance to rib his fellow players in this way is evidence of South Africa's changing dressingroom environment. Not many years ago it would have been unusual for the South Africans to allow themselves to be seen in this light. And unthinkable to give someone who had only five Test caps the chance to make fun of his seniors.

Maybe part of that change is making time and space for humour when seriousness takes a day off. Because the second Test at Providence starts on Thursday, when even De Zorzi will have to submit to at least a semblance of solemnity. That he is capable of doing so was apparent from his answer when he was asked, at the presser, how he had tailored his game for pitches as mournfully slow as the unmourned slab of dried, rolled, grassless mud at Queen's Park Oval.

"As someone who was born up-country [in Johannesburg], where the ball comes onto the bat, I score a lot squarer on the off side and the leg side. So here it's about being cognisant of the fact that I'm going to have to hit a lot straighter to score most of my runs. I'm hitting towards mid-on and mid-off more often.

"It's not about making massive technical changes. It's more about mindset. At home you might be sweating on something short to use the pace, whereas here the same ball will probably dribble to point and you won't get as many runs. So you need to be more aware of something that's full and straight - there's more pace on the ball because the bounce hasn't taken the pace off it."

Silliness when the occasion suits and, when required, seriousness. What's not to like?