Form gets fair recognition

‘And you, and you,” said cricket’s chief selector Omar Henry on Wednesday. ‘And you, and — not so fast, Mark. And you, and maybe you. And you, Adolpho. What’s that? Alphonso? That’s what I said.”

At least, that seems to be the spirit in which the squad to tour India was selected: shirts versus skins for a quick six-a-side thrash on the cow-paddock after detention.

The result is a side strangely satisfying in a particularly amateurish way. Purged of the corrosive laddishness of Herschelle Gibbs and the sullen ennui of Mark Boucher, the tourists seem to exude a youth and lightness unfamiliar to South African cricket in recent years.

It is a squad oozing admirable social sentiments, sporting black talent selected without guile and overt political expediency, and promising a future of more flexible and creative management.

It is also a squad that is going to be turned into chopped liver by India.

Nobody knows how Makhaya Ntini will respond to the exfoliating coaching methods of Ray Jennings, but he will need to be finely tuned indeed if the tourists are going to have a single strike bowler.

Of course, Justin Ontong might have spent his off-season developing a leg-break that drifts late, dips hard and skids low; but this is almost as farfetched as Alphonso Thomas’s selection.

Still, not all victories are statistical; and the choice of Hashim Amla and Thami Tsolekile should be celebrated by all those who believe in rewarding form and whose wait for black internationals has been punctuated with so many half-starts and politically poisoned disappointments.

The studious Amla will no doubt have to wait a tour or two to prove his worth, but at least, like Jacques Rudolph before him and Jacques Kallis before him, the waiting has started and his inevitable selection will be worth the wait. Tsolekile, on the other hand, must have thought his wait would last until his 34th birthday or until Mark Boucher stepped in front of a bus. That bus turned out to be Jennings.

Journalists have been using adjectives such as ‘dynamic” and ‘exciting” to describe Tsolekile. They really need to get out more. He is solid, conventional, compact and dull. In short, he is a breath of fresh air behind the stumps. With the full backing of the sport’s administrators (a blessing no white player can ever fully claim) and no exceptional spinners to stand up to, he should acquit himself well.

And that’s enough, for now.