The shortcomings of South Africa’s top order batsmen that led to two defeats by the Australians have revealed South Africa’s real place in the Test hierarchy
CRICKET: Jon Swift
OUR singular lack of success in the current Test series against Australia which winds its weary way to conclusion at Centurion Park over the next five days, underlines a phrase media magnate Kerry Packer trotted out to former South African cricket supremo Geoff Dakin in the days when rebel cricket pretended to rule.
“You’re a rooster today,” the brash Australian zillionaire observed to Dakin, “you’re a feather duster the next.” In the context of the past four months, quite so.
And the game in this country has to be looked at in that context. While the record books might separate tours in nice, neat niches, the actual ebb and flow of the game at international level does not allow for this luxury.
This is even more true in the modern passage of the game, where one tour invariably overlaps the next and the composition of the sides leaks injuries and out-of-form players, while absorbing new talents in an almost perpetual osmosis.
The holistic view of South Africa’s long and arduous cricketing summer is what should be under the microscope rather than just the disappointments of two games against a tough and talented Australian side.
We have not had the luxury in this country of an extended recent Test history to really stack up our true value as a cricketing nation against. That said, we have done remarkably well in assimilating ourselves into the international arena.
But somehow, there was always the feeling that sheer guts and a better-than-average pace attack alone was not going to be enough to do the task forever. So it has proved.
Perhaps the willingness to battle through adversity has lulled our cricketers into a false sense of exactly where we do stand in the greater scheme of things. But this must, perforce, remain in the realm of pure conjecture.
More likely it is that our brittle upper order, so savagely exposed in two of the three innings we have played in the series against the Australians and in virtually every aspect against a severely limited Indian team under Sachin Tendulkar in the six recent Tests, has been the root cause of the problem.
You cannot really fault the bowling, although this department faltered under the unrelenting pressure of bearing a continuous burden in the opening Test at the Wanderers.
To get the South Africans back into the game at St George’s Park after the lower- order veterans – and this must be a title bestowed on them by the established batting line-up rather than the facts – Brian McMillan and Dave Richardson had scored nearly 150 of the paltry 209 first innings runs, was a magnificent feat.
Allan Donald in particular produced two long spells of pace bowling that, while neither was crowned with the wickets they deserved, must rate among the best examples of sustained hostility witnessed in this country.
Even without the back-up of Shaun Pollock, who took two wickets in six overs before limping off with the torn hamstring that has brought Brett Schultz back into the frame at Centurion Park, Donald was truly outstanding.
The bowlers – and again Mcillan came to the rescue as he so often has – played us back into a position where things were going to happen.
It showed most graphically in the way the wickets were shared among the attack as Australia were confined to 108, a score that gave the side something to bat for in the second knock.
Here, Gary Kirsten and Adam Bacher managed, at last, to get this country off to the kind of start that is expected from an opening partnership, taking the vinegar out of the two-man seam attack of Glenn McGrath and Jason Gillespie and getting some runs on the board.
It was especially important that Kirsten and Bacher should weather the fire-storm at the start of the innings for any number of reasons; not least of these to give the batting to follow some sort of psychological room to breathe.
Gillespie – this is a bowler destined to have a long tenure and reminiscent of the young McGrath who toured here under Allan Border – had ripped through the batting in the first innings to get his first Test “fivefer”, and McGrath had looked particularly menacing without the success he might have enjoyed on a different day.
Kirsten’s innings deserves high praise. You do not have to be an expert to see that he is struggling with his form or that Mark Taylor’s Australians have singled out his limitations. But despite that, Kirsten took the fight to the tourists and battled his way to a 40 that must rank as one of the better examples of true grit seen in Port Elizabeth.
It was not an innings that ranks with the more spectacular played there, but it certainly scores high in intestinal fortitude and in the frame of the early part of the second innings, was invaluable.
But, with Kirsten gone early on the third day, that innings turned on two moments of youthfully rash inexperience. Having built on the 101 first innings lead platform and added a solid base of 80 from which to launch an assault on a match-winning score, Bacher blew it quite spectacularly.
First he had Kallis run out and then threw his own wicket away. The momentum quite suddenly was reversed from a position of relative comfort to one of extreme pressure. It is in these pressure situations that the batting has consistently wilted. It happened again, all 10 wickets falling for just 85 runs in a total of 168 that should have been at least a 100 runs better than that.
At that stage, it didn’t need a masters degree in mathematics to figure out the most likely scenario. Some seven sessions left in the match, even at less than 50 a session, was going to be too good for a lead of under 270.
That the bowlers fought back yet again speaks volumes for the way our battle plan has been forced to evolve; Kallis changing hats to get three and the effervescent Adams another two as the Australians -with the notable exception of Mark Waugh – were pressured into making mistakes.
Waugh was the difference, playing a superb waiting game of patient artistry for his match-winning 116. It is worth restating that when the South African batting showed some reluctant consistency, the side was led by a man who learnt his cricket in the tough Australian state competition, Kepler Wessels.
He may not have anything like the grace or fluency with the bat the Waugh twins possess, but he had the same application and determination. And it must be remembered at this juncture that matches are won by runs on the board and runs are put there by staying at the crease.
It is a singular facet of the game that has been lacking in recent South African teams. Hansie Cronje has put some of the fun back into the game that the dour Wessels seemed to lack in his inner make-up -facade though that may have been – but somewhere along the line we have lost the art of gutsing it out.
It is not something lacking in the Australian make-up and, while there remains little but the salvage of a highly- embarrassing whitewash to play for in Pretoria, they will continue to grind.
Putting the boot in is somewhat de rigieur in Australia. It is what has made them such a great cricketing nation. Mark Taylor’s men, despite their seemingly limited attack, despite the captain’s own inner battles with the fading vestiges of form, will want to rub our noses in it. And the most frightening part of all is that there still remains a seven-match one-day series to come.