The veterans who have n ever been given a chance and the young hopefuls all have the opportunity to represent their country now
CRICKET: Jon Swift
PERHAPS the most intriguing aspect of the upsurge of spirit and enthusiasm the South African cricket side took into the one-off Test against Pakistan at the Wanderers this week is that the doors to the national side are wide open.
It is a heartening aspect for all those players in domestic provincial competition who have sat and watched the side develop almost in a vacuum, the same names being recycled over and over again. This development in an isolation almost as rigid as that imposed on the game through the dark years of apartheid by the rest of the world, was essential in building a core to bring the national team back into line with international requirements.
Without the inward-looking philosophy — something very much part of the make-up of Kepler Wessels as he led the way — it is doubtful whether the mixed fortunes this country’s cricket has experienced would have been anything as healthy as they are.
Wessels and the national selectors — if you will overlook the errant nonsense of the panel’s oft-quoted “horses for courses” platitude — really had, in the light of hindsight, few other options.
Now they have. And a handful — hopefully soon to become a flood — of players who had been left on the outside looking in, are making their first marks.
The sudden elevation of Rudi Steyn to international opening batsman status for the deciding Test against the New Zealanders is a case in point.
Brought in to replace the sadly out of touch Andrew Hudson — it is cause for joy that this fine batsman is gettng back among the runs at provincial level — Steyn grasped the opportunity with a determination which belies his diminutive physical stature.
One suspects that he will never really make a great number of runs at Test level for, superb bowler that Kiwi Danny Morrison is, Steyn has yet to make an ongoing acquaintance with the Waqar Younises, Curtley Ambroses and Wasim Akrams of the world. He has still to cement his place.
But that said, Steyn gave the opening partnership a new solidity which was lacking during the days of Hudson’s travails when the number three batsman would have been foolish to pour a cup of tea as the first ball was bowled. And in doing so he released Gary Kirsten from the pressure of knowing that the partnership he had jointly initiated was not destined for a long and fruitful life.
Kirsten has some limitations in everything, but plenty of grit and guts as a batsman. With the pressure off him, he was able to concentrate more fully and go about the job at hand.
And in this respect, as a rough rule of thumb, any captain must look — on average — for an opening pair to give him at least 60 runs and 30 overs out of the new ball. With Steyn and Kirsten at Newlands this was never in doubt.
The opening pair laid the foundation of an innings that gave the hard-working South African attack something to bowl at. It was — albeit in an understated way — a revelation. Three other batsmen — Dave Callaghan, John Commins and Mike Rindel — fall directly into the same category of beneficiaries of the more open selectorial policies as Steyn. Commins, a repeated discard at Western Province when they struggled to find a slot for his abilities in a talented batting line-up, has an aura of calm, a Sunday afternoon serenity about his batting.
Like Steyn, he probably will never indelibly mark his name down among the true upper echelon of world batsmen, but his almost imperious demeanour at the wicket — added to his ability to play shots — meant much in the two tests he played leading up to the showdown with Pakistan at the Wanderers.
Suddenly our batting looks good. And looks confident at the top of the order. The longer-term results must surely follow.
Callaghan’s recall was an inspired one. His 169 in the one day match against the Kiwis at Centurion Park as a makeshift opener laid the first real healing salve on the wounds which had been opened wide during the disappointing Test series in England and the humiliation of the one day series whitewash in Pakistan.
With a captain who believed in him and an open canvas to paint on, Callaghan came good with a resonance still echoing around the South African camp. The side — and here include both Test and one day players — responded with alacrity.
Rindel made a similar contribution — ironically also as a debutant opening batsman — in the decisive one-dayer against Pakistan to help win the Mandela trophy at the Wanderers.
Like Callaghan before him, Rindel survived a shaky and uncertain start to score his maiden century at top level. True, Rindel and Callaghan are close to the veteran category in terms of years. But as newly fledged internationals they have — ironically perhaps — opened the doors even wider for the emergent younger talents.
The youthful bounce in the step of the South African side is evident everywhere … in the rejuvenated batting , the superb fielding and the amazing way Fanie de Villiers continues to grow as a seam bowler even at this late stage of his career. This is not to say that the experience gained — and invaluably passed on by Wessels — from the more hardened members of the side is not without merit.
It surely showed in the sparing manner in which Cronje bowled Steven Jack in his first two tests. And in the way he brought him back in the one-dayer against Pakistan when he had been mercilessly flogged by Aamir Sohail, conceding 29 runs in just two overs. That single act stamped Cronje as a captain of true international proportions, signalled a side fully confident of exploiting every opportunity and, unquestionably, was the making of Jack as a bowler for the future.
Jack will attract his fair share of knockers. His mercurial temperament and his loose language will single him out for attention. None of the sunny De Villiers disposition here.
But in Jack we have a bowler of pace and fire. He has a way to go to fill the large boots of the recovered Allan Donald, but it won’t be for lack of effort. And it is heartening that we shall doubtless see Jack in tandem with Donald in the near future.
Also interesting is that Jack is so much better a bowler at Test level with Cronje guiding him than he has proved of late in provincial competition. This attribute he shares with Craig Matthews whose injury has assured Jack a longer look at the national side than he might have expected right now.
But, as mentioned earlier, the doors are open. Cronje — if you will excuse the phrase — shows such youthful maturity that the limits of our cricket are only bounded by the limits of the talent available.
He has brought a new era into the game in this country without so much as a kick or a scream. And in doing so has put on offer the cricketing sky for anyone willing enough, able enough and enthusiastic enough to reach it.