Not since the arrival of the great Australian teams of 1997 and 2001 on South African shores have the Proteas faced a sterner test of their ability than they do now that the world number one-ranked India are here.
While hopes ran high among home fans all those years ago, their optimism came from the heart rather than the head and a whole decade of South Africa’s finest cricketers — Gary Kirsten among them — were condemned to play out their careers without experiencing the taste of victory against the Australians.
This time there is good reason to believe that Graeme Smith’s men can beat the best and it is based on cold, hard analysis rather than emotion. Whereas we hoped against hope rather than expected Adam Bacher to outscore Matthew Hayden and that Darryl Cullinan might finally come to terms with Shane Warne, this time the head-to-heads look and feel rather different.
Smith and Kallis have established credentials as great cricketers, as have Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman. AB de Villiers and Hashim Amla are barely three or four years and three or four thousand runs away from joining the elite of the elite — Gautam Gambhir, too, provided he can score runs anywhere outside the subcontinent.
Well matched
Sometimes the trees in the brightest light flourish less well than those in the shade, which is why it would be a grave error for the tacticians and analysts to forget about the potential of Alviro Peterson and Suresh Raina. The respective top six units are well matched, but local conditions should always give the home side the edge.
As always, however, it is the bowlers who win 19 out of 20 Test matches and this series, surely, will be decided by the fast men. When Kirsten joined the Indian team in Australia on an informal basis almost three years ago, before his contract started, he quickly fell in love with Ishant Sharma. A poor man’s Glenn McGrath (he has the height and gets the bounce but lacks the consistent accuracy), Sharma has had peaks and troughs and is even better than he was back then. But would you really pick him ahead of Morné Morkel, who has similar qualities but is significantly quicker?
Would anybody genuinely opt for either Zaheer Khan, penetrative though he is, or Shantakumaran Sreesanth over the world’s number one, Dale Steyn?
“It took me longer to get back to my best after injury but I’m finally feeling as good as ever,” Steyn said before the Centurion Test began. “A lot of people ask me whether I feel extra pressure with the number one ranking. I don’t understand the question, to be honest. All my life I dreamed of being the best fast bowler in the world, now people expect me to say it’s a burden! No, it’s an honour. And it’s an honour to lead the South African attack, too,” Steyn said.
Grizzled old professionals and wizened coaches talk ad nauseam about how cricketers, batsmen and bowlers “get to know their game” after a year or three playing at the highest level. It has resonance on a literal level because, like all sportsmen, cricketers learn how their bodies and minds react under pressure — the nervous jab to gulley or, the bowlers’ nightmare, a tendency to deliver a no-ball.
The real learning
But the real learning takes place at an almost subliminal level when cricketers not only know and understand their own games but start reading those of their opponents. Ever wondered why Kallis is prone to long periods of merciless inactivity followed, or in some cases preceded, by sudden bursts of boundary hitting? Few South African batsmen have been better at working out the appropriate medicine for opposing bowlers. Some are best dealt with with a slow-stretch torture wrack; others need a right-hook haymaker.
The greatest skill a fast bowler can have is to recognise the precise moment when the batsman in his sights is gasping for breath and off balance. Much is made of the endurance qualities required for Test cricket, but sometimes the match can be decisively turned in the 30 seconds it takes for a fast bowler to deliver a single ball. Only the really great players can both recognise those moments — and seize them.
“I have no doubt that the series will be decided by a couple of key moments, there’s so little to choose between the teams,” Kirsten said last week. “Fortunately, I believe we have the players to respond.” The thing is, so do South Africa. That’s what makes this series so fascinating and exciting.