National cricket coach Eric Simons brushed aside criticism on Wednesday that the South African bowling attack will struggle to dismiss the West Indies twice in a Test match.
South Africa meets the Windies in the first of four Tests at the Wanderers on Friday in a series that most pundits believe will be a battle between the respective batting line-ups.
”No, I don’t believe that’s true,” responded Simons after a net session at the ground. ”Their [the Windies’] batting is probably their strength but I’m not particularly perturbed about our bowling. We have an attack that can foil their batting line-up.”
To this end, the national selectors may include left-arm spinner Robin Peterson at the expense of Andre Nel, who played in Pakistan.
”One of the main reasons why we might play a spinner is that they battled in Zimbabwe against the slow bowlers.”
While Nel and Peterson will have to wait until Thursday to find out who will play and who will carry the drinks, top-order batsman Martin van Jaarsveld is at least certain of resuming his stop-start Test career.
As was the case when Van Jaarsveld last played a Test for his country, the Titan was again on standby when he was called up for this encounter, this time for Gary Kirsten.
Last summer, Van Jaarsveld was about to leave for Kimberley to play a limited-overs match against Griquas when Herschelle Gibbs injured his back during the warm-up.
”The preparation is totally different,” said Van Jaarsveld, who is likely to slot in at number five or six with Jacques Rudolph batting at three. ”One minute I was getting ready to swing hard for a one-dayer and the next I was driving hard to get to the Wanderers.”
Van Jaarsveld failed to grab the opportunity presented to him and never played for South Africa again — until Kirsten’s impending fatherhood intervened.
Despite only knowing officially on Monday that he will play, Van Jaarsveld is adamant that he has prepared well for the encounter.
”I wasn’t actually anxious because I saw Gary on Thursday down in Cape Town for the camp and he told me that he probably wasn’t going to play. Since then I’ve being getting into that frame of mind. Actually, I wouldn’t mind if more players had babies,” he joked.
Like his teammates, Van Jaarsveld has not had much practice at the longer version of the game as the domestic competition has been dominated by the limited-overs competition — but he is not at all troubled.
”All it should take is one net in moving from limited-overs to Test cricket,” he explained. ”You just have to get into a different mind set. The one version is putting runs on the board as quickly as possible while the other is occupying the crease for as long as possible and hopefully the runs will follow.”
The Windies opted for a closed practice at Centurion Park on Wednesday. — Sapa
South Africa (likely): Graeme Smith (captain), Herschelle Gibbs, Jacques Rudolph, Jacques Kallis, Neil McKenzie, Martin van Jaarsveld, Mark Boucher, Shaun Pollock, Andrew Hall, Robin Peterson, Makhaya Ntini, 12th Andre Nel.