After South Africa’s first limited overs match against New Zealand last week some Kiwi commentators suggested that Robin Peterson looked like an ordinary club player.
No doubt they said it with an Antipodean superciliousness that for many South Africans is like a bamboo-shoot under the fingernail. It was an intentional snipe, a challenge put out by petty souls to goad other petty souls.
So why on earth did chief selector Omar Henry take the bait?
Exercising the restraint and argumentative qualities of the schoolyard, Henry blabbed back something about Peterson being a pretty darned good club player.
And then, his mouth leading him like a will-o’-the-wisp into the quagmire of his own apparent sensitivity over the issue, he defended transformation in cricket and declared once again that if a place was in contention, race would be the final deciding factor.
Having thus pinned his colours to the mast, he promptly whipped Peterson out of the team faster than you can say ‘pie-chuckerâ€.
In a remarkable leap of defensive logic, Henry had smelled reactionary white supremacy in a fairly accurate description of Peterson’s form on that day. Basil Fawlty couldn’t have been more embarrassing.
Don’t mention the war, in this case the war between individual merit and social obligation, because South African cricket has no Manuél standing by to get walloped with a casserole dish to take the pressure off.
Peterson, Henry peevishly said, had better statistics than Nicky Boje, and there was ‘little doubt†that Peterson should have been selected. But a little doubt clearly goes a long way and Boje got the nod.
All of which has underlined once again that South Africa has not fielded two worse spinners since readmission. Not since the brief careers of Tim Shaw and Clive Eksteen have South African tweakers looked less like taking a wicket; but even that pioneering pair could stem runs.
To be fair, one-day cricket has evolved and batsmen who scored at three an over against Eksteen would probably clout him about for seven an over today. But one can’t shake the feeling that something has gone horribly wrong in the development of Peterson and Boje, that somehow two very talented batsmen have been hijacked by bowling coaches, and the rest is history.
It is fitting that South Africa’s ongoing inability to produce slow bowlers is once again exposed in New Zealand, the country that invented the infuriating no-paced spinner who can’t spin the ball. Chris Harris and, to a lesser degree, Dipak Patel perfected restrictive slow bowling in one-day cricket, and in his own way Daniel Vettori keeps a lid on things by virtue of being a class act, a genuine spinner to whom it all comes naturally.
Peterson and Boje would be ideal one-day cricketers if only they didn’t pretend to be spinners. Anyone who bats at a run a ball and goes for less than six an over is invaluable, but not if they could go for less than five an over by being less precious.
Harris bowled pie and he seemed to know it. He never had any delusions that he would be getting the ball to grip and rip to the slips. The result was unplayable. Pat Symcox too knew his limitations and bowled to them, overpowering the best in the world with a nagging line and a wicked alley-cat attitude.
The high summer in which the West Indies were chloroformed and put through a woodchipper has faded alarmingly quickly, and storm clouds are gathering over the tourists.
South Africa’s spinners aren’t alone in their profligacy and if Andre Nel fails to adapt quickly to the juicy slower pitches of New Zealand, the tourists will spend the next few weeks jogging to the boundary rope.
Or wading. Wellington’s Westpac Stadium was a lake this week, and the few hairdryers and bailing buckets that weren’t being used to save the inundated countryside have been commandeered by the New Zealand Cricket Union in a desperate bid to prevent a wash-out.
But a wash-out could be just what Graeme Smith needs to regroup a team that must be at best confused, at worst deflated. Given the Black Caps’ current psychological buoyancy, and the horrible discovery in the second match that a hard-fought score of more than 250 was a sheep in wolf’s clothing, a slow and soggy outfield and the corresponding battle for runs could prove too much for a team eager to muscle their way into the ascendancy.