From the corner to the block, they make you rock

One could have been a journalist, the other an accountant. Instead, they are the DJ-announcer combination that has been rocking the Kingsmead cricket ground. Bridget Anne Nel, better known as Funky B, and Dave MacLeod, the director of Gameplan Media, have struck a fine partnership in their little DJ box just next to the media centre, but neither set out to make a living of music or sport.

"I have studied journalism, but my former boyfriend was a DJ and he introduced me into this world," says Bridget, who claims to be 28 but looks like she's 20. "There is no formal training involved here, but I was thrown into the deep end and I learned quickly." She has now been a DJ for seven years, and has loved every moment of it.

MacLeod's work experiences have been even more varied - he's been a radio and television presenter, and with his company, Gameplan, has been involved in various other sports: he was media officer for kayaking during the Athens Olympics and will do the job again at Beijing next year. Gameplan was responsible for introducing beach soccer to South Africa. His brief here, though, is quite different: get the crowd involved in the game, and gradually get them to learn about the finer points of the game.

Music-wise, the duo covers the entire gamut, from hip-hop to club to pop to Kwaito, which is the local South African club music. The aim, he explains, is two-fold. "We want to play popular music, but also introduce African music to the world." Bridget keeps it simpler: "It should be viby and should get the crowd going."

The fans have obviously lapped it up, but even the teams are asking for more. As MacLeod illustrates: "The Sri Lankans were feeling left out, so their team management made arrangements to send across some Sinhalese numbers. We have 300 of them now."

As I chat with him, MacLeod is editing a CD which contains New Zealand's most popular numbers, clipping them into five, ten and 30 second bits. "We always try and use the catchiest bits of the songs to be used according to the interlude. "If it's a four, we'll use a five-second bit, but if a wicket has fallen we can stretch it up to 30." For the Indian contingent, of course, there's the regular dose of Bhangra, with Bally Sagoo and Daljit Mattu leading the way.

MacLeod is also proud of another achievement: "We've introduced music into cricket. We were the first ones to do it in all forms of the game, including Test cricket. It's helped add flavour to the game," he says, and plays a track called Nkalakatha by Mandoza. It might not sound familiar to most, but for the followers of South African cricket, it is an anthem: "The song has been adopted by Shaun Pollock," he explains, which means that's the song which accompanies Pollock's walk to the middle, to bat or bowl. "No matter where people are in the ground - perhaps buying some food or beer - when they hear that song, they know Pollock is in business."

They try to follow that routine for every player and team, says MacLeod, and encourages all teams to list out specific songs that they would like played. "That's our way of making the foreign teams feel welcome in our country and in our grounds."

It isn't all fun and games, though. The aim is also to pass on cricket knowledge to the crowd through announcements in between the music. "We realise that lots of people in the stadium haven't seen a lot of cricket," says MacLeod, "so I started off with the most basic information: number of overs in a game, even number of balls in an over. Gradually, we've started to move to more technical stuff, like the fielding restrictions in place and the free-hit rule."

By the day of the final, the topic of discussion might just be the Duckworth-Lewis rain rule.