The selectors are right to bring in some young blood against the Australians, but they also need the coolness of experience in the heat of battle
CRICKET:Jon Swift
IN times of crisis, it is a very human response to bring in the strength and exuberance of youth. Here, you feel, is the next link in the on-going chain of life. So it has ever been with wars, those fought out in earnest between armed nations and largely without the normal rules governing civilised society, and those simulated battles demarcated by the structured gentility of sporting competition.
To this hot freshness of blood though, the wise campaigners tend to add the seasoning of experience, in much the same manner as a chef adds the sweetness of herbs to the acidity of wine in balancing the preparation of a fine meal.
So it is with the South African cricket side presently engaged in rescuing some honour and respect at St George’s Park in Port Elizabeth, by attempting to reverse the emphatic innings and 196-run defeat at the hands of Mark Taylor’s Australians inflicted at the Wanderers just under a fortnight ago.
In Jacques Kallis, Adam Bacher, Herschelle Gibbs and Paul Adams, we are presented with the vanguard of the host of young players who will be charged with carrying the South African colours into the international arena for at least the next decade. It is no mean task, given the still raw wounds of the first Test and the savaging the side was given by the critics.
In the return of Brian McMillan and the call-up issued to veteran Pat Symcox, the selectors have managed a seasoning of Hansie Cronje’s side aimed at collectively working together to erase the bitterness of the Wanderers defeat.
There is little wrong in applying selectorial conservatism to what is inherently a game based on this part of the human spirit. For those who do not recognise this aspect of cricket – dulled of senses as we have become by the bludgeoning brute force of the one-day game – it is well to reflect on one Australian innings in the first Test as proof when weighed against the fragile batting of the South Africans.
Steve Waugh might well have taken second spot to Greg Blewett’s 214 in the scorebookks, but Taylor was right in pointing to Waugh’s innings as the cornerstone of the winning Australian first innings total.
Waugh did everything right, playing each ball on merit. More particularly, he played his innings to the first principle of Test batting: the crease belongs to the batsman and it is for the bowler to deny him that right. Waugh took occupation of his demarcated domain with the confidence of knowing that anything not directed at the stumps was a bonus for him, either in runs from the loose ball or in just another wasted effort from the bowler as he left it alone outside the stumps.
It was a signal lesson in true appreciation of the art of batting and of the relaxed confidence that only understanding the depths of concentration required to build an innings of stature requires.
It is also – hopefully – a lesson that the South Africans will have taken very much to heart, for it epitomised the flinty hardness of the way the men from Down Under approach the game.
Geoff Boycott, the brash Yorkshire and England batsman-turned love-him-or-leave- him commentator, was arguably the most boring batsman in the world to watch. There were even times when his teammates would willingly have strangled him when a run chase was required. But our Geoffrey understood above all that occupation of the crease was what ultimately counted. In short, he understood Test cricket.
While the last thing anyone in this country would wish on the South African team is a touch of the Boycotts, there is much to be taken from his philosophy. The game at the top level owes more to grafting conservatism than it does to the dashing lan of consecutive boundaries.
Daryll Cullinan, whose inborn class is in such sharp contrast to his apparent lack of concentration when he looks really set, could do worse than watch a few old tapes of Boycott in action. To compare them would be folly on two counts. Boycott never had the fluidity of the South African; Cullinan will seemingly never have the head-down grit of the dour Yorkshireman.
National coach Bob Woolmer and his revamped side – without Andrew Hudson and Jonty Rhodes this time out – have a difficult task in settling on a game plan against an Australian combination that bats deep and determinedly and bowls directly and decisively.
There are lessons to be learnt by all concerned.
As batsmen, there is the sure knowledge that Glenn McGrath is no panty-waist quickie. His brutal battering of Kallis in the first innings of the Wanderers Test showed that … a simple question of one in the ribs, one in the nasties and then one to reach despairingly at before departing to salve both the inner and outer aches.
McGrath is a fine bowler, unhampered by compassion on the field. His displeasure at the cavalier way Adams treated his bowling at the end of the opening innings – and his subsequent reference to the young spinner as a wanker – show just how serious he is about his task. Jason Gillespie, is vastly more inexperienced than McGrath but equally single-minded.
South Africa’s batting also has to overcome the not inconsiderable hurdle of Shane Warne, rapidly putting his post-operative problems behind him and an even more cerebral creator of opportunities than he was when he last visited.
Cullinan looked to be falling under the wrist spinner’s thrall in the hang-dog second innings and again, it was Kallis who was taught the lesson of never underestimating the Australians, by being bowled round his legs. This is not what the cricketing gods intended number three batsmen to fall prey to.
As bowlers there are also some things to ponder on. As demonstrated by Waugh and Blewett, the wide ball only makes a mark on the scorer’s sheet. The Aussies do not chase deliveries best handled by the wicketkeeper. Neither are they intimidated by the short ball. They have grown up hooking and pulling pacemen and, on a track as flat as the Wanderers proved to be, repeated use of the bouncer represents more folly than fire.
Of Adams, it must be said that he looked the most rounded and competent of the South African attack in the opening encounter, and at St George’s Park will hopefully get the assistance from the pitch he was denied in his wicketless effort in Johannesburg.
Certainly young Adams was treated with a modicum of respect by the Australians, and you always get the feeling that he manages to combine both the sheer enjoyment of him doing what he is engaged in with a determination as steely as anything the Aussies can produce.
It is well that Kallis, Bacher, Gibbs and Adams are having to learn the toughest part of Test cricket so young and against such uncompromising opposition. It will stand them individually, and this country as a whole, well in a future currently being mapped out in Port Elizabeth.
Although the simple expedient of an infusion of youth cannot be seen as a national panacea, one senses that, despite being 1-0 down in the three-Test series, all is not gloom and despondency. We still have the players to fight back.
For, do not forget that Cronje and his side battled their way back to defeat Ken Rutherford’s New Zealanders two seasons ago. So it is well to relegate the inept performance in the first Test to the realms of the record books and focus on the job ahead.
And then use some application and concentration from the veterans like Donald, McMillan, Cronje, Gary Kirsten and Dave Richardson. Draw from the experience of seasons past … and add to it the youthful look of seasons yet to come. It is the only way the sporting chain can continue unbroken.