If T20 is cricket for the lowest common denominator then the South African selectors are to be congratulated for choosing the team that represented this country against Bangladesh at the Wanderers on Wednesday.
Of the 11 names to come out of the hat, just three were part of the recent Test series win in England: AB de Villiers, Morne Morkel and Dale Steyn.
Graeme Smith was not considered and Steyn’s selection was on a wing and a prayer as the paceman has been ill in bed for the past few weeks.
Other sports have rules in place to stop the fielding of understrength sides, but in T20 anything goes. So it was that such noted underÂachievers as Loots Bosman and Herschelle Gibbs got the nod one more time and Rory Kleinveldt and Johan Louw stepped up to international level for the first time. It is conceivable that neither would have got a look-in if Ryan McLaren had accepted the 50% pay cut offered by Cricket South Africa (CSA) for breaking his contract with Kent. Even so, it is difficult to believe there is a place in international cricket for such modest performers.
In first-class cricket Kleinveldt averages 32 with the ball and 20 with the bat. He is known to put on weight during the course of a season and allegedly once got stuck in the barrel of iced water that is the post-match reward of the modern cricketer.
Louw is the archetypal honest trier. A few months short of his 30th birthday, Louw has played for four provinces and two counties and his first-class averages are similar to Kleinveldt: 32 with the ball, 22 with the bat. In other words, no one doubts his sincerity or application, but the words ‘international cricketer†do not spring easily to mind.
But if you are going to be promoted beyond your capability there can be no better time than now.
Following Wednesday night’s T20 there are three ODIs against Bangladesh in Potchefstroom, Benoni and East London, venues that suggest the CSA does not expect the tourists to draw vast throngs through the turnstiles.
After that sanity will return with the selection of a proper team to play two Tests against Bangladesh in Bloemfontein and Centurion. The second of those matches ends just two-and-a-half weeks before the Proteas play Australia in a Test match in Perth.
Experience of the past 15 years has taught us to fear Australia and ordinarily the thought of preparing for a six-Test, home-and-away series against them with a stroll in the park against Bangladesh would seem fraught with danger. But these are not ordinary times.
The current Test series in India has shown Australia to be a cricketing nation in decline. The retirements in quick succession of Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Adam Gilchrist, Damian Martyn and Justin Langer have had the desired effect for the rest of the world.
Ricky Ponting no longer leads a bunch of cricketing immortals on to the field. No more does he toss the coin expecting to win the match no matter how it falls to earth. It is an easy thing (relatively speaking) to captain a team that does everything well.
For a decade the Australian selectors picked six batsmen, a wicketkeeper and four bowlers. They had no need to think out of the box because the team knew its own quality. If there had been an all-rounder worthy of inclusion he would have been picked.
There were none, so the all-rounder berth fell to the wicketkeeper, the remarkable Gilchrist.
Now the seeds of panic have been sown. India’s team is as full of thirtysomethings as Australia’s, but they held on long enough to exact revenge for some heavy defeats over the past two decades. The third Test may have ended in a draw, but it was an emphatic points victory for the side coached by Gary Kirsten.
In the months to come we will become accustomed to seeing Antipodean fielders trudging wearily back from the boundary. Double centuries in the same innings from Gautam Gambhir and VVS Laxman revealed the cracks in the Australian armour. With the new ball Brett Lee is a potent threat and Stuart Clark rarely bowls a bad ball, but that’s where it ends.
South Africa’s strongest batting side is well capable of exploiting the Australian weakness in much the same way as India. It is only a case of battening down the psychological hatches first. To that end it might have been better for CSA to select a proper cricket team to play Bangladesh — one that would hone its abilities to good effect ahead of the sterner tests to come.