Hansie Cronje, looking for an answer to his own and his country’s cricketing problems, tells Paul Martin how he will handle captaining South Africa
IN the Oval dressing room last Sunday after South Africa had surrendered its precious 1-0 lead in the series, a distraught Hansie Cronje told two of his team- mates: ”Sorry lads but I didn’t contribute in the series. I’ll try to make up for it in the next one.”
His anguish was understandable: 90 runs in five completed Test innings is not far short of abysmal, especially when measured against his true potential and his one- day demolitions of Shane Warne this year, followed by his first Test century .
Since then, the worm has turned. But when Cronje says he’ll ”try to make it up”, you can believe he’s in earnest.
The need to work on restoring his batting technique , and his self-confidence, is clearly affecting the way he thinks about the national captaincy soon to be thrust upon him. ”A very touchy point in my mind,” as he delicately puts it.
”I want to concentrate on my own game, to be able once again to contribute as a good number three towards the team with a lot of runs. Maybe I can help the captain with some ideas. Maybe through my positive approach I can help some of the other players.”
The key question is whether, while seeking to rebuild his game, he would also feel comfortable as South African captain. It is a subject about which the 24-year-old free State skipper, and South African vice- captain, has clearly been in several minds.
”My lack of form does affect my ability to captain well, to be honest, because it puts enormous strain on you. You can’t go out on the field and say: let’s fight, let’s bat for a session, and meanwhile you’re not batting well yourself.
”The greatest thing is for a captian to score a hundred at Lord’s and then everybody listens to him for the next three matches. If he’s doing badly, the press get after him and a couple of players get after him. They say: why is he in the side, or who is he to give me advice?
”That’s why it’s so important for the captain to be scoring runs and be in good nick, and to earn the respect of the players so that even when he’s not scoring runs they still respect him. My lack of form puts pressure on me. They still respect me for the way I train and my professional attitude, and what you’ve done in the past … but you start going down in their eyes fast.
”Also the big problem is I scored a couple of high scores, and people expect me to score runs all the time, smash a hundred, hit Shane Warne for six, and if you don’t they think you’ve failed. It does put an extra burden on me.”
At last Cronje gives an apparently definitive answer. ”I’d rather not be captain until my form returns.” A pause, then a quickening of his speech. ”But don’t get me wrong. I would love to captian South Africa if it is offered. I’d grab it with both hands. You can’t always have what you prefer, you can’t have your cake and eat it.”
His ”ideal” scenario is for Wessels to stay in charge until he plays well again, or alternatively, for the selectors to include Wessels in his team at home and on his first tour as leader.
”The other option to his staying on as captain is if Kepler is happy to play under the new captian and give experience back to him, then all of a sudden leadership would become a pleasure, not a burden.
”Kepler knows the two extremes, the disciplines of Test cricket. It would make a world of difference. ^’m not saying he must play for six years, but it will be important for the new captian to find his feet with Kepler in the team.”
Even had he been in prime form, Cronje would have had doubts about taking the reigns yet. that’s because he feels there is not enough back-up for a new captian in a team sans Wessels in the hard currency of Test experience.
”I’d like to play one or two more Test matches first. Because we were isolated, we don’t have that many experienced Test match layers to back you up. Atherton is only a year older than me and he’s done fantasticaly, so my worry is not my age. It’s that he can call on a Gooch, De Freitas, Stewart, all with 40 to 100 Test matches behind them.”
SAnother change of tack. ”To be quite honest with you, if Kepler stands down and someone takes over, it would be ideal to begin captiancy in south Africa against New Zealand, because there would be public support, local conditions, local umpires.”
On one key issue Cronje is clear and firm: he feels captaincy should not be divided between one-day internationals and Test matches. ”The captian should be the captain,” he puts it pithily.
”The moment you have two, people will start comparing them, and it will put you under pressure you don’t need.”
One-day internationals fill him with far less foreboding. ”There is far less pressure. It’s over in in a short time. One-day cricket is tough but five-day cricket takes more out of a captian.”
He sumarises his own position with some polish. ”I would rather it didn’t come my way very soon, but if it does come my way I’d like to be ready for it. I won’t let anyone down.”
Yet beneath hsi struggles over present form and future captaincy lies a rock-hard conviction that ”I have the capacity to be one of the best batsmen in the world”.
In seeking solutions to the batsman’s curse, the ”bad trot”, no-one has worked, and wil continue to work harder than cronje. His analysis of the problem is technical, not psychological.
”I thought I had corrected a fault that gave me problems agianst Craig McDermott. I was just trying to keep my head still, and get in line with the ball. Yet I saw on TV that I Am moving two or three inches further to leg than I thought I was, so I ended up not knowing where on stump was, playing balls I should leave alone, leaving gaps where there shouldn’t be any.”