_ght English ice
The icy resolve of Mike Atherton and the English to avoid defeat needs to be combatted with the fire of unbridled enthusiasm the South Africans seem to have lost
CRICKET:Jon Swift
IT IS not stretching the imagination too far to believe that the greatest attributes of the game of cricket are drawn from two very diverse elements — ice and fire.
nnnThere were some smoulderings of the flame which ignites cricket in the way Mike Atherton went about rescuing the second Test at the Wanderers. For, surely, no one of reasonable sanity would carp at an unbeaten 185, the highest Test score on the ground since the game at this level was first played there in 1956. Or quibble about the fact that it was an innings encompassing 10 hours and 44 minutes of immense concentration at the crease and total dedication to the 479-run task Hansie Cronje had set the English.
Most of all though, it was a knock of intense and icy cricketing integrity and rightly typified by England manager Ray Illingworth as “one of the great Test innings of all time”.
One would hazard a guess that the same label of integrity could be applied to the way Jack Russell — already on a personal high from a world record 11 catches behind the stumps — refused to be intimidated by some perhaps over-aggressive South African pace bowling, or tempted to exploit Clive Eksteen’s inability to get anything other than a negative line out of a rapidly flattening wicket.
Russell’s 29 not out at the opposite end to his captain was one of those innings which frustrated both the bowling and the spectators but was every bit as valuable in the final analysis as Atherton’s innings.
But that said, neither innings could really be typified as one to stoke the fires of the heart in their majesty or burn into the memory any other recollection than the resoluteness and courage of both batsmen.
Surely, no one who had the good fortune to see Atherton’s innings will ever forget it. But by the same token, as the years run a rasp over the sharp edges of the memory, it is doubtful whether there will be a stirring of the blood in recollection as instant as the swashbuckling 182 Denis Lindsay hammered off Bob Simpson’s luckless Australians 29 seasons ago to set the record Atherton bettered.
This is not intended as a criticism, but more as a personal observation of proof that there is a space in the world’s most glorious game to encompass anything which falls between the two dominant esoteric elements which rule it.
It would also tend to point out that there is no real logic to the game. The imponderables have too much of a say for that to be true. And too many ghosts of matches already played are there to haunt the present.
Such is certainly true of the 119-run partnership of singular purpose and Arctic intensity Atherton and Russell crafted to deny the South Africans.
There was Atherton almost unbelievably dropped at short leg by Gary Kirsten — an extremely sharp chance it must be said, but one Kirsten would back himself to hold onto — with his score on 99. It was a juncture which also marked Atherton’s 4 000th Test run and yet could so easily have been a landmark he would have to revisit the crease to pass.
The looming spectre of that exact score and Brian McMillan sending him back to the Headingley dressing room a run short of his century last season must have loomed large in Atherton’s consciousness.
It is to his credit that, having survived the crisis, the shot which took Atherton to three figures was a finely struck four off Allan
Atherton had given two other outside chances, getting an edge to a Shaun Pollock delivery which failed to carry to Daryll Cullinan at first slip when on 83, and popping up a delivery from Donald which fell short of Kirsten at short leg when he had 146.
Again, Atherton was approaching a personal milestone at this stage of his innings, this time his best Test score of 151 recorded against the New Zealanders at Trent Bridge five years ago.
Again Atherton showed his mettle by passing that mark with the 23rd of the 28 boundaries his innings finally included. It was the best of British and in sharp contrast to the drunken buffoonery of the Barmy Army of England camp followers who chanted Atherton’s name like some metronomic anthem to the close.
There is also the inescapable fact in retrospect that had Meyrick Pringle held onto a seemingly straightforward catch off his own bowling with Russell on five and the England total on 240, the 311 for five the scoreboard registered for the tourists at tea would never have become reality.
For one would not be overstating the obvious in believing that Dominic Cork — far and away the best bowler England had with a match analysis of 9/162 — Angus Fraser and Devon Malcolm would not have been as successful in holding the St George cross aloft.
On the subject of imponderables, too much has perhaps been made of South Africa accepting the light seven-and-a-half overs before the scheduled close on the third day. And equally of Cronje’s decision to allow Brian McMillan the time to record his second Test century by batting on at the start of day five.
Perhaps these observations are valid. But one would suspect not.
Regarding the first issue, McMillan had lost his wicket on the last ball of the first day and, with the gloom starting to enfold the Wanderers, this possibility loomed again in the second innings. Cronje has learnt — and one senses exposure to the dour nature of English country cricket here — that a captain does not buck the odds that nature, history and the inherent uncertainty of the game itself had already stacked against him.
With respect to the second issue, it is well to do some simple arithmetic. England failed by a margin of only 128 runs in beating South Africa outright. This computation leads to a difference of only 78 runs and, given the fact that England lost all but 25 minutes to bat before lunch on day four and scored a somnolent 40 in the final session, a supposition that the result could have been far more disappointing for South Africa than it was.
Undeniably, this would have meant scoring a world record fourth innings total surpassing the 406 India managed in 1975-76 to unravel the West Indians at Port-of-Spain, but it must be remembered that this was already a match of
Russell’s catches, Atherton’s personal best and, at the finish, an England score already 90 runs better than the 261 Simpson’s Australians scored on the 1996-67 tour to set the high water mark for a fourth innings in a Wanderers test.
The South African response to a series with the first Test at Centurion Park rained-out and the second ending in stalemate will be of more than passing interest. For the meeting at Kingsmead in Durban looms as a pivotal one in a series which could still be as easily lost as it is won.
Interestingly, the selectors have called Jacques Kallis to the battleground. The Western Province 20-year-old — he has only recently forsaken his teenage status — could be just the person to breathe some verve back into the South African batting. For, without disparaging the gritty 110 by Kirsten in the first innings and the booming 100 not out by McMillan in the second, there has been a distinct brittleness about the batting line-
Andrew Hudson has the advantage of his home track to finally come good again after two disappointing visits to the crease at the Wanderers. His role remains a vital one for South Africa as one of the few batsmen we have with the stamp of class.
The failure of Hudson in the first innings and of Kirsten in the second to see the shine off the new ball has meant that Cronje, already carrying the burden of a burgeoning captaincy, has had to take on even more responsibility with the bat … and fill in as an extra bowler as well.
That he scored 35 and 48 in his two visits to the Wanderers crease speaks volumes but it must be added that, having got that far, it would be expected of him to have managed to carry both innings through to at least the half century mark.
One down the order, Cullinan has shown — in superbly executed patches — that his loss of confidence is a thing of history. But he continues to get himself out to shots that a batter of his pedigree should not even contemplate never mind attempt to execute.
Cullinan’s second innings 61 was as memorable for the beautifully executed shots as it was for the inanity of the swish which led to the looped skier to Cork which signalled his downfall. Cullinan owes his side a big one.
McMillan has more than done his job and it would be unkind to attempt to analyse the dismissal of Dave Richardson which cost South African coach Bob Woolmer a “severe reprimand” for commenting on. Richardson has saved the side too often for there to be any lasting thoughts against his contributions with the
Which leaves Jonty Rhodes at No 5. His form at Test as opposed to provincial level has been disappointing, lacking the burning charisma of his character and his fielding. It is as if the ice had set in on a cricketing soul intrinsically so free and unencumbered of shackles and held him bound to the inertia of entrapment in the floes he once skated across. He remains the most exciting schoolboy batsman I have ever seen. At this level one only prays for a renaissance of that exuberance.
It is somewhere here that Kallis — and convenor of selectors Peter Pollock hinted strongly that the youngster will be in the line-up — will have to slot in. Pollock vetoed any thought of Kallis relieving Cronje of the onerous task of batting at number
It would mean that two bowlers — probably Eksteen and one of either Pringle or Craig Matthews — will have to sit it out in Durban. Kallis, no merely ordinary medium pacer at provincial level, will doubtless be called to serve his apprenticeship with the ball as well as with the bat.
It takes some of the pressure off Cronje for a start. But there is an eminently more important task for Kallis.
In him the South Africans, who have more and more leant towards the icy detachedness of the English of late, have someone to restoke the fires and rekindle the unbridled enthusiasm this country showed after shaking off the murky mantle of the apartheid years.
There can be no finer thing than a return to this ethos for the team, the game and the