So the Protea cricket team took on the Indians at Newlands in Cape Town this week – first of three tests. And we won convincingly, so that was fun.

DRESSUP FOR NEWLANDS

It has become a tradition for tbV and me with my friend MJ and whoever else might be with us [looking at you, American former housemates!] to pick a theme and go to the cricket dressed appropriately.

So last time was Star Wars:

scuba steve

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the time before that was The Lord of the Rings

Scuba Steve

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This time round after some furious [not angry furious, just manic furious] whatsapping between MJ, tbV and myself, we were really struggling to come up with a theme we all liked and having sailed through nautical and chased after PokemonGo and considered Destruction Boyz, Stranger Things, Tintin and the Flintstones we eventually decided to dress up as sports that were not cricket cos irony.

MJ came as rugby [“Nice TRY” because he didn’t like our “SCRUMptious!” suggestion as much], the beautiful Val came as tennis [“Deuce see that?” and “SMASHed!”] and i came as a diver [“WATER nice cover DIVE” and “Morne! Snorkel?” which would have been more appropriate on Day 3 when the heavens opened!]

And on day 1 – always the point – i managed to make it on to the tv and Pommie Mbangwa dubbed me “Scuba Steve”…

Scuba Steve

 

 

 

 

 

 

i know this because my phone and Facebook suddenly started getting a whole bunch of notifications from people telling me they’d seen me and a bunch who mentioned i was now Scuba Steve.

Who is Scuba Steve?

Scuba Steve was a fun character to be for a couple of days but when googling to see if there were any pictures of myself online after a day of the cricket, i discovered that Scuba Steve comes in various shapes and forms.

Including an Adam Sandler character in the movie Big Daddy:

Scuba Steve Sandler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And apparently a Minecraft, no wait, make that TWO Minecraft characters:

Scuba Steve Minecraft

 

 

 

 

 

 

As well as some other kind of buff looking underwater computer game guy:

Scuba Steve Scuba Steve game

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Turns out this Scuba Steve guy is not as original as we might have thought [or did Pommie have one in mind?!]

i was only ever meant to be at the cricket on day 1 but then my friend Keegan Davids [legend] or more specifically his wife Lindsay [legend] gave me a ticket for Day 2 and so i moved to the grass to hang out with Keegan, Garth and Charlie and watch the action from there.

In the meantime my friend Nathan Peter Benson Arendse shared my Scuba Steve pic on the Water Shedding Western Cape group on focus to say he loved how we were having fun at the cricket and sending a message at the same time.

FLOODS ON DAY 3

For Day 3 i got a bonus offer from my friend MJ for a morning ticket as his wife was only coming to watch in the afternoon and so i gladly accepted it, only for the skies to open and for rain to fall [not enough to cure Cape Town drought crisis, but enough to stop any cricket fro being played]. By then i was a little tired of slightly-too-small scuba goggles eating into my head flesh and so i had left them at home, but by the time i got to the ground i realised how silly that had been. A guy wandering around Newlands in a wetsuit and scuba goggles when it was actually raining would of course be on all the tv footage.

Fortunately thought i still had the flippers in the car and so last minute i was like “Let’s do this” and so wore the flippers and basically wandered around Newlands cricket stadium getting strange looks and actual LOLs and initiating fun conversations with people and getting pretty drenched.

And that was the end of my cricket watching, pity really cos the match was now set up nicely for day 4 and i was going to be following closely on the radio and cricinfo.

Until cricket sponsors Sunfoil tweeted me about a pic i had posted with my flippers on the Twitterer which started a back and forth conversation which basically ended with me getting a free ticket for day 4 in exchange for coming fully dressed up and having some promotional pictures taken at the Sunfoil stand, which i did cos free tickets.

Scuba Steve

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fortunately, my mate Keegs was able to return and see out the second half of the game with me.

And we did a quick photo shoot and then i settled down to watch a scintillating day’s play and a nervous Proteas victory [after they were bowled out for 130 but fortunately their first innings lead made all the difference]

During the day i also got to be on camera for three different interviews which was fun and also gave Scuba Steve a bit of a higher profile at the ground, and for the final interview, Udo Carelse swung around so that Scuba Steve could give a more focused punt on the water situation:

 

The point being that less than fifty percent of Capetonians have made any significant effort in terms of reducing their water usage which is disgusting and embarrassing, especially for the so many people who have changed their lifestyles significantly to accommodate what needs to happen to prolong the availability of water as long as possible.

We need to do better. This is honestly an area where i feel like Name and Shame does have a place. As a last resort. Educating people and giving them the opportunity to change if they were simply ignorant of some aspect of water saving must come first. But we are in a crisis and about 50% of Cape Town have made and are continuing to make a difference – some to extremes of buying tanks and selling washing machines and showering in buckets and saying goodbye to gardens and more.

This is the right thing to do. Not just because Scuba Steve says so, although he does.

i am Scuba Steve and my message to you is: Do the best you can do save water wherever you are living. It shouldn’t just be a crisis that prompts you to action. We should by default try to live well and steward the resources that are available to us in such a way that they will be available to all those who follow us. Except stalkers. Stalkers should stop following us cos that’s weird.

Also Proteas 1, India 0. That’s one step towards the kind of whitewash we can afford in any weather…