Rudolph bounces back big

Not many South Africans score centuries on their Test debuts, but when they do, they tend to make a meal of it. Before last weekend Andrew Hudson’s 163 against the West Indies in Bridgetown in South Africa’s first post-readmission Test match was the only instance. Jacques Rudolph’s 222 not out now brings the total to two.

Unavoidably, Rudolph’s achievement will be qualified by the ‘but it was only Bangladesh” factor. This probably won’t bother him too much now, but there may come a time when he becomes slightly irritated by disparaging references to the Bangladeshi bowling.

Still, he can deal with that if and when it happens. For the moment he can luxuriate in the knowledge that the next time he gets out he will, at the very least, boast a Test average of 222. It won’t stay there, of course. Hudson started on 163, but by the end of his career he averaged 33,45 from 35 Tests.

This is a perfectly respectable record, a couple of points better than, say, Ali Bacher and Roy McLean, but short of the 40 mark by which very good Test batsmen are measured.

Hudson’s 163 was the high-water mark of his career, made against possibly what was still the best seam attack in the world with Curtely Ambrose and Courtney Walsh in their pomp and in conditions and circumstances almost completely alien to South African players. It was, and still remains, an outstanding achievement.

At the time Hudson said he reached a point when he simply focused on the next 10 runs. ‘Then I just enjoyed it as I went along,” he added this week. At the time very few of the South African team had any idea of what Test cricket was all about, captain Kepler Wessels and, to a lesser extent, Peter Kirsten excepted.

For Hudson the advantage was that the South Africans were still caught up in the thrill of international cricket. It was all a great adventure. There was at that point, after the dramatic readmission tour of India in 1991 and the 1992 World Cup, no real awareness of failure.

‘I think Jacques is probably more aware of international cricket than we were,”said Hudson. ‘But the really good thing for him, especially after all that’s happened to him is that he’ll feel he’s in the right company and that will be a big comfort to him. What he has to do now is knuckle down and look for consistency, but he’s got momentum and he can build on that.”

Hudson acknowledges that he doesn’t know Rudolph and hasn’t seen that much of him, but ‘I watched him get that 50 in the ‘unofficial’ Test (against India at Supersport Park towards the end of 2001) and he looked to have nice timing and be pretty organised”.

What the two do share, of course, is having batted for a long time and Hudson thinks that Rudolph would have found himself in a ‘bubble” at some stage.

‘Some people talk about ‘getting into the zone’. It’s not that easy to explain, but it’s almost as if your subconscious takes over and you’re not actively thinking about what you’re doing. It’s as if it’s taken over for you. Those moments don’t happen all the time, but the trick is to recognise them when they do come along and to try and replicate everything as much as you can. I think that the great players, the Laras and the Steve Waughs, are able to recognise those moments and replicate things more often than most.

‘You’ve got to try and understand it and know what brings it about. If he’s able to do that, then he’ll go a long way.”

Rudolph has made all the right noises since the Chittagong Test. ‘I need to refocus for the next game. I have to put the double 100 behind me and look to my next innings,” he said this week.

One day, of course, a young player might come along, score a big 100 and declare afterwards that this Test match stuff isn’t as difficult as it’s cracked up to be. In which case, we’ll be looking at either the next Don Bradman or, more probably, a complete dimwit.

Rudolph is neither. What he is is well-organised with an instinctive grasp of how an innings needs to be organised. This latter quality is not given to everyone, but those who are blessed need to be cultivated. Wessels regards him as one of the brightest young talents to have emerged for some time in South Africa and that’s an endorsement not given easily.

Rudolph said this week that after his treatment in Sydney last New Year he had though about packing it in. He didn’t and in different circumstances he might have playing around his 10th Test in Chittagong instead of his first.

Which is as good a reason as any for South Africa to take as much care of him as possible.