The current South African team has been heavily influenced by the West Indies and now the Proteas are off to the Caribbean to take on their ‘mentors’
John Young
Last Saturday principals, cricket teachers, parents and provincial coaches would have been forgiven for allowing themselves a pat on the back when Rushdi Magiet announced the names of the Proteas to travel to the Caribbean.
There was another group of people who might have had mixed feelings: the West Indian professionals who helped shape the careers of South Africa’s best. Every one of the Test touring party has played with and learned something from an experienced West Indian.
Consider the Free State contingent. Before the arrival of Franklyn Stephenson, Free State had won only one Benson & Hedges trophy. In the five seasons Stephenson spent in Bloemfontein, (1991/92 to 1995/96) Free State were consistent winners: five limited overs titles and two Castle Cups. Nicky Boje made his debut as a schoolboy in 1990/91 and remembers Stephenson as “one of the better pros in the world”. Stephenson and Allan Donald formed a fearsome pair.
Only Donald survives of the first South African team to play in the West Indies but in Boeta Dippenaar they have a batsman who scored his maiden first-class century on West Indian soil and it happened because of the Franklyn connection. Free State toured Barbados in 1996 and played three games, against Stephenson’s club Wanderers, an invitation team and the national team. In the Barbados game, young Dippenaar batted for six and a half hours for 111. Like many ex-colonial areas, the Caribbean economy depends on exporting raw materials (sugar, coffee, rum and bauxite). In cricketing terms the product they can least afford to export is experience but that’s been happening for decades, and South Africa has been the main beneficiary. Shaun Pollock went straight from school to the Malcolm Marshall master class, Herschelle Gibbs and Jacques Kallis had the rare privilege of batting with one of the finest opening batsmen of all time in Desmond Haynes. More recently, Kenny Benjamin has been passing on his fast bowling wisdom to Andre Nel. He’s not the first West Indian to have a role in developing the Easterns youngster’s talent either.
Trinidadian Phil Simmons played for Easterns in Nel’s first season (1996/97) and, says Nel, “he helped me quite a lot”, but it’s the Antiguan Benjamin who really made an impact. “He told me to bowl as quickly and aggressively as I can,” says Nel,who credits the West Indian with his stronger mental approach (what Benjamin had to say about the Nel- Donald incident is not known).
Nel is only the latest young South African cricketer to benefit from the experience of a West Indian but he’s very aware of the larger role they’ve played: “They make a big difference to our cricket. That’s where the West Indies are losing out, because these guys are helping us.”
There’s another fast bowler pairing that’s boosted SA cricket. Vasbert Drakes arrived in East London in Makhaya Ntini’s second season and Ntini quickly had to learn a third language, Barbadian. “You had to be quick to understand what he was trying to say to you,” was how Ntini remembered their first meetings.
It didn’t take long, though, before Drakes was in charge of the teenager’s progress. When Ntini was bowling Drakes was at mid-off. Ntini was keen to learn and in Drakes he had a fine teacher. Discipline was the key: “He told me not to try so many things, to try to get the ball in the same spot.” Then there was fitness. After a full day’s play, with the other players in the showers, Drakes and Ntini would lap the ground and do an hour of wind sprints.
“South African cricket is doing well from past West Indies players who have passed on their knowledge,” in the opinion of Eldine Baptiste (10 Tests, 43 Limited Overs Internationals, eight seasons with EP, now with KZN). “Look at Gibbs, Pollock, Kallis and Klusener, they learned from the experience and you see it in the way they play. The West Indies team now, they never played against players of that calibre.” Justin Kemp and Mfuneko Ngam were two to benefit from Baptiste’s expertise.
Baptiste is concerned that the current West Indies team “don’t have that mental toughness”. He argues that it’s the weakness of the islands’ domestic competition that is to blame: “Our players now are learning about the toughness of Test cricket where you are supposed to have that toughness coming up the ranks.” The West Indies have also made the mistake of going for youth to the exclusion of experience. When Haynes was approaching the end of his career there was a strong argument for dropping him down the order but after a dispute with the board he never played again. Says Baptiste: “When you get to 28 or 30 in the West Indies they always say you’re too old, but you have to have youth with experience.” The West Indies seem to have learned the lesson. Former West Indies captain Richie Richardson is captaining a youthful West Indies “A” team in a revamped and expanded domestic competition.
South Africa has been lucky in the quality of the West Indians who’ve played here. There have been very few flops and all have made contributions that went beyond wickets and runs. Haynes, speaking at the end of his successful three-season stint in Cape Town, remembered a “dressing room of excellence, of people wanting to achieve”. Haynes had something to do with that: “I was not only a professional cricketer there to make runs, but also to make sure that the team plays the professional way.”
On the winning formula, Haynes’s comments could be a reflection on the philosophy and confidence that is now so obvious in the South African national team: “A side needs people with ambition. You need players who say: I have to be special. I have got to do that little bit more to play for my country.”
There was lots of that at Newlands in late December when two of the men who played with Haynes tore into the talented young Eastern Province attack in a Standard Bank Cup match. Gary Kirsten and Gibbs put on 175 in no time at all and flayed the bowlers to all corners. They seemed to be saying: “We are international players, this is provincial cricket, we will put you in your place.”
There was something of the same in the ruthless way in which Shaun Pollock and his team accounted for New Zealand and Sri Lanka this summer. It was the kind of ruthlessness which used to be associated with West Indies cricket; the kind that Marshall, Baptiste and Haynes were part of when the West Indies were an irresistible force. “Now,” says Baptiste, “they don’t know what it’s like to really win.” If the South Africans selected last week go on to win in the Caribbean, some of the pats on the back should go to the islanders who passed on the winning formula.