The curious cases of South Africa's batting flyhalves

Pad up No. 10; you're batting in the top six. That doesn't happen often in cricket, where even those lumped with nightwatch duties are likely to take guard higher than No. 10 ordinarily. But this story isn't only about cricket. It's also about rugby union, and the apparent tendency of flyhalves - who wear the No. 10 jersey - to feature among cricket's better batters.

At least, that seems to be the case in the South African male context. From Ali Bacher to Peter Kirsten, Daryll Cullinan, Herschelle Gibbs, AB de Villiers, Stiaan van Zyl, Aiden Markram, Keegan Petersen, Sarel Erwee and Tony de Zorzi, all were flyhalves at school and sometimes beyond. And that's by no means a comprehensive list.

"Most of the players you've mentioned are flamboyant, freewheeling batters and flyhalves are playmakers," Petersen told Cricbuzz when he was asked to connect the dots between the two roles. "Rugby was just part of my family; it was in my blood. Playing flyhalf came naturally."

Kirsten, Cullinan and Gibbs were bonafide rugby phenomenons and would have gone far in that game. But Kirsten's career was cut short by a knee injury, and Cullinan made clear his preference when he was chosen for both the cricket and rugby South African Schools squads. He withdrew from the latter because their fixtures clashed with a tour to England by the former. By the time Gibbs' immense talent in both codes was recognised, the professionalism galloping through sport meant he had to choose between them. De Villiers, Van Zyl, Markram, Erwee and De Zorzi grew up in a world where the question of them playing cricket as well as rugby at a high level after high school never arose.

Of course, not all specialist batters were flyhalves. Kepler Wessels and Graeme Smith were fullbacks. Andrew Hudson played fullback and centre. Gary Kirsten and Temba Bavuma were scrumhalves. Faf du Plessis was a flyhalf in primary school but a centre in high school. Not all flyhalves became specialist batters. Shaun Pollock played flyhalf, and Anrich Nortje fullback and flyhalf. Allrounders, unsurprisingly, are all over the backline shop: Eddie Barlow was a centre, and Adrian Kuiper and Jacques Kallis were fullbacks. Not all wicketkeeper-batters played rugby seriously. Kyle Verreynne and Ryan Rickelton, for instance.

And not all schoolboy rugby players become renowned cricketers. Injuries in his last two years at high school in Paarl put Schalk Burger off rugby to the extent that he accepted a contract from Boland's cricket academy as a top order batter. Only to return to rugby and play 86 matches for the Springboks as a star loose forward.

Had Burger stuck to cricket he wouldn't have had a World Cup winners' medal, which he earned in 2007. He hasn't abandoned the game entirely. The family wine farm in the Wellington region, some 70 kilometres from Cape Town, features a vineyard-ringed cricket ground. The first vintage the estate produced was a Bordeaux-style red blend called "Cricket Pitch". Another, billed as a Cape red blend, is labelled "Hat-Trick".

The crossover between batters and flyhalves was easier to explain before the professional era, when cricket was played in summer and rugby in winter and never the twain met. Schedules weren't anywhere as crowded as now, and players weren't commodities bought by the highest bidder - who wouldn't want their investment risked by them doing something dangerous in their spare time.

Flyhalves are often the best allround athletes in a rugby team. They need excellent footwork and a keen sense of anticipation, and the ability to impose themselves on the game. Much the same could be said of batters. There is a clarity of thought and action that lends itself to batting as much as it does to marshalling a backline.

"A good flyhalf needs to process lots of information from the external environment - which we call broad external focus - very quickly make sense of it all by internally processing it, then execute with precision," Paddy Upton, a sports scientist and mental and executive coach who was part of India's support staff at the 2011 men's World Cup, told Cricbuzz. "Although they are one person in a 15-man team they are comfortable playing the pivotal role.

"It's the same with a batsman. They need to take in lots of information from the scoreboard, the field setting and the bowler - which are all external inputs - then process and make sense of it all, and then execute with precision based on this. Although a batter is one of 11 players, when they are facing they are playing the pivotal role in the team.

"So some of the overlapping roles are having a skill of a knack for broad, external focus, the ability to immediately process all the information internally, make sense of it, and then execute with precision. And to do this as the person who effectively has the limelight on them at that moment. The flyhalf's and the batsman's decisions and execution are both visible and consequential. Those are some of the skills that would support some success in both these positions."

New Zealand is the only other significant cricket-playing country in which rugby enjoys the profile it does in South Africa. Seven Kiwi men have earned national colours for rugby and cricket. Three of them were at least sometimes flyhalves, but of those George Dickinson was a fast bowler and Brian McKechnie was an allrounder - who is probably best remembered for flinging his bat away in disgust after blocking Trevor Chappell's underarm delivery in an ODI at the MCG in February 1981.

Eric Tindill was New Zealand's wicketkeeper in five Tests from June 1937 to August 1947. He was a scrumhalf and flyhalf - or as Kiwis would say a halfback and a first five-eighth - for Wellington, and appeared at flyhalf for the All Blacks once: against England at Twickenham in January 1936. The home side won 13-0, thanks largely to the two tries scored by right wing Alexander Obolensky, a Russian prince.

"By what right do you play for England," the prince of Wales asked Obolensky before the match. "I attend Oxford University, sir," Obolensky replied. What the prince might have said to England's fullback in the match, Tuppy Owen-Smith, who had played five cricket Tests for South Africa against England in 1929, is less well known. Sixteen days later the royal had other things to think about when his father, king George V, died. That made the prince king Edward VIII. That is, until he abdicated not quite 11 months later.

Martin Donnelly played seven Tests - all in England from June 1937 to August 1949 - as a gifted left-hander in the Kiwis' middle order, where he averaged 52.90. He was also a flyhalf for Oxford and a centre for England: in a single match at Lansdowne Road in February 1947, when Ireland won 22-0.

Tony Harris, a Kimberley-born schoolboy prodigy in every ball sport he attempted, was a prime example of South Africa's tendency to produce batting flyhalves. He played five Tests in that position for the Springboks in 1937 and 1938. In June 1947 he featured in the first of his three cricket Tests, in which he batted at No. 6 in all five of his innings.

Harris was one of 10 debutants - seven of them in South Africa's XI - at Trent Bridge, and scored 60 and shared a stand of 55 with Dudley Nourse. South Africa lost one and drew the rest of his cricket Tests and won all of his rugby internationals. Harris averaged 41.47 in 80 first-class innings and scored six centuries with a best effort of 191 not out.

He scored his only Test try, against the British Isles during the same tour that they were first called the Lions by Sam Walker, their then captain, in August 1938 at Ellis Park - the same ground where he made six and one not out against England in what became his last Test.

At 1.68 metres tall - three centimetres shorter than Cheslin Kolbe - Harris would probably now be considered too slight for the game of behemoths that rugby has become. Handre Pollard, Morne Steyn and Elton Jantjies, the Springboks' first-choice flyhalves in most of their matches since 2009, measure 1.88 metres, 1.84 metres and 1.76 metres.

Harris was a fighter pilot during World War II. His Spitfire was shot down off the northern coast of Italy in February 1945. He spent seven days in the ocean in a dinghy encircled by sharks until he was taken prisoner for the remaining months of the war.

Not all flyhalves come with such tales of glory attached. At least not in their rugby capacities. Bacher captained South Africa's Test cricket team and became one of the most influential administrators in the world. But he made a dangerous mistake when he refused to wear the colours blazer bestowed on the King Edward VII School (KES) first XV, in which he wore the No. 10 jersey, because, unlike the school's unbeaten cricket side, he deemed the rugby team average because they had won half of their 16 matches that year.

The error of Bacher's decision was made plain when KES arrived in rural Rustenburg to take on the local high school's bunch of brawny Afrikaners. Fourteen players alighted the visitors' school bus wearing red-and-white colours blazers. Bacher wore his regular green blazer. He was in his own estimation an "ordinary" rugby player, but his choice of dress made Rustenburg think he was KES' star, which earned him special treatment from the opposition.

"They nearly killed me that day," Bacher said. "I wore my colours blazer to every other game."