Kepler Wessels

'Guys bouncing the s**t out of you, telling you that you didn't belong – that fueled the passion inside,’ Being the outcast is never easy, but as the fable goes, it’s always the deaf frog that wins. Having grown up during a turbulent time in South Africa, and being the first Afrikaans person to pursue cricket as opposed to rugby, Wessels was always the man who didn’t belong.

A turbulent journey in search of destiny
He first picked up a cricket bat when he was six, and learned the basics from his sister’s boyfriend, who later went on to become a well-known coach at a college in Bloemfontein. A natural athlete, Wessels tried his hand at swimming only to discover that he had nephritis after a near-fatal incident. In his mid-teens, he focussed on tennis and went on to become the top-ranked U-16 player in the country. However, he struggled to beat senior players which damaged his confidence and he subsequently decided on one sport to focus on - cricket.

As he simultaneously played cricket, Wessels was found to be a precocious little prodigy. In a school tournament, against the Free State U-13s, he averaged a jaw-dropping 260 as a 9-year-old for Grey College. He comfortably rose through the ranks in domestic cricket, playing his maiden first-class game at 16 and his first English county game at the age of 18, as a classical opener who could face the new ball and play it out.

Alas, when apartheid started in South Africa, he had little hope of playing for his home country and was signed by Kerry Packer to play World Series’ Cricket in Australia. Packer understood the game and selected Wessels as a reliable opener for his brainchild series in the late '70s. Wessels turned out several excellent performances against some top sides, but couldn’t play the last leg of the tour due to the non-issuance of a Caribbean visa to a South African passport holder. In 1979, World Series cricket was disbanded.

Introduction to Test Cricket
After struggling through 19 years since he picked up a bat, Wessels was cleared to play for Australia and made his Test debut in the 1982 Ashes series Down Under. Sent up the order to open the batting, Wessels exhibited the steel he possessed with a 162 on debut as he dominated a renowned English pace attack. He continued his good form in the subsequent series against Pakistan and Sri Lanka, but his form deserted him in the disastrous tour of the West Indies in 1983/84.

When West Indies toured Australia in 1984/85, it was one of the most top-turvy series for Wessels, personally. Due to the increased fragility of the Australian line-up, he maintained his spot through some low scores and ended the series as the highest scorer (505 runs at 56.11) against a formidable bowling line-up, which truly labeled him as a world-class batsman. Wessels continued to play for a depleted Australian side with a fragile batting line-up (particularly after the retirement of Rod Marsh and Greg Chappell after the same series), as they went on to lose another away series against England in 1985.

After being defeated by New Zealand in 1985/86, suffering the largest defeat ever handed out by the Kiwis to the Australians, Wessels retired from Test cricket. Other than the rebel tour of South Africa, in which Wessels scored heavily (327 at 54.50), this was seemingly the end of the road for Wessels…

It was hard for Wessels to let go of cricket, as he played the entire Sheffield Shield season of 1985/86, leading the side in the absence of Allan Border and scoring 957 runs at an average of over 50, and brought him side within touching distance of a title win, only for New South Wales to run away with it after the game ended in a draw. There was cricket left in him still.

World Cup ’92: The second coming…
And then, it happened. In 1991, the apartheid in South Africa ended and ICC removed the ban against playing South Africa. The nation would play its first Test match since 1970, and without a doubt, every player in the side would be making his debut. Well, everyone except one Kepler Wessels.

At 34 years of age, Wessels was the only one with Test experience, and a level head on his shoulders meant that he was destined to lead the New South Africa after apartheid. He wasted nary a word, nor a stroke as allegations of rebel tours and treason poured in left, right and center. He wore his passion for cricket on his South African crest and marched his troops forward into the limelight of the 1992 Cricket World Cup in the nation he once played for. With a strong opposition against South Africa’s participation in the tournament, particularly with the new-look team, Wessel’s Proteas steamrolled the hosts in their very first game and won by nine wickets.

Despite losses in the next few games, and a threat of being withdrawn from the tournament, South Africa made it to the semi-final against England, only to be deceived by the rain and the modifications to the equations that it brought about: 22 off 13 -> 22 off 7 -> 22 off 1 (taking into account England’s least productive overs, as was the norm then). South Africa inevitably lost the semi-final and bowed out of the tournament with a lap of honor around the SCG - one of the lasting images of the tournament alongside Imran Khan lifting the trophy and Jonty Rhodes’ flying catch.

Wessels was the replacement for Clive Rice, as captain, when South Africa played their first post-readmission game at the Eden Gardens against India, right until his retirement at the age of 38 after South Africa’s tour of England. South Africa was losing in Kolkata, and there was no hope of a fairytale comeback as Wessels continued to grind it out, jabbing his way with unnerving calm to play for his nation's pride. The dressing-room radiated panic, and the smirks of they naysayers resonated all the way from South Africa.

In a Nutshell
Kepler was tough. Perhaps the toughest. 'I had one of two choices,' he says. 'I either had to stand up to it, or I was going to have to do something else. You just bite down on the mouthguard and move forward.' He was the outsider when he went to Australia as a labourer/cricketer; he was an outsider when he returned to lead his own country.

Kepler Wessels was the Protea who never choked - You need a pulse to be able to choke.

By Rishi Roy
As of 30th July 2018