The Hermann Show
Jordan Hermann was outstanding against MI Cape Town
Sunrisers Eastern Cape needed someone to guide them through the innings at a good rate. Against MI Cape Town, that person was Jordan Hermann.
The neighbours’ windows kept breaking. Flat batted shots were crashing into their windows. Powerfully struck shots were damaging plants. Cricket was causing a crisis, but Rubin, Devon and Jordan loved the game, so Marius Hermann had no choice but to erect a net for them.
The project wasn’t a fancy one. It was netting - three meters high and four meters wide - held together by cable ties surrounding a 12-metre concrete slab. During the rainy season, the nets were out of use for extended periods because a mud bath always formed where the concrete slab ended. Of course, boys being boys, they tried to play around the mud bath.
In addition to solving the problems created by aerial shots, the nets solved a second issue. The distance between the nets and the house meant that the coaching, screaming and arguments did not disturb the rest of the Hermann household. Everyone let out a collective sigh of relief. Peace at last.
Jordan Hermann also had the freedom to express himself. Pull and hook shots were now safe to play. The first iteration of the pitch offered pace and bounce. “Balls were flying around the jaw and it was chin music all the time, especially the hard new balls,” says Marius.
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When you combine the damage one ball suffers from being banged onto a concrete slab and being smashed onto the retaining wall that fortified the net as Hermann smashed imaginary sixes, you are left with short-lived balls. Cricket balls do not come cheap, and again Marius had to come up with another solution. “I mean, you hit it three or four times onto that cement and the ball looks like it's the fourth day of a Test match, and they haven't changed the ball. The balls got buggard and it wasn’t as if there was unending money,” says Marius.
The second iteration of the nets was much better. There was a Flixc surface underfoot and carpet on the retaining wall. This version of the nets was also an all-weather job. Rain or shine, night or day, Jordan Hermann could have a practice session. The Flixc pitch also meant that he had a surface that also helped him to work on his technique against spin.
Hermann would go from watching batters do innovative stuff on TV or YouTube, to the facility to try out what he had seen. The possibilities were limitless. He was not always successful in his reenactments, but when he was successful, their African Grey parrot, Riff Raff - which had taken residence in the nets - would shout, “Great shot!”
On 16 January 2024, Riff Raff would have shouted, “Great shot!” no less than 14 times. That is the number of boundaries Jordan Hermann struck on his way to a maiden SA20 century. The Sunrisers Eastern Cape opener hammered eight fours and six sixes on his way to an unbeaten 106 off 62 for a strike rate of 170.96.
Riff Raff would have shouted, “Great shot!” four times in the 12th over as Hermann manhandled Liam Livingstone. The left-hander struck three sixes and a single four in the over. The last six in that over is a shot that Riff Raff grew familiar with when Hermann lived at home. Livingstone bowled a full-length delivery outside off, and Hermann smashed it straight down the ground.
“My favourite shot is the one that goes down the ground,” Jordan Hermann shared with me a while ago. He worked on it relentlessly in the facility. Hermann mastered the lofted cut that flies over point for six in the facility. His front and back foot cover drives, which make coaches weak at the knees were also perfected there. The pull shot he executed against Livingstone, the shot down the ground and the flick over deep backward square against Olly Stone, Hermann grooved them in the all-weather facility his father built for him and his brothers.
The only difference between then and now is that he wasn’t putting on a show for Riff Raff, and he didn’t have to imagine the match context, his team, the opposition and the crowd. It was all real. And, most importantly, he guided his team to a match-winning 202 runs.
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Thanks for reading. Until next time… - CS