After the drama of the Test series, the Proteas go on a whistle-stop one-day tour of the islands Peter Robinson With the highbrow stuff out of the way now, South Africa and the West Indies go downmarket for the next two-and-a-half weeks in a seven-match one-day international series that starts in Jamaica on Saturday before trundling off through the islands.
Trying to predict how one-day teams might fare on the basis of their Test match form is a risky business at the best of times, but it’s a fair bet that by winning the fifth Test at Sabina Park this week by 130 runs the West Indies gave themselves the best possible lift ahead of the one-dayers.
As much as coaches and critics and players bang on about winning and losing being habits, there is merit in this view. Self-belief is a crucial part of the game and while South Africa probably won’t have slipped into the trough of despair after losing in Jamaica, the West Indies undoubtedly will go into the series no longer viewing themselves as complete no-hopers.
It’s also the case that the tourists have a number of issues that might give them pause for thought as they go through the one-dayers, not the least of them being the absence of Nicky Boje.
Given licence to slap anything within reach during the home series against New Zealand and Sri Lanka, Boje batted at three with great success this past summer. The loss of their first-choice spinner doubles the blow for the South Africans.
With Boje’s first-named replacement, Gulam Bodi, also hors de combat, South Africa now have the inexperienced Justin Ontong and Paul Adams to share the spin bowling duties. When he is bowling well, Adams has never really convinced as a one-day bowler and on the evidence of the fifth Test match he still does not appear to be back to his best.
In that case it is something of a mystery why the selectors did not call up someone like Shafiek Abrahams for the one-day series. At the beginning of the year Abrahams was touted by the selectors as a World Cup possibility and when he did get a run, as at Newlands against New Zealand, he played well.
Abrahams, and let’s not argue about this, is a journeyman all-rounder, but in the context of the one-day game that’s not a criticism. The best one-day teams have players like this to lengthen their batting and give themselves an additional bowling option. Quite what Abrahams has done to fall out of favour is a puzzle.
South Africa’s other pressing area of concern is the current form (or lack of it) of Gary Kirsten, Lance Klusener and Mark Boucher, all senior players, all key cogs in the one-day side and all horribly out of touch.
The bright side of this problem is that the pitches used in the one-day games are likely to be somewhat more batter-friendly than those employed for the Test matches. Klusener, in particular, will benefit from surfaces on which the ball comes on to the bat.
At least we can hope the pitches are better. The prospect of a one-day series in which both sides struggle to reach 150 is simply too ghastly to contemplate.
The case of Boucher is particularly intriguing. For all the references to the hand he sliced open in Melbourne last year, a more likely explanation for the difficulties he has experienced in the Caribbean is the cruel mix of inconsistent bounce and bumpy outfields.
Boucher has struggled before on foreign soil. On two trips to England, where movement through the air and off the pitch is more pronounced, his ‘keeping has seldom looked quite as neat and tidy as it does at home.
He’s had a hard time and by his standards he might see this tour as something of a failure. Still, he’s a tough little bugger and on the basis that you tend to learn more from failure than success, the lessons learnt on this tour might make him a better player.
Kirsten, too, has been out of nick, but South Africa do have Boeta Dippenaar champing at the bit for a run. Kirsten has benefited from rest in the past and there is an argument for taking him out of the firing line, even if only temporarily, during the series.
On the plus side, South Africa go into the series with Shaun Pollock in spanking form, with Neil McKenzie looking better and better by the day, with Jacques Kallis bowling out of his skin and with the fizz of Jonty Rhodes back to lift the side.
It looks like being a better series to watch than you might have thought four or five weeks ago.
Peter Robinson is the editor of CricInfo South Africa (www.cricket.co.za)