Bob Woolmer is a professional coach and is rarely drawn publicly on why and how he parted ways with South African cricket in 1999. He will express irritation, certainly, or the bemused frustration of an adult banished from the nursery by petulant toddlers, but he will not assassinate the characters who assassinated his career as Proteas coach.
All the public has, therefore, is theories; and, in the case of Woolmer’s departure, there are many. One of the foremost is that he was axed largely at the bidding of an increasingly megalomaniac Hansie Cronje, who wanted all power centralised in himself. Another holds that it was punishment for losing the 1999 World Cup at the last hurdle. Others suggest that he alienated the media old boys’ club with his brusque answers and faintly quizzical interrogations of their questions; or that he had taken South African cricket as far as he could, and was going to step down anyway.
Only he and a select group of discreet administrators and support staff will know which of these hold water; but one fact stands clear of the speculation, and rings truer with every year that passes: the decision to terminate Woolmer’s contract was a conscious, deliberate and strategic rejection of scientific coaching.
The difference between Woolmer and the host of mediocre or incompetent men who have come and gone over the past seven years is the difference (to appropriate Twain) between the lightning and the lightning-bug. As analytical and taciturn as Woolmer was, so emotional and gushy have his successors been; and the promises and pronouncements and mission statements that have piled up since 1999 have been inversely proportional to the number of victories achieved on the field. South African cricket has abandoned science in favour of pop-psych voodoo and paint-by-numbers Vince Lombardy schlock, and we are going down the tubes because of it.
It happens that batsmen score triple centuries in Tests. It happens that pairs bat out entire days. It happens that teams cruise along at better than four runs per over from dawn till dusk. It happens that bowlers have bad days; and that pitches are flat; and that catches go down. But when all these things happen to South Africa, one can’t shrug them off as an unlucky alignment of freakish events. Instead one has to ask if there was ever a plan; because if there was one, it certainly wasn’t one that the lay watcher could understand.
For instance, did anyone recall, during those agonising, breathtaking 180-odd overs, that only Andrew Flintoff and Wasim Akram have dismissed Mahela Jayawardene more often than Nicky Boje? Did anyone check the list, and spot Ashley Giles, also an impotent left-arm spinner, just below Boje; and if they did, did it occur to them that the Sri Lankan captain might be just a little bit over-eager to climb into innocuous left-armers, and that it might be worth giving it a twirl with an in-out field inviting the odd lofted shot?
Of course it didn’t. Boje’s first crack at the Sri Lankan captain took the form of two pre-break overs, almost an hour into the innings, with Jayawardene utterly dug in on 46. When Boje returned, the batsman was on 65, going on 300.
Not that the Proteas were tactically rudderless, mind you. There was a plan, apparently involving bowling short at two of the best pullers in international cricket, on a pitch enthusiastically described by coach Mickey ”Feelings” Arthur as one of the slowest he’d ever seen. In the first two hours of play, with the home team two down and reeling, Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara were gifted no fewer than 40 runs in boundaries courtesy of gimme long-hops. The wide half-volleys, and Dale Steyn’s infatuation with the fine-leg boundary, are best forgotten.
The complete absence of any discernable strategy at the Sinhalese Sports Club ground should add another alarm to those already clanging (it was just 16 months ago that the ho-hum Wavell Hinds and the more admirable Shivnarine Chanderpaul did the double double against the Proteas in Guyana); but it would be a pity to let the achievements of these two splendid Sri Lankans be overshadowed by the slow and steady disintegration of South African cricket.
Sangakkara has proved many times that beneath the quick smile and casual façade there is an old-school hard man; but Jayawardene’s mammoth achievement was more surprising. The Sri Lankan captain has always been beautiful to watch, but often that beauty has been fleeting: for a decade bowlers have known that he will give them something if they tie him down outside the off-stump. To press on into the high, thin air of the 370s, with all the enervating restrain required for that ultimate trek, was a staggering achievement in itself; but for Jayawardene it was epochal.
Sri Lanka have conquered new peaks. South Africa must look to the science it has abandoned if it is to avoid plumbing fresh depths.