England went into the start of the first Test on Thursday favoured to beat South Africa, at least in the view of Bet365. More significantly, perhaps, the odds on a draw outweighed those on a win for either team.
In other words, more money has been laid out on the likelihood of both teams spending five days at Edgbaston feeling each other out. At the start of a five-Test series this approach would by no means be unusual.
For all the talking up of the England team in the British press and the most recent contest between the two teams at Lord’s — a comprehensive walloping of South Africa in the NatWest one-day final — only a very brave or very foolish punter would be prepared to wager the house on one side thumping the other in this match or, indeed, over the full series.
Even so, England went into the opening match of the series with a fair bit going for them: a solid batting lineup, an in-form all-rounder, a couple of bright young quicks, the return of the old stager Darren Gough and home-ground advantage.
By contrast, South Africa started the game without their best player, Jacques Kallis, and no obvious idea of their best-balanced attack or, indeed, their best-balanced team. On the face of it, then, a draw would probably be a better result for South Africa than for England, at this stage of the English summer, anyway.
But it might be a mistake to see Graeme Smith’s South Africans as being quite so lost, helpless and without plan or direction as, say, Rudolph Straeuli’s Springboks.
You can argue about the composition of the South African Test squad — the omission of Lance Klusener, for instance, or the absence of the aggressive Andrew Hall — but the retirements of Allan Donald and Jonty Rhodes and the absence of Kallis for the saddest of reasons are all beyond the control of the South African selectors and management.
What you can take issue with, however, is how the tourists have sought to overcome the gaps that have appeared in the team. Charl Willoughby’s inclusion as a fourth seamer is understandable on the grounds that Monde Zondeki is not yet considered fully match fit after his car accident. Added to this has to be the doubts that surround Dewald Pretorius as a Test level fast bowler.
By all accounts Pretorius had problems with no balls in the warm-up matches with the result that he tended to bowl two lengths — too full or too short.
Pretorius is not the first fast bowler to be chosen to tour with South Africa without a properly organised run-up. In 1998 Nantie Hayward suffered similar problems and eventually bowling coach Corrie van Zyl took him out on to the field, marked a spot, and told Hayward to run in and bowl when he felt ready. Time after time Hayward released the ball from a different point.
It’s Van Zyl’s job, of course, to sort out technical matters such as these, but more to the point is why kinks in bowlers’ run-ups aren’t ironed out at provincial level.
It’s something that has plagued South African bowlers for several years and the fact is that provincial coaches should bear the responsibility for not checking the malaise long before anyone is considered for international selection.
Pretorius aside, the biggest criticism of South Africa’s first Test team is the by now almost routine omission of Neil McKenzie. If someone is to be left out of a South African team, you can put a considerable amount of money on the likelihood that McKenzie will be the fall guy.
Successive selection panels have treated McKenzie with a cavalier disdain that at times borders on contempt and you’d think that if anyone had grounds for suing the United Cricket Board it would be McKenzie. Perhaps if he took scowling lessons from Lance Klusener he might be able better to convince the selectors that, in fact, he does take the game quite seriously.
In this instance, McKenzie seems to have been left out to allow the inclusion of a fifth bowler, Robin Peterson. It’s a selection which, more than any other, reflects how worried the South Africans are about their attack, but it may not solve many problems.
Peterson does give the South Africans someone who can bat at eight as well as providing a spin option, but the fact is that at this stage of his career he would not warrant selection purely as a batsman or a bowler. And a genuine all-rounder needs to have both of these strings in his bow.
Peterson’s selection has kept not only McKenzie out of the team, but also Paul Adams, the only specialist spinner in the party. Traditionally Test teams are made up of six batsmen, a wicketkeeper and four bowlers. Genuine all-rounders, such as Kallis and Shaun Pollock come as a bonus.
South Africa’s team for the first Test has five batsmen, a wicketkeeper, an all-rounder, three bowlers and a bits-and-pieces players and this may prove a fatal flaw.
So, how else should the South Africans have thought about it? As ever, it wouldn’t do any harm to look towards Australia who have managed to become the best Test and one-day teams in the world without an all-rounder approaching the quality of Pollock and Kallis. What the Australians have done, however, is grown this basic formula to the point where both the batsmen and the bowlers fully trust each other to do their jobs.
In the South African context, the players who have not been afforded that kind of trust are McKenzie and Adams. Both have suffered selectorial indecision, but perhaps Adams even more so than McKenzie.
It is true that Adams bowls poorly in the one-day series, but, really, what did anyone expect? He is not a one-day bowler, neither technically nor temperamentally, and each attempt to prove otherwise has not only failed, but also set the player himself back.
Whatever happens in this match, if South Africa are to find an attack capable of taking 20 wickets in a match, it has to include Adams. He’s erratic and inconsistent, but he can get batsmen out. Peterson is quite obviously the cautious option, but Adams may yet prove the one bowler capable of winning South Africa the series.