Morkel Brothers Battle: 2 real brothers face to face in India-South Africa match, making master plan, mother stuck in dilemma, whom will she support?

New Delhi. Stories of brothers playing for the same team are common in cricket, but something different will be seen in the Super-Eight of the T20 World Cup on Sunday when two real brothers will strategize for different teams and their mother will decide whom to support. Former South African player Albie Morkel is South Africa’s ‘special advisor’ in this tournament, while Morne is the bowling coach in India’s coaching staff. Albie jokingly said that we are not talking to each other right now, our mother is more worried, she does not know whether to support India or South Africa. Both teams have made it to the Super-Eight by remaining undefeated in the group stage and this will be their first match.

Morne also admitted that he has not talked much to his elder brother, but it was nice to see him. Many times brothers have made history by playing together in cricket, like Chappell, Waugh, Amarnath, Pathan, Pandya, Mohammed and Hadlee brothers. There are some exceptions, like Sam Curran played for England and Ben Curran played for Zimbabwe. The case of Morkel brothers is a bit different, here the competition is not on the field but in the battle of strategy and minds.

There are very few such examples in cricket. Morne had a longer and more impressive career, taking 309 wickets in 86 Tests, while Albie was a limited overs specialist and played more than 100 matches including T20 and ODI. Albie was Dhoni’s trusted player for Chennai Super Kings in the IPL and he learned coaching tricks from Stephen Fleming.

Competitions between brothers coaching different teams are common in football and other sports, but rare in cricket. When the match starts on Sunday, ‘brotherhood’ will be left behind for about three and a half hours and both will have only one goal to make their team win.