Neil Manthorp in Auckland Cricket
The strange thing about Mark Taylor’s last 18 months in charge of Australia was the ruthlessness with which his players were tossed out of the Test side when he considered them surplus to requirements. When conditions suited someone else, someone different, Greg Blewett, Darren Lehmann, Paul Reiffel, Damien Fleming, Michael Kasprowicz, Stuart MacGill and Colin Miller were among those to have been ejected after doing, apparently, nothing wrong.
In fact, several Aussie players found that the reward for match-winning performances was a drinks tray. Thanks a lot.
No danger of that happening in the South African side, though. Loyalty is the watchword of this Test team and there is nothing wrong with that, is there? All week, while the top order were gorging themselves on runs on a flat, lifeless pitch in the sleepy city of Hamilton (great Cambodian restaurant, though), endless reports emanating from Auckland, 75 minutes north on the only motorway in the country, suggested that the Test pitch was more suited to a role in the Little Shop of Horrors than a cricket match.
“A fungus grew on certain areas of the pitch and it turned into a green slime when we treated it. Then, when it dried, it formed a scab over the pitch which we couldn’t remove because it would have pulled the last remaining grass out of the strip and it would have been left totally bare,” said Eden Park groundsman Ray Moffat. Yuk!
Anyway, the consensus of expert opinion is that the pitch will turn sideways from, roughly, the drinks break on the first morning. That is why New Zealand’s selectors included Matthew Hart in their squad, a left-armer who normally requires a screwdriver to turn anything.
So, what chance South Africa will give a Test debut to Nicky Boje tomorrow, an orthodox left-armer who certainly does turn the ball, to complement Paul Adams? None. No chance at all. If Mark Taylor had been captain of this side he probably wouldn’t have thought twice about presenting Lance Klusener or even Daryll Cullinan with the drinks tray, but the South African Test side is settled. Loyalty.
The attitude smacks strongly of inflexibility but, to be fair, it is almost certainly the right policy – at the moment. “Hindsight is a precise art,” Bob Woolmer says with a wide grin. “Foresight is not. We can’t be exactly sure about the pitch until we’ve played on it.”
Nonetheless, Boje wouldn’t have made the starting line-up if the pitch had been made of gravel. “We’ve found that our four seamers can create enough pressure, and if the pitch is turning a lot, then Paul [Adams] should be quite a handful by himself,” Woolmer says. And he’s right, too.
But what happens if, as we are led to believe, the pitch is begging for spinners?
“Then we have Daryll Cullinan to bowl off breaks. He’s not going to win matches, that’s for sure, but he can turn the ball so he’s got a chance of picking up a wicket.” Woolmer doesn’t even pretend that Cullinan can compare to Mark Waugh, for example, as a part-timer, but he does consider him an option.
Against New Zealand a pace attack of Allan Donald, Shaun Pollock, Klusener and Jacques Kallis really should be enough. There is the possibility that the home side’s batsmen will be sufficiently stubborn, on a pitch impossibly stripped of all natural pace, to survive and force a draw.
Woolmer’s view, naturally, is that if those four bowlers (plus Adams and Hansie Cronje) can’t bowl the opposition out twice, then adding Boje to the team isn’t likely to change things. And that, too, is right.
It is an irritation that we compare ourselves so much to the Australian side, but they are the benchmark so what else can we do? The Australians have 18 players good enough, and ready, to play Test cricket. South Africa has a very, very good Test XI. Steve Elworthy is an honest replacement for the seamers and Dale Benkenstein is ready to play Tests in the top six, but there is a danger that South Africa are forming a “Test club” in which membership is exclusive and demotion unlikely.
If South Africa were playing Australia on a pitch covered in crusty, green slime they would probably be confronted by a team containing two frontline seamers, two excellent spinners and the Waughs to back them up. South Africa would, no doubt, be fielding the same team as tomorrow’s. In fact, if South Africa were playing anyone tomorrow, anywhere, they would pick the same team. Is it the “perfect team”? Can they really win on any surface?
There is a lot to be said for loyalty. Just ask the English team. The nation that gave the world the game of cricket certainly likes to spread it around among its own players, producing more “one-Test wonders” than the rest of the world put together over the past two decades.
But whereas loyalty gave Kallis, to name just one, the chance to become what he is now, England is fickle and its players are paralysed by the fear of failure.
South Africa is seeking its own “brand” of cricket, according to Ali Bacher, and loyalty is a brilliant place to start. Do Australia’s international players feel the selectors are loyal to them? Some do, but a lot don’t. Perhaps we just need to expand the club. Tomorrow’s team is the best one we have, and the right one to start the series.
It’s just the fact that nobody even considered changing it that suggests there may be a problem in the future.
l South Africa: Gary Kirsten, Herschelle Gibbs, Jacques Kallis, Daryll Cullinan, Hansie Cronje (captain), Jonty Rhodes, Shaun Pollock, Mark Boucher, Lance Klusener, Allan Donald, Paul Adams.