CRICKET: Pat McDermott
MUCH has been said about the brittleness of the South African top order. It has assumed the proportions of a national crisis in the bars where the followers of cricket dissect the manner in which the touring Australians have shown such disdain for the best this country has to offer.
It is a subject worth debating. The abject failure of the top three to get more than 38 runs between them in the one-day interntional at the Wanderers this week that gave the Aussies the lead in the series for the first time, is a case in point.
But there is more to it than simply castigating the batsmen.We have to look more carefully and closely at what these consistent failures can do to the long-term health and stability of cricket in this country.
Perhaps the best person to start with is Herschelle Gibbs. Pressed into the unaccustomed – and surely unwanted – job as opener, he has been less than stellar in his performances. It raises the question of whether the selectors can afford to continue with an experiment that can cause lasting damage to a man who holds a goodly slice of our batting future in his hands.
Bringing the young players through is an essential part of what the selectors have to do. As the Test series so amply showed, yesterday’s successes do not automatically lead to those of tomorrow. A building, no matter how superbly erected, constantly requires the maintenance of fresh mortar between the bricks.
So it is with a cricket side, constructed as it is of all the diverse elements which go into the erection of a fine edifice. Gibbs is a potentially sparkling talent although he has yet to make that show at top level.
Nevertheless, the young Capetonian deserves more than being simply fed to the wolves of immediate expediency. We run the risk in batting him out of position of simply destroying anything that is there for the future. Turning a potential wellspring of future runs into a gun-shy husk.
The same could be said to be true of Adam Bacher and Jacques Kallis, another two names set to resound around the cricketing globe for some years to come.
While form dictated that Andrew Hudson and Gary Kirsten had to go, axing both of them, losing all the top-level experience in one fell swoop, had a downside that the series has exposed as being an unclad emperor.
Using one or other of two match-hardened veterans in harness would have provided, if not an immediate winning formula, a vastly better and more balanced foundation for what this country needs.
Of the two the class of Hudson would perhaps have proved the better option, despite his current lack of confidence and ability to either stay or get runs.
There was proof enough of that for all to see in the way he shielded and shepherded Gibbs in the youngster’s first Test outing against the Indians. Hudson runs the risk of being ignored at higher level. It is akin to shunning an ability to pass on what he has gathered. It is also close to insanity on our part.
Bacher, the rashness and instability of youth clearly showing in many of the decisions he makes at the crease, would benefit hugely from having Hudson or Kirsten there with him although, harping back to recent form, one can only say albeit briefly.
Bacher will always play shots. It is part of the charm of his game as well as being an inbred part of the man that the Aussies have fully exploited. Only experience will give him the nous to understand when those shots are just not on.
Kallis is a different, but equally exposed, case. He has had a superb one-day series with the bat and not done too shabbily with the ball either. But he has too often faced the prospect of having to come in against the new ball and an Australian attack so full of vinegar the air reeks.
It is not the position he, the selectors or the team would want. Kallis is potentially capable of making huge scores for his country and – as his 100 partnership with Daryll Cullinan at the Wanderers so fully demonstrated – being a major part in building the backbone of a winning innings.
This is what all involved should be aiming at. Shielding the likes of Kallis, Gibbs and to a lesser degree Bacher. They have to be brought on before they can flower fully.
Right now, this is simply not happening. The record books will show this in the years to come.