CRICKET: Jon Swift
IN THE aftermath of Mike Proctor’s departure as coach of the national cricket team, there have been a number of decisive moves on one hand and some dithering on the other.
The old warhorse, Clive Rice, was effectively ruled out of any possible confrontations with captain Kepler Wessels, by being named as director of the national coaching academy.
This is a praiseworthy appointment. Rice has respect, a wealth of experience and a proven record of being able to get the best out of young players in his charge. But, that said, there was never any real possibility that Rice could have filled the position of coach once Wessels was retained as skipper for the trip to Pakistan.
The history of the South African captaincy and its shift from Rice’s hands to that of Wessels is well documented. And a clash between the two great cricketers of overlapping eras would have been almost inevitable. It is also doubtful that the bulk of the current team — who have reached cricketing maturity under Wessels — would have been comfortable with Rice.
Wessels has done an admirable and often amazing job with the talent he has had at his command. But, like Rice, Wessels does things his way. Any idea of having two men of such strong will and character in tandem was clearly not to be countenanced.
In Rice, there cannot be a better man to take over from the gentlemanly Jimmy Cook as the hitching post for future hopefuls — and the almost iconoclastic Clive Butler Rice’s belief in the ethic of winning can do this country a great deal of good in being passed on for future torch bearers.
It is an appointment to be applauded. So too was that of naming Stephen Jones as coach for the current South African A tour of Zimbabwe. That Jones, who almost came into the reckoning unheralded, would have featured in the United Cricket Board’s plans for the future should be of no surprise.
Respected as a player during his days at Western Province, Jones has further underlined his thinking approach to the game as player-coach at Boland and — after a sojourn in Namibia — as coach at Border.
Simply put, Jones is no fool. And the UCB’s contention that the coach is at best an interim appointee, must have surely weighed heavily in his decision to withdraw his name from the race.
Who, on reflection, wants the job of a caretaker while the UCB machinery grinds towards producing a name of some permanence? Clearly not Jones. And who can blame him for this?
It would point to a probability that Wessels is the man slated to eventually take over the role as national coach.
Despite his shaky knees and sometimes over conservative approach, there is still a great need for Wessels to run the South African team on the field for a while yet. For whatever his real or imagined faults, there is simply no other player capable of getting as much out of a team as Wessels. And naming him to lead against Salim Malik’s Pakistanis is one of the more reasoned and sensible things that could have happened to cricket in its current state.
Hansie Cronje — off form, but still the man slated to inherit the captaincy — is not yet ready for the reins. The names of Gary Kirsten, Jonty Rhodes and Craig Matthews have all been mooted as possibles to take over from Wessels.
Perhaps they are serious contenders. Perhaps not. But one thing is certain, imbued with the Wessels way of doing things, whoever eventually takes over as captain will have little option but to continue the Wessels legacy in the immediate future.
It is in this aspect that Wessels has truly given South African cricket some soul. He has moulded the South African squad into a unit which makes up in determination what it lacks in ability. There is no complacency in Wessels. It shows in his oft repeated laconic comments of “we’ll take it one day at a time” variety.
Much has been made of the fact that the national squad want a man in the coach’s job with a solid background in the technical aspects of the game. No-one can deny the contribution Procter made in our re-emergence. But it is often the case that a player of such instinctive genius as Procter was, often lacks the ability to pass on technique to lesser mortals. He was a genius in his own right as a player. It is perhaps unfair to have expected Procter to become a technician.
This would make sense given the inability of Andrew Hudson — still one of the finest batsmen around despite his recent record — to shake off the sideways shift of the back foot which has much to do with his failure to make any meaningful runs.
Cronje’s propensity to play too far away from his body, something which has led to his falling victim to deliveries which should not in many instances claim the wicket of such a potentially strong batsman.
There have been weaknesses in the bowling too which one might have expected a paceman as devastating as Procter was in his heyday to have given some input into improving. Witness Allan Donald’s reliance on his English coach, Bob Woolmer, when things weren’t going smoothly against Border’s Australian tourists.
So, if we are to have an interim coach for the national side and Wessels has made more than one reference to the end of his distinguished career, it is not unreasonable to make some speculation about the future.
It is also not beyond the bounds of imagination to imagine Wessels as national coach in the not too distant future.
It would do two things: keep a man who has done so much for this country at international level on the field fully involved at the same high plateau off it, and ensure some continuity for the players.
We await developments with some interest.