Andy Capostagno Cricket
And so it’s 4-0 and pretty soon now, highveld summer weather permitting, it will be 5-0. We have already run out of excuses for the poor performances of the West Indies and gone through adjectives with which to describe them. About the only thing we haven’t done is to take a serious look at how good this particular South African team is.
After all, 5-0 doesn’t come along every day, the last time being when the Windies beat England by the same margin in the Caribbean in 1985/86, and the time before that when the Windies beat England in England in 1984.
In that series Malcolm Marshall bowled out England with a broken arm. He was hit on the left wrist while batting, had it put in a cast, raced in and broke the spirit of the English. Is it any wonder that Marshall is disillusioned with the heart being shown by his team at the moment?
In the mid-1980s the Windies were about as good a team as there has ever been.
They had Marshall, Michael Holding, Joel Garner and Colin Croft to bowl fast, and they had Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Vivian Richards (now Sir Viv) and Clive Lloyd to show the opposition how to bat.
It was frequently suggested that if the Windies batsmen had been forced to play against their own bowlers, their mortality would have been revealed. That is unlikely.
So what makes this South African side so good? It has the best new ball attack in the world in Allan Donald and Shaun Pollock, both of whom take their wickets at the miserly rate of 22 runs apiece, right up there with the likes of Marshall, Garner and Holding. But the back-up seam is hardly intimidating.
Jacques Kallis is rapidly developing into the most reliable all-rounder in the world, but he is a batsman who bowls. He bowls very well, hitting the bat hard, swinging the ball away from the right handers and, in the main, bowling to a plan. If he had played for the West Indies in the Eighties, he would probably have had to confine his bowling to the nets.
David Terbrugge has had a fine introduction to Test cricket, albeit against a team not truly Test class. He has bowled a miserly off-stump line and, to be honest, not much more. Terbrugge was picked because he swung the ball consistently for Gauteng at a pace not far below Pollock’s.
He has signally failed to reproduce that form for South Africa, but bowling after Donald and Pollock and against this particular Windies team he has not needed to.
The spin bowling has largely been poor. Pat Symcox played effectively as a specialist number nine batsman on the seamer-friendly pitch at St George’s Park. When he was given a much more accommodating pitch at Kingsmead, he bowled himself out of the team.
At Newlands Paul Adams revealed to those who would have him as an automatic choice because of the colour of his skin exactly why he has been 12th man for three Tests.
He bowled the long hop and the full toss as though they were going out of style and redeemed himself in the way in which wrist spinners have done since time immemorial, by getting out the best player (Brian Lara) with a largely unremarkable delivery.
So the bowling could be improved. If there were a Fanie de Villiers or a Brian McMillan at the top of their game available to bowl behind Pollock and Donald, the rest of the world would be sitting up and taking notice.
What about the batting? Gary Kirsten seems to have come to the end of his tether. Bowlers have worked him out. He likes to use the angle of the right-arm-over bowler to hit the ball through point and behind, so they go round the wicket to him.
He likes to clip the straight ball off his pads through midwicket and behind, so they don’t bowl straight to him. It has been sad to see Kirsten spending so long at the crease for so little reward. The one- day internationals with their less restrictive ambience cannot come soon enough for him.
Against all the odds Herschelle Gibbs has begun to look the part, although he has given it away three times in the 30s and 40s, which is exactly why he was dropped in the first place. Kallis is developing into the most reliable player in the team and he bats three. The selectors have been looking for someone like him for six years and now they have found him they must resist the temptation to move him up to open.
Before Newlands the one player in trouble was Daryll Cullinan. He had made 97 runs in three Tests and the gossip had begun again: great potential, zero application.
The United Cricket Board may have found a unique way to wake Cullinan up; they made Ashwell Prince 12th man.
If Cullinan had failed again the politicians would have striven to have Prince included in the team to play the Windies at Centurion next week. But Cullinan did not fail, he belted 168 and could afford to laugh off a pitiable umpiring decision in the second innings.
So Prince will have to wait for his chance and, on current form, he is unlikely to sneak in ahead of Hansie Cronje or Jonty Rhodes.
So how good is this South African team? It bats and bowls well, rather than greatly, and makes up the difference with stunning catching and ground fielding. If there is a Greenidge and a Marshall coming through the development programme, so much the better for world domination – but if not, then this one will do for now.
Nicely, thank you.