Cricket South Africa (CSA) will meet the captain and the coach of the South African cricket team next week to discuss the disappointing tour of Australia, and to decide what should be done in the future.
Welcoming the team back to South Africa after a two-and-a-half-month tour of Australia, CSA chief executive Gerald Majola said he had always known that the tour would be tough, but he believes the team did better than the results showed.
”I think, particularly, in the Tests, we won most of the sessions, but lost some of the crucial sessions. I was also very impressed with Graeme Smith’s decision to declare in the Sydney Test — we had said we wanted to play brave cricket, and that was a brave decision. It didn’t work out, but I believe Graeme did the right thing.”
Smith, the national captain, said he believes South Africa are capable of beating Australia, and that the team are determined to do so when Australia arrive here later this month.
”I think we need to have more confidence in our ability to win,” he added. ”I think sometimes we got into winning positions, and then put ourselves under so much pressure that we didn’t respond properly. Maybe we need to find a way to relax under pressure.”
Coach Mickey Arthur said the tour could be described as ”not a huge success”.
”But what’s important is the way you handle the failure,” he said. ”You can go home and sulk or you can decide you are going to do something about it. At our final team talk, after we lost to Sri Lanka in Hobart, the players committed themselves to coming back stronger and harder. They are determined to turn things around.”
Arthur said that while he didn’t want to make excuses, the loss of key players to injury had been a major problem. ”Everyone knew their roles, but then when we lost most of our attack — Makhaya Ntini, Andre Nel and Jacques Kallis — we had to introduce three or four young players into the team, and people’s roles changed.
”Normally you would introduce one new player at a time, but we had no choice. But the good thing is it gave us a chance to look at players like Dale Steyn, Garnett Kruger and Monde Zondeki, who will definitely play a role as we approach the World Cup. What is clear is that we need another level, between the franchises and international cricket, to prepare young players for the international arena.”
The general manager of professional cricket, Vince van der Bijl, gave the assurance that the work of the High Performance Centre will be intensified. ”We will use the expertise of former players, and players like Shaun Pollock will also play a role,” said Van der Bijl. — Sapa