Adrian Kuiper

It’s a warm summer’s afternoon in 1994 and the cricket ground in Verwoerdburg (now Centurion) is packed to the rafters. An air of excitement is about the place, which is understandable. After all, it doesn’t get much bigger than this: South Africa, fresh out of isolation, versus the cricketing giant Australia, a nation we loved to hate, even back then.

It’s the final three balls of the South African innings. The bowler is the medium/fast Craig McDermott, while the batsman is a young chap from the Cape by the name of Adrian Kuiper. And so far, the 50th over, for the Aussies at least, has been a pretty good one with just nine runs coming off it.

With a determined look in his eye, McDermott steams in to bowl the fourth delivery. Unfortunately for the blonde Aussie, his pretty good over was about to be decimated. The final three balls to come out of his hand will remain forever etched in the minds of the people who were at Centurion that day as well as the many, like me, who happened to be watching it all unfold on TV. Six, six, six, ominous just as it is, was how the South African innings finished, with all of the sixes coming off the bat of Kuiper, who by now had raced to 47 – 27 of those runs coming off the last six balls.

That was 17 years ago and a lot of cricket games have since been played at what is now SuperSport Park Centurion. But not many will be as fondly remembered as that one, and shaking Adrian’s hand on the first tee at Royal Johannesburg & Kensington’s West course, I’m immediately transported back to the summer when Kuiper, with the trace of a grin on his face and a cheeky glint in his eye, had the gall to hit McDermott so commandingly back over his head not once, but three times.

The face is a bit older now, but the glint in the eye is still very much there and the smile he appeared to be smothering is now on display for all to see. Perhaps it’s because he was such a big flash-hitter of the cricket ball, but I am surprised at how soft-spoken the 52-year-old is. I’m not surprised at how well-spoken he is though – that’s part of the package when you’re schooled at Bishops.

Adrian is what you’d call the definitive all-rounder. And I’m not just talking about cricket, even though he still loves to boast about bowling Allan Border out at the ’92 World Cup. Like Darryl Cullinan, Herschelle Gibbs and Peter Kirsten, Kuiper was an outstanding sportsman at school, excelling in just about everything, especially cricket and rugby.

Thirty-five odd years later and you can now add golf to that list. Off a six handicap, the Hermanus vice-captain is a regular member of his club’s league side. He says he enjoys the competitive side to the game, which is partly the reason why we decided to brace the crisp Highveld winter and partake in a battle of epic matchplay.

Being the good host, I let Adrian have the honour. Probably not the best idea I’ve ever had considering I wouldn’t see the box again until the 7th hole. For some strange reason, Kuiper had felt the need to do a Kepler Wessels impersonation, wearing an Australian cricket shirt with a South African hat. I’d asked him to bring along his kit from his playing days because I thought it would look nice for the photos, and was a little confused as to how he managed to get such a simple request so badly wrong. “This is all the kit I have left,” he said smiling and shrugging. “After I finished playing, I gave it all away.” Oh. OK then. And in case you were wondering, the shirt on his back did not belong to Craig McDermott.

With a nonchalant swing that belied the power in the stroke, Adrian got us underway. Watching his ball disappear into the distance on the par-four 1st, a rather McDermott-ish feeling threatened to engulf me. I began to get an inkling of an idea how the guy must have felt as Kuiper ruthlessly made a mockery of his bowling.

The round

My drive ended up in the right-hand rough and a three-quarter 9-iron would see me safely on the green. Two putts later and a routine par I would take. Adrian was just off on the left, but using hands that perhaps are not quite as soft as they once were thanks to all the farming he now does, managed to get up and down for par and a half on the hole.

A birdie on the par-five 2nd, again thanks to some very deft touch, this time with the putter, saw Kuiper assume the lead. Pam Golding’s main ou – he is an estate agent in the Overberg now as well as a part-time farmer – was making clear his intentions very early on.

Now you must understand that taking on someone like Adrian Kuiper at golf is not a simple task. In fact taking on any successful sportsman is not easy. They all tend to have fantastic natural ability and amazing big match temperament; they’re very good at not sucking, and when they have their noses ahead they’re excellent at not giving it away. Kuiper was no exception, but I guess spending 22 years playing top-flight cricket will do that to a man.

In fact, had it not been for the sanctions against SA, who knows how far his international career would have gone. He, like so many others of that time, deserves sympathy for a career that was so adversely affected by factors outside his control. That was a long time ago though. In 2011, on the golf course, against me, he appeared to have everything sorted.

To be honest though, I wasn’t exactly doing myself any favours. A rather large night the night before (I have since toned down my mid-week socialising) was beginning to hit home, and I was gifting holes to a man who certainly didn’t need any presents.

By the time I regained the box on the 7th I was 3 down. The mountain I was leaving myself to climb was growing ever larger.

Halfway house gave me a chance to flatten a curry while taking stock of proceedings, which were looking pretty dire. It also afforded me the opportunity of having a brief chat with Denis Hutchinson, who was 1 over par for his front nine, and enjoying a lovely seniors afternoon out with a few of his friends. “Is that Adrian Kuiper you’re playing with over there?” Hutchie asked me in that distinct low growl.
“Yes Hutchie, it is,” I replied. “He hits the ball a mile.’”
“Well, I tell you, he could hit a bloody cricket ball two miles!” was the response from the 79-year-old as he picked up his hat and made his way out to start his second nine.

And that he certainly could. Throughout his career Kuiper was compared to Sir Ian Botham for the big, booming shots he loved to play. During the England rebel tour of 1990, he made 117 off 67 balls, reaching his century in just 48 balls. At the time Darryl Cullinan described it as the best one-day hundred he had seen.

I went 4 down on the stroke-six 10th, Adrian’s birthday hole. Every hole, at this point, felt like the guy’s birthday hole.

I was really struggling, especially with a putter in my hand. Kuiper, while not setting the course alight, was doing enough to keep me at bay, using his strokes where he got them, and generally playing consistent golf.

And try as I might, I just couldn’t catch him. The damage, it appeared, was done with some pretty average golf on the front nine. With the sun now setting, and the scent of victory hanging heavily in the air, Kuiper became more brazen, slipping in chirps whenever he wasn’t hitting a shot.

Not that I minded. I am a huge fan of the chirp. However, if the rubbish he spoke to his opponents on the cricket field was the same as the rubbish he spoke into my ear on the golf course, then I can imagine batting while he was around must have been a very challenging exercise.

We shook hands on the 15th green. The card would reflect the 4 & 3 thumping I had received, but to be honest it felt like a lot more than that. We still had another three holes to go so we decided, what the heck, let’s play for drinks and biltong. I lost that too.

With the winter chill about us, we sat down in the newly refurbished Royal Johannesburg & Kensington clubhouse. Over a couple of cold ones (my midweek ‘no drinking’ policy now blown to smithereens), Adrian and I chatted away. Sipping on the beer I bought, he gave me his thoughts on the state of South African cricket, which is certainly about to enter a very interesting phase.

Let’s just say the wily old Kuiper has certain reservations about having two captains in the form of AB de Villiers and Graeme Smith in the same set-up. That said, he is very chuffed that his former teammate and friend Gary Kirsten is now at the helm, believing that we can only benefit from his great work ethic.

Another thing I learnt sitting out on the stoep that day is that Adrian is not a fan when it comes to the T20 format of the game – he believes it’s destroying world cricket. India, in his opinion, has become far too powerful, dictating to the ICC and other nations what can and can’t be done.

It was certainly food for thought. Come to think of it now, the chat we shared on the balcony after the round was probably the most serious moment of the entire day. A day of really good fun where one of the biggest hitters of a cricket ball South Africa has ever known had picked up a golf club and asked me the question. And yes, I had been found wanting.

I’ll let you know how the re-match goes.

FACT FILE

BORN: Adrian Paul Kuiper on 24 August 1959

TEAMS REPRESENTED: SA, Boland, WP, Derbyshire (UK)

PLAYING ROLE: All-rounder

TEST DEBUT: West Indies vs SA, Barbados, 18 April 1992

ODI DEBUT: India vs SA, Kolkata, 10 November 1991

TESTS PLAYED: 1

ODIs PLAYED: 25

CLAIM TO FAME: Hit three consecutive sixes in the last three balls of the final over vs Australia in Centurion, 1994

HOME COURSE: Hermanus

HANDICAP: 6