CRICKET: Jon Swift
For the South African players, playing against the English is a special experience, but beating them would be even better
THERE is something very special about playing against England. South African opener Andrew Hudson is just one of the 11 men who face England in the current Test at Centurion Park who believes
“There is,” says Hudson in his quietly considered manner, “the feeling that it all began there. An England Test does stand out.”
This Test, the first in the 31 years since Mike Smith last led a side out to this country for a full international against South Africa, probably more than any other Test this summer typifies both the esteem our players hold England in and the way the game in this country has moved.
Three decades ago, the very thought of holding a Test in Pretoria would have been unthinkable. This, after all, was in the heart of rugby country. Not so today … even if Fanie de Villiers, the favourite son of Centurion Park, sits it out on the injured
The influence of De Villiers’ ability to generate pace on the wicket showed in the naming of the final side. The pitch was ruled by the South Africans as good for five days of seam and young Shaun Pollock joined the South African pace battery with spinner Clive Eksteen left to carry the drinks.
It could not have been an easy decision. England have not shown a fondness for either pace or spin on South African wickets. And no matter how thorough the inspection of the Centurion Park pitch was before the toss, it remains as unpredicatable a stretch of turf as could probably be found in world cricket.
That said though, it was a decision that had to be made for, as England captain Mike Atherton so rightly pointed out: “The tour starts here.”
It is well to reflect, in this particular respect, that it might well have suited teenage spin sensation Paul Adams. The 18-year-old certainly took the much-vaunted England top order apart in South Africa A’s six-wicket win over the tourists in Kimberley.
But one suspects that the selectors did exactly the right thing in not rushing the youngster from the Cape Flats to heights which could prove to have lasting damage in the case of the fall which inevitably comes to every slow bowler somewhere along the line.
Adams is a valuable property and needs both cosseting and care on the way to the wickets on the Indian sub-continent which will host the World Cup early next year.
That, though, is for the longer-term future. Now, as they say, is now. And the comradely close feel of the crowd at Centurion Park has more than a little effect on the uncanny habit of the ground being a result wicket.
Several of the England side have played here before. Darren Gough, Mark Ilott, Dominic Cork and John Crawley were all members of the England A on their tour of South Africa last season.
There was not the intensity that a Test match brings to South African crowds on that occasion, hardly a painted face in sight. But the experience will surely have been passed on to Atherton and Co by those who have gone before them.
This experience — even from a South African perspective — would dictate that an innings can collapse as quickly as it is established at Centurion Park. And this, perhaps more than any other factor, has been England’s problem on their sojourn here thus far. England supremo Ray Illingworth says as much in his blunt Yorkshire way. “We’ve been getting going and then getting out,” was the way he typified it in the analysis of the Kimberley defeat.
One would tend to argue that in this respect his charges are not alone. It has long been a
South African failing as well. And bear in mind that there is no longer a Kepler Wessels around to weld patches on a leaking top order.
Thankfull though this looks to be headed for the deep reaches of the filing cabinet of recent history. Hudson and his opening partner Gary Kirsten both took some sparkling for into the current
And you can’t argue with skipper Hansie Cronje’s form either. A faultless 158 for Free State last weekend gives notice of thefact that he will be a very valuable players in the crucial No 3 spot this summer.
Between them the top trio give a look of solidity to the South African batting that, even if they don’t all make runs at once, must inspire far more confidence in the oft-overtaxed middle order than has been the cas in the past.
But of all of them, Hudson is perhaps the most important. He has the real class with a bat in the hand. The ability on his day to both see of the new ball and get runs at the same time. It is an asset among batsmen almost without price and one the selectors have recognised through the ups and downs — mostly, it must be admitted, downs — which have marked his career of late.
In the same class with the bat is Daryll Cullinan. But the wunderkind of provincial cricket is now 28 and surely must have shaken off the sever psychological damage Shane Warne did to his sometimes delicate psych in Australia.
Should cullinana come good, there can surely be no more talk of England having the stronger batting line-up in the subsequent tests of the series. But he will have to come good, consistently and soon, or make way for the likes of Jacques Kallis before the end of the rubber.
Thsi si probably true in the England camp where Robin Smith has struggled to regain his touch after being felled with a broken cheek bon by Ian Bishop in the thrilling series England drew witht he West Indies.
Graeme Hick, too, has sometimes flatterd to deceive. He is undeniably a class act yet Hick, more thany any of the other England batsmen, confirms Illingworth’s “in, then out” reasoning. He has looked good at the outset and then got himself out almost
His duck against the mangle mchinations of the Adams left-arm wrist spin delivery at Kimberley is a case in point. He tamely patted a soft full toss back to Adams for a regulation caugh and bowled. It was a shot that surely should not live in the repertoire of a batsman of his pedigree and calibre.
But then perhaps Atherton had it right His batsmen have been spotty at best in their performances — he was guilty himself in going lbw to the wayward Steven Jack in Kimberley, misjudging perhaps the only ball the Transvaal quickie manage to land on the pitch.
And his bowling has — with the exception of Mark Ilott and Richard Illingworth’s contributiins in the historic rained-out Soweto game — not been particularly impressive. This has extended down to special net sessions for DEvon Malcolm, the destroyer of South Africa’s batting at the Oval last year with a staggering
The series does indeed start here. The journey promises to be an interesting one.