The Net Bowler From Empangeni
Kyle Abbott's path to the five-wicket haul on debut.
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Kyle Abbott's cricket career was over by the time he turned 21.
By then he didn't know what to do with his life. He had done the UK club cricket scene, a year with Lewdon and two with Clevedon. Somewhere in between, he had also managed a cameo, a three-match run, for Somerset’s B side. This was largely thanks to Jimmy Cook’s presence at Somerset at the time.
Cook doesn’t remember the exact details of how everything unfolded, but he does remember young Kyle Abbott - driven to make the best of the opportunity. He didn't look bad at all.
But, after the 3-year run, Kyle Abbott was back home. Outside of stories about life in the UK countryside, he had nothing to show for his time there. Well, he had better bartending and gardening skills. Those were the services that both Lewdon and Clevedon had been paying him for, not his cricketing skills.
While in the UK, Kyle was under working holiday visas. The paperwork needed for him to get a Tier 5 visa - which would have allowed him to play as an overseas professional - was a lot harder and a lot more complicated to get.
The working holiday visa, on the other hand, is designed as a way for young travellers to earn extra money during their stay in the UK. It is also referred to as the Youth Mobility visa. Having identified this loophole, some clubs were willing to sign young overseas players keen to experience the UK club cricket scene. That’s how Kyle the cricketer ended up as everyone’s favourite bartender and gardener.
“It's a long way around it,” Kyle Abbott laughs. “Technically you get paid, but you have to actually work your Monday through Friday to get paid for the cricket you're playing on a Saturday.”
This is not how he had imagined things would turn out when he was in school.
“In Matric everyone was applying for universities,” Kyle recalls. “And when anyone asked me, ‘where you're applying?’ I would be like, ‘I'm applying for my UK visa, I'm going to play club cricket in the UK.’”
UK club cricket was supposed to be a stepping stone on his way to international cricket. Instead, it turned out to be a three-year vacation.
Back home, disillusioned and playing Division 2 club cricket for Uthungulu, Kyle was employed by his father’s construction company. He did not want to work here forever. He didn't enjoy unblocking sewers, changing toilets and all the other perks of plumbing.
“That was my dad’s way of introducing you to the work,” Kyle shakes his head. “And then you slowly became a driver and maybe you started to do some other cool stuff.”
But Kyle wasn’t keen to stick around to see where he would end up. With professional cricket out of the window, Kyle Abbot enrolled to study for a degree in Environmental Management with Unisa. But, only a couple of months in and Kyle wanted out.
As a youngster, Kyle Abbott was incredibly quick for his age. There were times when he could crank up the speed to around 120 km/h. But his technique was horrible. It still is to this day. At delivery, his top half is square, his hips turn and his left foot goes to third man. It is a homemade technique.
Abbott never worked with a specialist coach on developing a conventional technique. The closest he ever came to having a solid technique was the times when he tried to impersonate a famous bowler and indulge in the fantasy of being an international cricketer. Other than that he is self-coached, his action is what feels comfortable. And for a rhythm bowler, this is important.
“Don't copy my action,” he chuckles. “If a bowling coach really wants to sit down and dissect my action, they would find so much wrong in there.”
If there is an Abbott whose action anyone should copy, it is the middle one. Kyle is the youngest of three boys. Kyle’s middle brother’s technique is a classical side-on, everything about his bowling is textbook. By comparison, one could have pipped him ahead of Kyle as the one most likely to succeed in the sport. Slightly shorter than Kyle, he was a fiery pacer and he was quite handy with the bat.
He also happens to be the most fierce competitor Kyle has ever had to go up against. It didn’t help that he came up against him almost every day of the week.
“I would bowl for hours,” laughs Kyle, “only to get dismissed with the second ball that I faced. Then I would have to start bowling again.”
And even now, although Kyle is a professional cricketer and he is a teacher, Kyle’s brother is still competitive. Every family get together and holiday sets the scene for another showdown.
“Even now when they play a couple of staff games, he still tells me exactly what he's doing and tells me he's got the ball on a string,” Kyle smiles.
These backyard duels are one of the reasons why Kyle Abbott made it as a cricketer. Statistically speaking, younger siblings have a better chance of making it as professionals. Older siblings often pave the path and provide them with role models.
“I remember I was just in my first year of high school when my middle brother went overseas to play cricket,” Abbott shares, “and I kept thinking, ‘I've got four more years of school and then I get to do that.’”
Not just that, even though it is often dyadic learning, older siblings act as coaches and mentors and also expose their younger siblings to a higher level of competition very early on. Younger siblings also often push themselves hard as they try to keep up with their older siblings. A lot of times, without even being aware of it, older siblings also provide emotional support.
In sporting families, it is not just the older siblings who form a larger around the younger siblings and provide emotional support, it is often the whole unit. Kyle comes from a very sporting, athletic family.
“I am the least athletic person in my family,” Kyle Abbott laughs. “I know that if we look close enough, we might be able to spot the sporting gene within me too.”
His father came 10th in the 2 Oceans Marathon in the 1980s, and everyone else has remained active in sports. Both his brothers run triathlons.
The other reason why Kyle made it, despite a clumsy action, is luck. Something that his brother just never had when it comes to cricket. No one paid attention to him for long enough to give him a chance to prove himself.
“I think he would have been a fantastic cricketer,” says Kyle. “But for you to make it there's a lot of things that need to go your way. Unfortunately for my brother, those little things didn't go his way.”
Cricket is full of stories of exceptional young players who, for one reason or the other slip through the cracks and fail to make it. Think of Tabraiz Shamsi. Had it not been for Grant Morgan who noticed him just as he was about to give up, he would have been lost to the game. Had Dave Noseworthy not come back from New Zealand when he did, Aaron Phangiso might never have played higher than B side cricket.
“Sometimes you just need to be lucky,” says Kyle. “Sometimes it’s just bad timing where one coach didn't think he was good enough. And then suddenly your career goes in a totally different way.”
Kyle Abbott was 21 when he got lucky.
“At the time I'd almost given up on pursuing cricket," Kyle reveals. "I was pretty sure that the door was closed in my head.”
He was six months into his Environmental Management studies when he received the call that changed his life. Graham Ford needed some net bowlers at Dolphins. The 2008 season had kicked off and Ford was trying to manage his bowlers’ workloads. One of the first people he thought of was Kyle Abbott, the bright young bowler he had coached at Kearsney.
“I need to rest my bowlers at practice and do you mind just coming to be a net bowler?” Ford asked Abbott.
At the time, Kyle Abbott would have jumped on anything that meant that he wouldn’t have to continue with his studies.
“I take my hat off to people who studied to be lawyers and doctors for years and years,” he says. “I couldn't last six months.”
Unfit and with no fallback plan, Kyle left his parents’ home in Empangeni for Durban to take up the job of being a human bowling machine. Essentially, that is all that net bowlers are, human bowling machines. It is a hard job with no pay, at best he was likely to only get a coke and water, nothing more. There wasn’t any payment to look forward to.
The fact that it was a non-paying gig didn’t deter him. Kyle was happy to slum it on the lounge floor at a flat with a family friend for another shot at his cricket dream. This was his second chance, his second bite of the cherry.
“I felt like maybe this is my chance to have a second go at it,” he says. “I thought that maybe was just my opportunity right there.”
For three months, he showed up at every Dolphins net session to put in a shift bowling to the Amla brothers, Dale Benkenstein, Imran Khan and others. When he was not bowling he learned at the feet of guys like Quinton Friend, Johan Louw, Alfonso Thomas and John Kent. And when he had time, Graham Ford would work with him on his bowling.
Ford didn’t mind that Abbott had an ugly technique.
“Besides telling me to lose some weight and get in, in no uncertain terms,” Abbott smiles, “he made himself pretty clear, he never tried to change my action. The message is you get the job done - bowl top of off, maintain good line and length - and stay fit for the season.”
That is the same message Kyle received from Lance Klusener, who succeeded Graham Ford at Dolphins.
“I think it doesn’t really matter too much what your action looks like, I think it’s about being able to repeat that,” Klusener shares. “If you can repeat that, even if you have a couple of slight flaws, there is no point in changing that. Kyle could do that, and that is the hallmark of what he turned out to be, someone who can be very consistent at a good speed.”
It probably helped that Klusener himself had never had a professional coach to drill into him how he was supposed to go about his business, he is also self-taught. Klusener also made his breakthrough into the Natal ranks via net bowling.
Kyle has a twinkle in his eye, he is excited because he wants to show me something.
“But first, let me tell you about this,” he points to a framed Proteas Test shirt.
It’s the one he wore on debut, the day when the Dolphins net bowler from Empangeni made history. I can make out a few signatures from the 2013 squad that lifted the Test mace. He apologises that he can’t show me the match ball, it’s with his father. Mr Abbott, senior, gets all the match balls that Kyle gets.
“To say that I've been part of a number one test team in the world is something pretty special,” Kyle Abbott beams. “The Test mace is a bit heavy.”
Abbott is proud to have contributed. There are not many better ways to achieve your childhood dream.
“My currency is line and length, and bowling straight,” Kyle turns his attention to me. “That's how I've made a career, that’s what earned me the Proteas call up.”
We laugh at the fact that his first delivery for South Africa was the wrong line and length. It was a half volley on the pads, and Azhar Ali only had to get his bat on it and it flew to the boundary for four runs.
“It didn't even feel like I bowled the ball,” he says.
Kyle Abbott remembers feeling a sudden numbness the moment Graeme Smith gave him the ball. Everything seemed to stand still, he felt overcome by absolute nothingness. This was the moment that he had been waiting for, and now he felt completely zoned out. To this day he cannot explain his action.
But he can explain how the rest of the over went, his next five deliveries improved with each ball, he felt his rhythm improve with each ball. No wonder he took his first wicket with the last ball of the over. He just managed to zone in on the little box that he targets when he is bowling.
Metronomic consistency and patience, that’s Kyle Abbott. He has a fisherman’s patience. Well, his first love is fishing.
Anyway, it was a surreal moment. The wicket was followed by a standing ovation by the spectators close to fine-leg where he was fielding.
From his position at fine-leg, Kyle could see his family, his parents and his two brothers, they had joined in the clapping. The entire Abbott family had shelved whatever plans they had and made the trip to the highveld holding on to the hope that Kyle would make his debut in that Test.
“It was an incredibly special moment for me and my family,” says Kyle, misting up, pride in his voice. “I have played a huge amount of cricket, I've played around the world and, and played in some really good games and done well in various parts of the world and family is not often there. So for them to be at the first one and to have that performance will be something that will always stick out in my mind.”
Kyle Abbott was awakened from his reverie by a massive hand at the back of his neck. The owner of the hand gave him a shake.
“I don't quite know what it was or who it was,” he smiles. “I turned around, and it was Alan Donald who was the bowling coach at the time. And all he said to me was, ‘Welcome to The Club.’ Nothing can top that moment.”
After the Pakistan innings, Kyle Abbott had joined another club that Allan Donald is also a part of, that of bowlers with a five-wicket haul on international debut.
There is a hint of sadness in Kyle’s voice as he speaks of the aftermath of that Test. CSA completely forgot about him or his debut, Abbott didn’t get picked for another Test squad for a whole year. It was to be the beginning of a cycle of use and discard like he was a booty call. He was the one to make a way when there was a new flavour of the month.
It reminds me of when Stephen Cook spoke about how he felt like a national player, out of sight, out of mind, that’s how he described it.
“That summed up my whole international career,” he says. “It didn’t matter that I was playing well, I just never seemed to be able to cement a place in the squad.”
But Kyle is philosophical about things. The Proteas debut opened doors elsewhere, from English counties to companies that needed ambassadors for their products.
“I was fortunate enough still to get back into South African squad later,” he says thoughtfully. “I mean, who knows, it could have happened that I never paid another Test. I know a few guys that have had only one Test.”
I feel the emotion, and I decide to rush him along. I am poor at handling moments like this. I point at the camera at the corner of the table. It’s a Canon EOS R, which has a Cannon 100 - 400 lens. The twinkle in his eye returns. Kyle Abbott loves wildlife, it’s a passion of his. The camera helps him capture memories. He takes loads of photos with it.
“This is what I use to record sea life,” he fishes out a GoPro.
Wildlife and the ocean, are the two things that occupy his time a lot. He only plays golf, a bit, when he is in the UK because there isn’t much there by way of his two passions.
“I am pretty much quite a simple guy,” he smiles. “It doesn’t take a lot to please me.”
And he starts telling me about the birdbath outside and all the birds that visit his home.
“And this is Jabulani,” he does a little grand reveal thing as he motions to an 1100 Yamaha jetski. Jabulani has tabbies on the side for fishing tackle and bait. The jetski also comes with a GPS, fishfinder, VHF radio. It is fully rigged out for solo fishing missions, something that Kyle Abbott does a lot. The pedal ski always forced him to find a buddy. “I call her Jabulani because it means everything from happiness to rejoice for me. This is my happy place.”
During the lockdown, Jabulani kept Kyle occupied. He always had his Mr Min furniture polish out, spraying and shinning her.
“Hands down, it’s the best thing I've ever bought myself,” he beams. “Even my agent, when he saw Jabulani he was like, ‘That's the best thing you've ever bought.’”
Kyle Abbott loves his fishing. Well, it’s just not just about the fishing, it’s also about being out there enjoying the ocean and the sea life. In the past, he had to be content with a paddle ski, which was very inconvenient.
“You can join me on Jabulani if you don’t get sea-sick,” he extends an invitation.
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