CRICKET
Peter Robinson
So that’s what it feels like, then. Just a pity, though, that the last time South Africa beat Australia, back in 1997 at Centurion Park, it was also a dead Test match with the tourists already having won the series.
One obvious point to be drawn from this is that South Africa haven’t made all that much progress, in terms of Test match cricket. If anything, the side has gone backwards.
You can trace this decline to April 2000 when the match-fixing scandal broke. It’s not possible, of course, to blame Hansie Cronje for all the ills of South African cricket, but it’s difficult to believe that had old Beelzebub not tipped him the wink, Jonty Rhodes might still be playing Test cricket, Daryll Cullinan might not have walked out on the side and Lance Klusener might have realised a little earlier how much work he had to put in to stay in the team.
And while Cronje cannot be held responsible for the injuries that ended Allan Donald’s Test career and kept Shaun Pollock out of the just-complete series, there is little doubt that the shock and suddenness of his departure still resonates through the South African game.
One of the reasons South Africa have struggled against fierce opponents may lie in the management mix. It is clear that coach Graham Ford and selection convener Rushdi Magiet have very little in common and that between them no clear vision has emerged. You have to ask, too, whether manager Gulam Rajah’s sheltering of the team has served any good purpose or whether a damaging insularity has produced at least some of the woes that have befallen the national side.
In essence, what needs to be revisited urgently is the mix, no matter what happens in the one-day International series that starts at the Wanderers on Friday (Johannesburg readers please note Corlett Drive will be closed until 6am on Saturday).
Already Kepler Wessels’s name has been freely bandied about, although there has been no clarity as to what role he might play. Would he be the coach? Would he be the manager? And in either position, would he be able to minimise the clumsiness and lack of common sense that has characterised efforts to transform the South African team?
Even so, some good has come out of the past two weeks. Herschelle Gibbs may never really grow up, but his century at Kingsmead could carry him into advanced adolescence. It is a remarkable thought that at Kingsmead Gibbs was the second-oldest member of the side. He was asked whether, as a senior player, younger players sought advice and assistance from him. “No,” he replied cheerfully, before adding that he was open to suggestions.
There has also been promise from Ashwell Prince who showed courage at the Wanderers and application at Kingsmead, while Graeme Smith can be pleased with his Test debut.
Most of all, though, in the role of reluctant captain Mark Boucher has matured almost beyond recognition. The difference between the Boucher who led South Africa to the second-heaviest defeat in Test history at the Wanderers and the man who hit the winning six at Kingsmead is extraordinary.
Possibly because of his natural talents, Boucher was easily able to adjust to the technical demands of international cricket, perhaps too easily. The past month, though, has challenged him on a number of different levels and it is fair to say that he has passed almost every Test.
He still says he has no long-term designs on the captaincy and it is probably true he remains a more natural sergeant-major than a colonel. But the transformation of the team in just a few weeks has been remarkable and Boucher deserves every bit of credit that has gone his way.
Peter Robinson is the editor of CricInfo South Africa