The sad loss of Fanie de Villiers through injury has been tempered by the return of Brett Schultz to once again form a deadly bowling double with Allan Donald
CRICKET: Jon Swift
OVER the next nine days, we will be able to gauge the preparedness or otherwise of Hansie Cronje’s team to fulfil the expectations of the followers of South African cricket.
It is a crowded programme for the side which left earlier this week for Zimbabwe. First there is a single five-day Test followed almost immediately by two one-day internationals on October 21 and 22.
The short Zimbabwean odyssey which started on Friday at Harare Sports Club is, as national coach, Bob Woolmer has admitted, aimed directly at giving a shellacing to England, who open their tour of this country in just 11 days’ time.
But that belief has to be tempered by the realisation, not lost on either Cronje or Woolmer, that Zimbabwe cannot simply be regarded as an easy warm-up and that South Africa are not without their own problem.
At the top of the list is the concern over the fitness of Fanie de Villiers, the gatherer of 48 Test victims in the eight tests played in 1974-75. It is hard to picture a Test side without Vinnige Fanie somehow. Originally selected to share the new ball with Allan Donald, De Villiers is a definite non-starter for the Test and some doubt still exists over whether he will be fit enough for either of the one-dayers.
The good news though is that Brett Schultz is back from his last round of injuries and finally back in harness as the wrong-way-round foil to Donald’s pace, the fire in which has been suitably stoked by a fine season in English county cricket.
Schultz, such a deadly double spearhead when operating in tandem with Donald, is likely to be plagued with injury throughout his career. The ungainly, high leg lift of the powerful Eastern Province left-armer and the acute angle of his right foot as he bangs that leg in, adds dramatically to the odds that this will be so.
But, fit and firing, Schultz is rightly seen by Peter Pollock and his selectors as “asset number one” in as fine a seam line-up as any nation in world cricket can boast — and the current equation does not even include the fiery Steven Jack or his enigmatic Transvaal partner Richard Snell.
Of more pressing import though is the meshing of the top order. In Zimbabwe, the side has the services of the hugely talented Andrew Hudson, the gutsy Gary Kirsten and Rudi Steyn to call on. Again, there is still John Commins, not included in the Zimbabwe trip, to call on to further increase the top-of-the- order dilemma.
Hudson is without question the class act and his 163 against the West Indians in the single Test at Bridgetown five seasons ago remains the only debut Test century recorded by a South African batsman.
But his lack of form last season was underlined) by his failure against Ken Rutherford’s New Zealanders in the first two Tests and subsequent dropping for the third in the rubber.
On form and back to his fluent best though, Hudson is a must. This is equally true of Daryll Cullinan, the other South African who claims ownership to real class with a bat in his hand. Hopefully, the Cullinan today is not the timid Shane Warne-ravaged wretch of yesteryear.
In the case of both these players, a return to the heights they are capable of is central to the health of South Africa’s plans. They are both capable of getting runs and — with the rock-solid Kirsten — adding that extra stability to the side’s top order.
This is vital in taking on England. They bat too far down the order for Cronje and his South African bowlers to delude themselves into thinking that rolling the Poms over twice on a regular basis belongs in any other realm but that of schoolboy fiction.
Kirsten is in direct contrast to Hudson and Cullinan. Lacking the natural flowing elegance of Hudson as an opening bat, he remains one of the cornerstones of the South African side in both determination and consistency. His average of 40.80 in Test matches over the past season is evidence enough of that. So too is his consistency with the bat in Western Province’s tour of Australia.
Steyn falls into the same category as Kirsten. A fighter who seized his international chance with both hands. One would suspect that, while he would not be an automatic first choice to open the innings for this country on paper, he is always there as a strong candidate when it comes to selection.
This aspect of the South African game, more than any other, is one which has to be settled before England arrive. And for all the batsmen in with a shout of getting a shot at the Poms somewhere in the series, getting runs against Zimbabwe takes on crucial proportions. For while it must be repeated that Zimbabwe are not to be taken lightly, for South African purposes our northern neighbours are the test-bed on which to lay the pattern to be adopted against England.