C3, 4E: CODE LANGUAGE, ENGLAND OUTPLAY SOUTH AFRICA!

England’s tactics in the third Twenty20 international in South Africa looked like a game of secret language with letters and numbers becoming codes for tactics and moves...

- SREELATA S. YELLAMRAZU

Are England doing to South Africa what South Africa attempted to do in England twenty years ago? After the Bob Woolmer- Hansie Cronje earpiece experiment was shown the door, England have a tactician passing on messages in something not unlike Morse code.

England’s tactics in the third Twenty20 international in South Africa looked like a game of secret language with letters and numbers becoming codes for tactics and moves. Although cricket is not approved to have the coachwork out the details from the sidelines like in football, messages in the bottle have been par for the course for aeons with the twelfth man occasionally handed the duty of not only providing drinks in the middle to the batsmen but also, carrying a message or two from the skipper and coach back in the dressing room.