CRICKET: Jon Swift
WITH the wraps off the England tour party, the immediate reaction is to=20 contemplate a summer of speed. Allan Donald and Fanie de Villiers,=20 maybe even Brett Schultz, spearheading the South Africans. Devon=20 Malcolm, Darren Gough and Dominic Cork at the sharp end of England=D5s=20 six-man seam attack. Perhaps though this is too simplistic a reading of the composition of the 1=
strong tour party which will open the five-Test, seven one-day tour of this=
country with the now traditional gentle trundle out to Nicky=20 Oppenheimer=D5s superb village green at Randjesfontein on October 24. The wily Bob Woolmer, himself of the Pom persuasion, put the looming=20 tour into proper perspective with one succinct comment. =D2I believe we hav=
the bowlers capable of bowling England out twice,=D3 was the national=20 coach=D5s summation. =D2But it=D5s going to be up to our batsmen to score=
enough runs to put England under pressure.=D3 Woolmer=D5s view is a more than realistic look at the state of South Africa=
cricket in general at international level. Too often in past seasons the to=
end of this country=D5s batting has had to rely on the heroics of one man. =
far too often for comfort, that one man has tended to come from the middle=
In the utopian situation that all our top order come out firing =D1 and=20 perhaps more importantly, stay there and score runs =D1 our potentially=20 lethal attack have something to bowl at. Again, too often, this has not proved the case. The bowlers have had to=20 labour to contain an opposing batting line-up under the shadow of a=20 mediocre total rather than be given the comfort zone of runs on the board=
and the freedom to really let rip. If this sounds like carping, it is not intended that way. But there is some=
justification in believing that the undoubted collective guts of the South=
African side cannot always be expected to bring the team through. Not against this England side. Even the luxury of having a genius as=20 prolific at the crease as Brian Lara only earned the West Indians a 2-2 dra=
in the recent series on the summer-scorched, heatwave-ridden green fields=
of England. The intimidatory nature of the West Indian bowling alone was=20 not enough to do it. England vice-captain Alec Stewart played no further part in the series afte=
having his index finger damaged yet again in the third Test at Edgbaston.=
Durban-born Robin Smith, who had looked so confident against the=20 Caribbean firestorm, was also ruled out with a crushed cheekbone, broken=20 in the fourth Test at Old Trafford. And Nick Knight =D1 who has not made the touring squad =D1 suffered a=20 broken finger which ruled him out for the Test at The Oval. What the list of hospital patients really illustrates is that the unmerited= yet=20 enduring characterisation of the Poms as being a soft and whinging race is=
a falsehood. Mike Atherton=D5s men took every setback squarely on the jaw=
and came back fighting. Atherton, he of the ball-tampering incident against the South Africans last=
season, leads a recognised batting line-up which includes Stewart and=20 Smith plus the likes of Graham Thorpe, John Crawley, Graeme Hick and=20 Mark Ramprakash. Hick, whose Zimbabwean upbringing surely makes him no stranger to the=20 style of track England can expect to play on, came of age as a batsman=20 against the West Indians. The stylist who has so often flattered to deceive=
has lived in the shadow of a reputation of being gun-shy under real pace.=
But against the West Indians he ended the series with a highly creditable=
total of 403 runs and an average of 50,37. That is not the mark of a timid=
Of the choices by the English, the inclusion of 20-year-old Middlesex=20 quickie Richard Johnson, is perhaps the most surprising. He toured India=20 with England A, but with only 27 first class matches behind him, looks to=
be more an investment in England=D5s future than a potent threat on tour. Still, Yorkshire bulldog Darren Gough, West Indies series hero Dominic=20 Cork and left-arm medium pacer Mark Ilott, all used the England A tour of=
this country as springboards into the Test arena. Perhaps this will be=20 equally so for Johnson. Ramprakash too is something of a selection made more in anticipation than=
one based on fact. He has not performed at Test level to anything like his=
touted potential and one must feel that, should he again fail, his prospect=
of a lengthy Test career will be severely diminished. Less surprising is the decision to include veteran left-armer Richard=20 Illingworth as the second spinner alongside Mike Watkinson. While this=20 would enforce the argument that pace will take priority, Illingworth=D5s=20 experience of South African conditions from his spell with Natal will=20 undoubtedly prove invaluable. It all adds up to an England side not to be taken lightly … and a summer=
that Woolmer and company will have to weigh very carefully in the build-
The squad
Mike Atherton (Lancashire, captain); Alec Stewart (Surrey, vice-captain);=
Dominic Cork (Derbyshire); John Crawley (Lancashire); Darren Gough=20 (Yorkshire); Graeme Hick (Worcestershire); Richard Illingworth=20 (Worcestershire); Mark Ilott (Essex); Richard Johnson (Middlesex); Devon=20 Malcolm (Derbyshire); Mark Ramprakash (Middlesex); Jack Russell=20 (Gloucestershire); Robin Smith (Hampshire); Graham Thorpe (Surrey);=20 Mike Watkinson (Lancashire). Manager: Ray Illingworth.