The outcome of the ANCs long-awaited KwaZulu-Natal conference was a win for the Thuma Mina crowd. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
If consistency in cricket is the Holy Grail for batsmen and bowlers then it is surely “balance” for coaches and selectors. All-rounders are the most traditional sort of balance, providing both batting depth and extra bowling options, but there are other balances required to play the game successfully or for a long time at the highest level, such as the balance between relaxation and intensity, between hot and cold — in short, perspective.
Many players struggle to adapt to the demands that international cricket makes on them and the level of expectation they have of themselves after dedicating many years to reaching the top of the game.
A far smaller group of players struggle to raise themselves for the occasion. Having striven so hard to achieve their goal of national representation, they wonder what all the fuss was about once they get there.
Conventional wisdom suggests the answer lies somewhere in between these polar ends of the emotional scale, but champions aren’t always made by thinking conventionally. Perhaps, curiously, the secret is to embrace both extremes — to treat the game as though it is everything and nothing at the same time.
When the Proteas face New Zealand’s Black Caps in the first of two Test matches at Kingsmead in Durban on Friday night, they will come up against a young team that may be closer to achieving this paradox than any other in the modern era. The game’s history is littered with romantic tales of gentlemen players arriving for a day’s play still dressed in the jacket and tie they had worn on a successful evening of womanising the night before, but that doesn’t wash, or work, today.
But there is something of that spirit in this squad captained by 25-year-old Kane Williamson and coached by the razor-sharp Mike Hesson. They approach training and preparation like the full-time, professional athletes they are but they do not take it home. They give their greatest effort on the field and ensure there is nothing left. Not “all or nothing” but “all and nothing”.
Perhaps that best sums up the Black Caps’ attitude for the past three years. The game is everything and nothing to them. As one player explained in Bulawayo last week where the tourists were thrashing Zimbabwe in two “warm-up” Tests: “You only have to turn on the TV for a few minutes to see how inappropriate it is to treat sport like life and death. It can be an ugly world out there with terrorism and the refugee crisis. Our job is to try to put a smile on its face.”
This attempt to find perspective was started three years ago by Brendon McCullum and has been embraced by his successor, Williamson, who is also fortunate to have two of the finest stress relievers as hobbies — a guitar and a surfboard.
McCullum asked his players to remember why they started playing the game, to recall the thrill of walking out to bat for the under-15s or even the school 1st XI. He wanted to lead a team with some of the joys of innocence, but without losing any of the edge of hard-nosed competition. It was an ambitious goal but, by and large, he achieved it.
New Zealand’s nearest neighbours misinterpreted what was happening. Former Australian wicketkeeper Brad Haddin sneered at them during last year’s World Cup, calling them “so damn nice they made me sick”. More recently, David Warner and Mitchell Starc have tried to ridicule them by making reference to Mother Theresa being a selector and “nice guys” not winning anything.
But they weren’t trying to be “nice”. They weren’t trying to set an example or show up the behaviour of any other teams. They were, and still are, trying to be true to themselves. “Basically,” one senior player said last week, “I think it comes down more to the fact that, generally, New Zealanders aren’t dickheads, so why should we behave like dickheads on the cricket field?”
The Proteas are much closer to their opponents in attitude and approach than most other Test-playing nations, so there is good reason to hope for a hard, clean contest full of honest endeavour followed by handshakes and mutual respect. That was certainly the case when AB de Villiers and McCullum lead their teams in the epic World Cup semifinal at Eden Park in Auckland almost 18 months ago.
On-field balance is in New Zealand’s favour, too, with left-arm spinner Mitchell Santner and seam bowler Doug Bracewell both good enough with the bat to be classed as all-rounders. If they bat at numbers seven and eight, they will have a five-person bowling attack without affecting admirable batting depth. The hosts may well opt for Wayne Parnell and Vernon Philander to occupy similar positions.
If the series is not decided by the all-rounders, it may well come down to who adapts quickest to unfamiliar winter conditions in Durban and Centurion, which hosts the second Test on August 27. World rankings don’t always mean much but, for what it’s worth, the tourists are fifth and the hosts seventh in current standings. But one team is on the way up and the other is heading rapidly downwards. There is much for both to play for, with the Black Caps further motivated by the challenge to become the first team from their country ever to win a Test series on these shores.