There were good and bad performances from both sides in the first Test in Pretoria and only the weather showed consistent form
CRICKET: Jon Swift
IT IS HARD to formulate any real opinion of the current series against England when one side has not batted and the other not bowled. Even more so when those sides showed such inconsistency of performance in the only sphere of activity the weather allowed them during a shade over 10 hours’ cricket at Centurion Park.
United Cricket Board managing director Ali Bacher summed up the Test in one succinct phrase. “For the first time in my life,” he said, “I’m not getting up in the morning looking forward to a game of cricket.”
It was the inclement conditions which had got to Bacher. But he could really have been talking for the cricketing public in general. And provided some salutary lessons to be learnt for the second Test at the Wanderers next weekend.
Much has been made of the failure of the all- seam South African attack to provide the kind of bully-boy penetration skipper Hansie Cronje would have hoped for – and more of that later – but there were other lapses, in concentration, in sustained effort and in the field, which are somewhat foreign to the game in this country.
At the Wanderers and given clear skies for more than one-and-a-bit days, Cronje and his side will have to tighten up considerably.
In this regard, it is best perhaps to contrast the achievers in this Test against the varying failures of those around them, and, as the batsmen always got the benefit of the doubt before the advent of the third umpire – this electronic wizardry still has no place in the game at Test level despite all urgings to the contrary – the England batting is a good place to start.
It would be easy to dismiss Alec Stewart’s contribution of six runs. He was caught brilliantly by Craig Matthews backward of square from a powerfully and well executed pull shot off a rank bad ball from Brett Schultz. It was one of those collisions of time and circumstance which comes every batsman’s way at some juncture. And while it precipitated the mini- collapse to 64/3 of the England top order before lunch on the first day, Stewart has shown fine form thus far and, weather permitting, should get plenty of runs this summer.
The same cannot be said of Mark Ramprakash and Graham Thorpe. Ramprakash has amassed a fortune of runs for Middlesex this season. One doubts whether this will continue on South African
Stylish he may be, but showing, as Ramprakash continues to do, a tendency to spar at the ball with the bat wide of the body, he will continue to put pressure on the batsmen lower down the order by his non-performance at No 3. Wicketkeeper Dave Richardson duly took his 100th Test catch behind the stumps as Ramprakash sparred at one from Allan Donald.
Thorpe too has yet to play a convincing innings on tour. The Surrey left-hander has two centuries in his 22-Test career and an average of over 43. His batting at Centurion Park will be remembered more for being Shaun Pollock’s first Test victim than for any conviction on Thorpe’s part.
This seeming lack of conviction from Thorpe was typified by his indecision as he in turn was snapped up by Richardson. Thorpe started walking, turned back and hovered. There was a point when it seemed that umpire Cyril Mitchley was going to come down the track and give him the finger at distinctly closer range.
But then came two of the three innings which gave the England total of 381/9 declared its real respectability. Mike Atherton had weathered all the storms around him and taken more than a handful of painful blows to the head and upper body. His 78 was, in the context of how it was made, an innings of courage and integrity.
“Not a pretty innings,” Atherton said, “but I stuck around for a while.” Indeed. So did Graeme Hick. Perhaps lucky to escape at 67 with the total on 179, he nonetheless hit 25 fours in a superb knock of 141 which earned him the Man of the Match award and doubtless the undying thanks of his teammates.
That missed catch was a costly one for South Africa. It was ironic that Matthews, the architect of Stewart’s thrilling dismissal, was the perpetrator.
Matthews putting down what was for him a fairly regulation caught-and-bowled just below knee height was perhaps the turning point of the England innings and the lynchpin of the torment the South African bowlers had still to face at the hands of Hick, again briefly during Robin Smith’s 43 and then without question against the doughty Jack Russell as he fought his way with great determination to his sixth Test 50.
Russell may not have the strokes or flow of some of the more esteemed members of the England batting in the tour party. He has guts though. Ignore, if you will, his own peculiar style and concentrate on how difficult he is going to prove to the South Africans in this series. Here is a man – and do not discount Atherton in this respect – with all the vasbyt which has been such a feature of this country’s cricket.
Which leads to young Pollock and the South African bowling. Pollock has all the qualities to perhaps even surpass his father Peter as a South African paceman at Test level. He has a way to go to match his father’s 116 wickets – another 113 after his 3/98 debut game – but one gets the feeling that here is a worthy bearer of the torch for the future.
“He is going to have a long career in Test cricket,” was the way Cronje saw the Natal redhead’s performance. “He will be a great
The rest of the attack suffered from the Schultz debacle. Donald laboured mightily for 33 overs – the new-ball bowler in a five-prong attack shouldn’t have to bowl this hard – with no apparent rhythm.
It is something coach Bob Woolmer is rightly working on during the days marked down for Free State. Donald firing on all cylinders remains vital at the Wanderers. For Cronje, there will be the chance to get a bat in the hand for Free State during the four days – a hastily re- arranged programme of a three-dayer and then a one-day game. But his attack remains a problem in the second Test.
Pollock senior, as convener of selectors, has dropped Schultz, the subject of much debate – and doubtless some behind-closed-doors recriminations – after pulling a muscle in his rear just four balls into his first spell.
Schultz, as Bacher so rightly pointed out, “should never have played”. And as Bacher again points out in retrospect, getting the player and the physio Craig Smith to decide on fitness without a full-stretch test of physical capabilities “will not happen again”. One hopes so. Schultz’s axing in favour of Meyrick Pringle and the subsequent light slap on the wrist over an affair which severely curtailed Cronje’s options, is the fair and just result. Consign this now to history.
But it is far from a cut-and-dried matter that Pringle will play at the Wanderers. Pollock senior seemed to indicate that the preference would be for Clive Eksteen. One wonders whether this will indeed be the fact on the bouncy Wanderers wicket where Pringle’s swing can do incredible damage if the clouds come up in the late afternoon.
It is a track which has also tended to favour Matthews, who cannot possibly look as ordinary as he did at Centurion Park. There were also patches of the Brian McMillan fire to take out of the rain-marred opening encounter. He ended the best of the South Africans with 3/50 off 25 aggressive overs.
Given that the front-line four – and Pollock will surely share the new ball with Donald – come up to expectations, perhaps there will be a spot for Eksteen on his home track. Playing him will not be for want of pressure on the national panel to play a spinner, not the least of this coming from England supremo Ray Illingworth, whose views on balancing a side in this respect have been voiced often enough.
The emphasis will again be on seam bowling no matter which way the final decision swings. It is not something that fazes Atherton. “I have no worries about our batsmen against pace,” he said. “They have seen enough of it over the past few years.”
It is not an easy equation though for the South African selectors to write an answer to. Nor, in the light of Centurion Park, for the team to carry through. Things, like the weather though, have a habit of improving. One hopes that this is the case in Johannesburg. The series and the importance of the opposition we face demand