Not a lot of people know this, but in the dark hours of Wednesday night Sanath Jayasuriya had the able-bodied members of his Sri Lankan squad digging up the pitch at Tangier’s National Cricket stadium before transporting it, block by block, to Colombo in readiness for next month’s International Cricket Council (ICC) Trophy tournament.
If you find a pitch so perfectly suited to your strengths, old cricketers will tell you, you do your level best to carry it around with you. So allowing that the Morocco Cup was won and lost in conditions that appear to have been designed by Messrs Jayasuriya and Muralitharan, how did South Africa do?
The up side for Shaun Pollock, Eric Simons and Omar Henry is that with very little preparation and on a surface for which South Africans are generally ill-equipped, the side beat Pakistan twice and reached the final. There was even a fleeting moment, when the admirable Mark Boucher was blazing, that it seemed South Africa might burgle it.
The down side, though, is that there is quite clearly a good deal of uncertainty about South Africa’s best combinations at the top of the order and Pollock needs to find himself a regular and reliable new-ball partner.
Furthermore, it is alarming to see Jacques Kallis carrying a knee injury at such an early stage of the season. It’s a long time until the start of the world cup in February and South Africa’s best-balanced one-day team requires Kallis to play a full role as a bowler.
After a century in the opening match, Herschelle Gibbs fell off the screen through some ill-luck and a lot of poor judgement. It was clearly premature to assume that he had been attacked by responsibility. And whenever Gibbs falls early, his departure resonates down the order.
South Africa tried a variety of partners for Gibbs, but perhaps Graeme Smith is the best option. It seems self-evident that South African should give Smith the security of a regular place if for no other reason than the enthusiasm and energy he brings to the side. He is South Africa’s outstanding young player.
Boeta Dippenaar was solid in Morocco, but there tends to be a problem when he and Kallis bat together, simply because they are both such orthodox players. Still, Pollock and Simons have shown a refreshing flexibility with both the batting order and the bowling changes.
Allan Donald and Lance Klusener, on pitches where the latter is always likely to struggle with the bat, were the pick of the bowlers, demonstrating once again that you cannot buy experience. Roger Telemachus was poor and it was a surprise that he was preferred to Makhaya Ntini for the final. Ntini is still too one- dimensional on slowish pitches, but he will be more comfortable back home, while Paul Adams may well have shown, once and for all, that he is not a one-day bowler.
Don’t expect South Africa to win the ICC Trophy in Sri Lanka (who must surely be favourites for that one), but Morocco wasn’t the worst start to the season that Pollock and company might have endured. The problem areas have been highlighted and, if nothing else, the side is not in danger of peaking too soon.