Neil Manthorp in Napier Cricket
Hansie Cronje has an awful lot on his mind going into the last three one- day internationals of this New Zealand tour. All three games must be won for the series to be tucked away alongside the Test series victory and then, of course, there is the World Cup. The build-up to the “big one” is now on everyone’s mind. The announcement of the squad at the end of the tour will no doubt cause much debate, but the issue is pretty much decided.
Makhaya Ntini will be included in the 15 in much the same way that Paul Adams went to the last World Cup. The experience that Adams gained during that tournament served him well, albeit an off-field, lifestyle experience rather than how to spin the ball past the bat.
This time Ntini’s presence in the squad is expected and has already been willingly accepted, given that English conditions will favour seamers rather than spinners.
Apart from the experience he will gain, Ntini might even play a match now that the competition has expanded to a maximum of 10 matches, five of them “qualifiers”. South Africa’s fourth match is against Kenya, in Holland, which might represent the perfect opportunity to ensure that Ntini plays an active part.
The problem that Cronje has, though, concerns the second “player of colour”. Whereas Ntini is clearly still a cricketer with plenty to learn who might not automatically command a place in the squad, the second player scored a brilliant one-day century against the West Indies and has since added two Test centuries. He is also a brilliant fielder.
It pains the captain that Herschelle Gibbs may be seen and perceived as something other than a cricketer. Very few people will ever know just how angry he was at the beginning of the tour when high-level, high-octane criticism was directed at him and the tour management for fielding “all-white” teams for the second and third one-dayers.
A cricketing decision was made to field two spinners in those matches, Nicky Boje and Pat Symcox, and cricketing logic dictated that Gibbs, the opening batsman, was the man to drop out. Now, when Gibbs plays, he will have to do so under the unpleasant and unnecessary suspicion that he is being treated “favourably”. Cronje really hates that; in fact, he hates it more than Gibbs ever could.
“He [Gibbs] has matured so much as a player, and I’m delighted for him and the team that he has. The whole racial thing earlier in the tour never got to him at all, he’s always just been Herschelle the cricketer, Herschelle Gibbs … nothing more, nothing less. He has played tremendously well …” says Cronje.
Gibbs says he doesn’t think about “that bloody stuff”. If that is true, if he really can block it out of his mind, then he is very lucky. But not everyone will be able to do that and Cronje worries about the possibility that negative tensions will be forced upon the team in years to come when there were none there to begin with.
“I would dearly love all South Africans to judge people on who they are, not what they are. What is important is performance.” Cronje’s record in attempting to ensure everyone a fair chance to perform is beyond question. Now, under pressure to win three out of three to clinch the series, he just wants to get on with the game.
“We are under pressure and that’s not a bad thing ahead of the World Cup. New Zealand gave us a serious wake-up call in the first one- dayer of the tour, and then gave us another slap in the third match. We had gone soft at the end of the West Indies tour. Now we have the opportunity to put that right, to be forced to perform under pressure, and to win.”
With Allan Donald unlikely to play until the fifth or maybe even sixth match, and Jacques Kallis badly needing to rest his inflammed toe, two players who have become the “forgotten men” on tour are likely to become very important. Step forward Dale Benkenstein and Nicky Boje – there is another series to be won.
n Shaun Pollock is on the verge of yet another piece of cricketing history going into the final three one-day matches. Having become the fourth-fastest man in the game to reach the test match double of 1 000 runs and 100 wickets, he is set to claim the equivalent one-day double faster than anyone else.
Pollock has scored 989 runs and taken 97 wickets in his 66 matches to date, which leaves him requiring just 11 runs and three more wickets any time in his next eight one day internationals to break Ian Botham’s record of 75 matches for the double. Only 14 players have achieved the double although three more South Africans may soon join the list.