New South African coach Bob Woolmer is faced with a bowling problem
CRICKET: Jon Swift
IT IS of more than passing interest that Bob Woolmer, our new national coach, sees his first priority as working on the confidence of the players who make up the South African side.
“I think one of the problems is that a lot of the players are not confident of their own abilities,” is the way the former England allrounder put it after his appointment to replace Mike Procter this week.
This comment was directed more at the South African batting than at an attack which has laboured mightily to truly get this nation back into the upper echelons of the test arena.
Few could argue that Woolmer has pinpointed the major weakness in the South African make-up. The top order stuttered, started and oftimes failed in the tour against England.
But, as a bowler of note himself, Woolmer has some headaches before him in balancing an attack. Especially now that Allan Donald’s foot problems will need an operation. Donald will be out for at least six weeks and then need further time to get back to peak fitness and fire. In this the lanky Free State paceman has one major plus going for him. Woolmer is his long-time mentor and, when Donald was struggling to find rhythm against Allan Border’s Australians, it was Woolmer who flew in on the morning before the start of the test at Kingsmead in Durban for a coaching session.
Donald rates Woolmer as “simply the best technical coach around” and certainly, the South African side could do with some advice to iron out flaws which have seemed to creep in during an almost non-stop merry-go-round of matches and tours since our readmittance.
But, regardless of what Woolmer feels about batting abilities and techniques, the South African attack remains an area of high concern.
The removal of the cyst which has troubled Donald will in all likelihood rule him out of the home series against the New Zealanders and the single test against Pakistan in January.
With left arm paceman Brett Schultz struggling to come back from knee surgery, and Western Province heir apparent Aubrey Martyn battling the lower back stress fracture which put him out of the England tour, Woolmer’s options — like those of the national selectors — become severely limited.
It looks like the bulk of the work will fall on the shoulders of the big-hearted Fanie de Villiers and Meyrick Pringle — back in favour for the one-day series in Pakistan — with the new ball, backed by Craig Matthews and Brian McMillan with the possible addition of Eric Simons or the enigmatic Richard Snell.
If Pringle can regain the consistency of his big swingers which can roll a side over on a good day, there is some penetration available, but largely the South African attack lacks the real bite Donald, Schultz and arguably Martyn would add.
But then, perhaps Woolmer has the answer to provide that vital ingredient. We wait in hope and expectation even if it is perhaps expecting a bit much from the new coach.
The batting is perhaps an easier proposition for Woolmer to instill some oomph into. Certainly, batsmen as classy as Andrew Hudson and Hansie Cronje cannot be left to languish in their current slump.
It is no secret even to the non-technical person that Hudson is battling some errant footwork and playing too far away from the pitch of the ball. Cronje, so devastating against India and in the early part of the Australian tour, is also fighting an inability to play the ball close to his body.
Doubtless, both of them will come under Woolmer’s microscope and hopefully the flaws which have crept into their play will soon be relegated to the dusty corners of history.
More interesting perhaps is how Woolmer works on the brittle veneer of Daryll Cullinan’s as yet not fully tapped talent. Psychologically all but destroyed by the ability of Shane Warne to turn the ball and the toughness of Aussie on-field behaviour, Cullinan started to get it all back together in England.
His vast array of shots make him a natural run getter. Yet Cullinan has so far failed to really shoulder the responsibility he must if he is to carry this forward to the true greatness his talent fit him for. One shudders to think what heights he could reach if he had the confidence of a Jonty Rhodes or the unbending determination of Kepler Wessels or Gary Kirsten at the crease.
The UCB has unquestionably found a man who can do the job. But a note of caution. Miracles do not happen overnight and Woolmer takes over a side which he rightly sees as having lost both direction and belief in itself. This, more than the batting or the bowling, is the tiger he has first to face down.