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Time is what South Africa’s young cricketers need to mature into a competitive team, but there is not much of that available before a tough tour to Pakistan
CRICKET:Pat McDermott
FOR many of South Africa’s cricket-loving public this has been a disappointing summer. Beaten in India away and trashed by the Aussies in both the Test and one-day series played here. And there lies little hope of a quick fix to this national unease ahead.
For next on the agenda are tours of Pakistan and Australia, perhaps the two most unforgiving nations on earth when they have the advantages of their home turf and local following behind them. This, one would venture to put forward, is a forbidding and uncomfortable prospect.
It is not all doom and gloom though. There is much to be thankful for in the performances of the South Africans – although they lacked anything like the consistency for victory – and the nascent mix that is to make up the national team over the next few years.
Especially when the prospect of having three word-class all-rounders in the team starts becoming a reality. Shaun Pollock, Man of the Series in the largely disappointing series of one-dayers, Lance Klusener and Jacques Kallis all have the abilities to prosper with both bat and ball. And this is even without adding the mighty Brian McMillan into the mix. Big Mac is not ready to quit just yet, thank you.
All three have what it takes to become the backbone of a side which will run through to the next century and do this country proud. It is also a frightening prospect that – in the one-dayers at least – they already have what it takes to make virtually any side in the world.
Pollock is the classicist, a deceptively gentle amble up to the crease to deliver top-class seam bowling and a smooth batting ability that has yet to fully flower. He may not be his father Peter as a quickie, although the delivery stride is almost uncannily similar. He may also not ever reach the flowing abilities of his uncle Graeme with the bat. But he is a rare gem in both departments. One can only hope that the foot inury that sidelined him, and which has surely been troubling him against the Aussies, comes right before he travels to the Indian sub-continent.
Klusener, coaxed back from the canefields of KwaZulu-Natal to concentrate on the game, is equally a man who – despite his debut eight-wicket haul and run-a-ball maiden century for this country – has still to produce his very best. His cricketing aggression is starting to be tempered with some of the wisdom of experience against the world’s best. No side can be without as talented and willing a workhorse as Klusener undoubtedly is.
Kallis too has everything yet to play for. A batsman born to the top of the order, he has also served his side well with his deceptive medium pace bowling. When both reach the level of consistency of which Kallis is capable, you will have a player who will make even a Steve Waugh blanch.
What it will take is time. One hesitates to say that this leeway is an essential part of a tour of either Pakistan or Australia. But then, there was never an epic battle won without some blood being spilt on the sand.
The bloody nose the Aussies engendered has led to much recent criticism of both captain Hansie Cronje and the national selectors. Some of it may well be justified in that the mix they have jointly been seeking has not quite emerged as anything near workable.
Herschelle Gibbs, a man destined to make many runs for this country, has been forced – willingly or unwillingly – to take a step backwards by being asked to open the batting. It has done him, his averages, and the national pride in the young Capetonian little good.
It cannot be too loudly stressed that assets are to be coveted and cosseted; used sparingly and well. Sadly, even if the good of the team has been paramount, this has not been the case with Gibbs. If he is the player all and sundry suspect he is, he will survive it. If not, we have squandered a treasure.
His counterfoil in the dying stages of the limited overs series, Adam Bacher, has also not come quite as good as the staggeringly successful provincial form which propelled him into the side. Bacher though is a fine player and a great investment. Like Gibbs, he holds the future and nurturing his talents is essential.
But in defence of Cronje, he has played through a slump and done a captain’s job, gutsing it out when he was not in full nick against a side as deeply determined and full of fight as the Aussies.
He has also had a top order that has floated like a butterfly without displaying even a hint of a string. That, sadly, has too often been left for the tail to provide. Cronje remains, despite recent results, one of the best captains this country is ever likely to be blessed with.
The selectors, too, have surely made mistakes. But they have made some good choices to counter this in many respects, leaving Paul Adams on the sidelines for much of the time against Australia is evidence of some pattern of forward thinking. We need a long career out of the exuberant youngster if we are to prevail in the long term. Perhaps this thinking could equally have been applied to Gibbs though.
They have also had the courage to drop stalwarts Andrew Hudson and Gary Kirsten on the simple expedient of sagging form, perhaps a wise move, perhaps not. Batsmen are driven forward largely on historical ability; bowlers rely more directly on the moment.
In this regard, the selectors have persisted with bowling Allan Donald into near exhaustion in the limited-overs game, an arena that his particular brand of fire and brimstone – no matter the weariness of a frame which has seen more than just a handful of summers – is not ideally suited to.
But, as already pinpointed, there are no quick fixes to the trauma Cronje, his team and the country behind him, have lately experienced. There are only the closed doors of future opportunities.
Let us then please, whatever it takes, find the right one in the summer to come.