With the Test series against England now shared 1-1 our man on the tour assesses the South African’s performance
CRICKET: Paul Martin
AS THE South African team trudged disconsolately up the steps after their eight- wicket Oval defeat last Sunday, Jonty Rhodes had stationed himself strategically ahead of the pack. In their moments of collective and personal distress, the buffeted but irrepressible Natalian gave each of his colleagues a clap, a slap on the shoulders and some words of encouragement.
It was typical of the man, of course, but the team had just performed in a manner far from typical, indeed, far beneath the Herculean levels we have come to expect. Much has been written and said, perhaps too much, about its near-legendary qualities of guts, determination and never-say- die spirit.
All the more saddening, then, to see its shortcomings mercilessly laid bare by fast bowling and assertive batting. Apart from two superbly quick overs from Allan Donald, there was little evidence on the last day of any South African fighting spirit. There was just the bathos, even the pathos, akin to watching a shark tamely surrender its life after hours on the hook.
The South African performance puzzled English experts. As Tony Brown, a former England manager, put it: ”South Africa showed some guts but no gumption.” He could not understand how Old Man Peter had been sent in to face the new ball on a bouncy track when the country’s most experienced opener lurked down the order. Nor was he impressed with Donald’s failure to bowl the right line and length against the onslaught first of Darren Gough and Phil de Freitas on the second evening, and then the swashbuckling Graham Gooch, Mike Atherton and Graeme Hick in the second innings. Hear, Hear.
Wessels unconvincingly explained his batting order by declaring that he wanted to have a left-hander further down the order, namely himself, a well-used ploy to make it difficult for the bowlers to groove their attack. A gleeful Malcolm later told me: ”When I saw Peter Kirsten opening I licked my lips. He fell right into my bouncer trap by hooking at the new ball. I knew he would.” So much for the Wessels sophistry.
As for Donald, 12 overs, one maiden, one wicket for 96 runs tells its own story. Actually, it was even worse if you add in the last two overs of his first innings spell, which went for 30 runs. True, he was not fully match-fit after his toe injury, but his guile, nous, experience, perhaps even his will- to-succeed, all deserted him. His last over in the first innings was described by Mike Procter, fortified against the day’s travails that evening with a rum-and-coke, as ”probably the worst six balls I’ve ever seen from a quickie: all the same length. I’d have resigned from the team if I’d bowled them!”
No-one doubts Donald’s class, though: rather than a repeat non-performance he is more likely to come back against New Zealand this summer with figures closer to the 12 for 139 with which he devastated India at Port Elizabeth two summers back.
What is more worrying is when the top order batsmen will get their act together. Andrew Hudson the Test team’s most prolific run-scorer and possessor of the highest Test batting average, is, like Donald, a player of true class, and his day will surely come again. So too will Hansie Cronje’s, but here there are technical matters as well as psychological ones to be put right.
Gary Kirsten, despite his failures in the third Test, did more than enough in the first two to cement his opening position. He has impressed Ali Bacher for one. ”He exudes confidence and has a wonderful temperament,” the doctor diagnosed. ”He was the first to show our players that you can play Shane Warne, even when it was turning square at Sydney on the first morning. He is the find of the last 12 months.”
More questionable is if Peter Kirsten will retain his place. Judged purely by his averages in one day and Test cricket, he deserves a couple more seasons in the sun. But he is a venerable 39. It is hard to imagine a more fitting note on which to hang up his gloves than with the memory of his glorious 104 at Headingley still fresh, but that is not the way the Great Survivor’s mind works.
”I have no plans to retire — unless I get hit on the head again!” Kirsten declared last week. ”I will just keep going. The important thing is to really enjoy your cricket, and your life, and have a balanced outlook. And a sense of humour — which I feel most of the current team have. That’s important to me.”
The most encouraging development for the team, though, has been the re- emergence of Darryl Cullinan. He gave his fans some anxious moments in his 94 at The Oval, but it was a masterly display all the same. ”Darryl is a late developer,” assesses Bacher. ”He was a country boy from Queenstown who left home at a very young age, and stayed on at Stellenbosch by himself for some time after finishing university. Having no family guidance and being heralded as a future Graeme Pollock made life hard for him at first.
‘Even Gary Sobers and Bobby Simpson took a long time to score their first test hundreds, then Bobby came up with a treble ton against England,” Bacher pointed out. Before the Oval Test Bacher had phoned Cullinan and told him that both he and Peter Pollock, chairman of selectors, had full confidence in him. Perhaps that did the trick.
On a less upbeat note, the most frustrated man in the side has been Pat Symcox. An English-speaking liberal who grew up among Afrikaners in Pretoria, he is used to plain speaking. Team rules, though, forbid him to criticise the management, but he is clearly furious that not one spinner has been selected for a Test this tour.
”I am convinced that at the age of 34 I am only just reaching my best bowling,” he told me as he languished in his hotel after helplessly watching the Oval defeat. ”Spinners learn their art by experience, and yet I cannot employ that experience in the Test arena.” He could surely have closed up an end in the final Test as well as Matthews, though he is by no means as good a batsman.
For South Africa to win a Test series they will have to find a classy slow bowler.
In the meantime there is much room for thought as to why South Africa has been one up three times in a row, and each time failed to win the series. There are rational explanations. The two against Australia: South Africa was up against either the best or the second best side in the world, with a wealth of experience to boot. This one against England: though the English had come off heavy series defeats against Australia and the West Indies, they had restored some confidence against New Zealand.
And, more to the point, their team is at last taking real shape. The introduction (fortunately for South Africa only after the first Test) of the left-handed Graham Thorpe provided real backbone in the English top order. Of Malcolm’s late arrival enough has been said and seen. And a great plus was Mike Atherton’s superb performance as a gritty leader and with the bat (though not with the ball!). The controversy around him consolidated team spirit and may explain the positive tactics adopted by England so successfully at The Oval.
But, having given opponents their due, that residual question is still not fully answered satisfactorily … though Mike Procter, full of good sense as usual, came closest this week to providing an answer. ”It is worrying that we can’t stamp our authority on Test series’,” he told me. ”But I think it’s just down to a lack of Test match experience, a lack of pacing ourselves when on tour. We need another two or three years to get ourselves right on top of the heap. I still think we’re on course for that.”