It’s a given – JP Duminy has been out of form for a considerable amount of time and doesn’t look like he’ll find it anytime soon. But instead of us all moaning at him, lets aim our rage at the men selecting him
For the longest time, I’ve read online that JP Duminy is useless and that he’s in the side as a quota player. In recent times, I’ve even read a suggestion that he has nudes of Russell Domingo and is blackmailing him with them. I’ve definitely been one of the people that have been saying his time in the Proteas side is done, and should have been done for a while now.
In this current Test against England, he dropped Joe Root on 16, who went on to score 190. JP scored 17 runs in his two innings, effectively giving him a nett contribution of -174 in the Test. Maybe slightly harsh seems as though Aiden Markram should have caught Root on 5. However, JP is not contributing, so why is he being selected?
Linda Zondi as convener of selectors and Russell Domingo as coach need to be asked some serious questions about this. It, in fact, has nothing to do with JP. As a cricketer, JP Duminy is living his dream – he’s living a lot of our dreams playing for the Proteas. It’s not for him to drop himself from the side. It’s the job of the coach and selectors to drop him and find a better replacement.
I certainly don’t know JP Duminy as a person, but have met him on one or two occasions – and like everyone says, he’s such a chilled person, a relaxed guy and a humble human. He’s obviously not deliberately out of form, I’d be shocked if he walked out to bat wanting to fail. So he’s trying his absolute best, which CLEARLY is not good enough with current form. Off the field, he does everything he can for SA cricket with his JP21 Project “to inspire and provide hope to learners using cricket as the vehicle” according to their website.
So Linda Zondi and Russell Domingo need to get an absolute bollocking from the SA public for the make-up of the side.
I can’t think of a single international cricketer other than AB de Villiers who gets selected for his country and doesn’t accept the opportunity with both hands. I also don’t know too many people in the corporate world who don’t reach a target or deadline, and then stand up from their cubicle and fire themselves – it’s the bosses who need to make that call.
And in this case, the bosses are Domingo and Zondi. So lets all jump on them and lay off JP for a bit. It just seems like the fair and correct thing to do.