Peter Robinson cricket Think of them as the rubber men: strangers from a faraway land who keep bouncing upright no matter how badly bent or twisted out of shape they might be. Oh, all right. That’s a bit over the top, but the distinguishing feature of Stephen Fleming’s New Zealand team as they trundle around South Africa for the next two months may well prove to be their resilience. In winning the International Cricket Council (ICC) Knockout 2000 tournament in Nairobi last Sunday, New Zealand might have surprised not a few critics. Man for man New Zealand did not look a match for India, particularly this new, young and exciting Indian team. The same point, for that matter, could be made about New Zealand and their semi- final opponents, Pakistan. Yet in both matches, the Kiwis tracked down sizeable targets to win after an indifferent start to their innings. Indeed, in the final it is fair to say India twice had the match won – after 25 overs in their innings, at 129 for no wicket, and 25 overs into the New Zealand innings at 134/5. Yet on both occasions the New Zealanders clawed their way back to achieve the greatest triumph in the country’s history of one-day cricket.
The key to it all, suggests Fleming, is that the squad sets itself small, achievable targets which, when they’re all added together, produce a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Like most New Zealand one-day sides, the team has its fair share of bits-and-pieces players, but it also contains Chris Cairns, an all-rounder of genuine quality and a man, as he demonstrated in the Nairobi final, capable of winning matches pretty much on his own. This is not to suggest that New Zealand are a one-man team, far from it. But only Cairns and perhaps Fleming would come into it if you were choosing a World one-day XI. The real strength of the side lies in its unity of purpose. It’s a team that has taken a couple of years to come together, and each member now seems to know what to expect from himself and his team-mates. As with most New Zealand sides, there’s a willingness to experiment, necessity being the mother of invention. And in this respect New Zealand may have an edge over South Africa. Earlier this week Fleming talked admiringly of the structure and discipline of the South African team. At the same time, though, structure and discipline can lead to a certain predictability. Could New Zealand exploit this predictability, Fleming was asked? “Perhaps,” he said. “But then you have to be good enough to place them under pressure. Looking at it you’ve got to be a good enough side to expose that if that is the thing that makes them tick.” A month or two ago South Africa would have started firm favourites to win the one-day series that starts in Potchefstroom on Friday, but Nairobi will have shifted the odds a bit. South Africa were excellent in beating England in the quarterfinals and very ordinary in losing to India. For all the structure and discipline that Fleming talks of, there is also a slight sense of indecision, an indecision, perhaps, that may breed inconsistency. Since Rushdi Magiet replaced Peter Pollock as selection convener after last year’s World Cup there have been a number of baffling decisions, the latest of which is the recall of Daryll Cullinan for Neil McKenzie.
This is not to suggest Cullinan should not be in the squad (he would have scored a mountain of runs on the perfect batting pitches in Kenya). But no one really seems to know what Cullinan has done right in the past few weeks and McKenzie has done wrong. It is also not clear whether Cullinan or Boeta Dippenaar will open or bat at four or what will happen to Andrew Hall who failed in Nairobi, but who made a considerable contribution to the winter tour of Sri Lanka, Australia and Singapore. And all of this is not even to consider how South Africa will shape up for the Test matches against New Zealand. New Zealand’s shortage of specialist players may count against them when the Test matches roll around, but they should prove doughty opponents in the one-day series. Take South Africa to win the Tests, but look to New Zealand to share or even edge the one-dayers. Peter Robinson is the editor of CricInfo South Africa