22 years from now, Steyn and Rabada will still be talking

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Johannesburg

TWENTY-TWO years of isolation from the test arena ended for SA when they faced West Indies in Bridgetown, Barbados in April, 1992. Twenty-two years is also how long SA have been back among cricket’s test-playing countries.

Their opponents in the test series starting at Centurion on Wednesday are also West Indies. But the symmetry does not end there, although it becomes inverted.

Including and since that one-off match in 1992, SA have won 104 and lost 52 of their 215 tests. In the same period, the Windies have played 210 tests, won 52 and lost 98.

So, in the past 22 years, SA have won exactly twice as many tests as West Indies - who have won precisely the same number that SA have lost.

And to think that in the 22 years before SA returned to the fold, the Windies won 68 and lost 27 of the 154 tests they played. That’s a winning percentage of 44.16 and just 17.53% written off to defeat - or up there with SA’s 48.37% and 24.19% since re-admission.

Call it slings and arrows, swings and roundabouts, or a reversal of fortune. The harsh but fair truth is that the Windies have wobbled while SA have soared.

Twenty-two years from now, the wheel might have turned. As difficult as it is for South Africans to imagine the game in this country struggling to the same extent as has happened in the Caribbean, few West Indians who gazed in awe and admiration on teams studded with Viv Richards, Desmond Haynes, Malcolm Marshall and Michael Holding would have predicted how lean the years ahead would be.

Some will regard the retirements in the past year of Graeme Smith and Jacques Kallis as the start of SA’s slide. Hashim Amla is not among them.

“Fortunately, when they retired quite a few of us had been playing international cricket for quite a long time and we could hold the fort and keep the core of the team pretty much the same - the culture of the team could continue,” Amla said on Tuesday.

“To try and pass on as much experience and knowledge as we’ve had over the years to them is the responsibility that we have.

“When I was younger you wanted to try and catapult your career by getting the experience of being with guys like AB (de Villiers), Dale (Steyn) and Vernon (Philander); quality cricketers like that.

“You’ve got to pass on what you’ve learnt and what the Proteas stand for. The most important factor is that you try and make sure you win cricket matches.

“We’ve been very fortunate to have had a few good years of test cricket. To continue that and to give that type of culture to the youngsters coming in is very important.

“The idea is for the Protea team to live out their ideals as often as they can, not to pick and choose when they feel like doing so.”

Not long after Amla spoke, Dale Steyn and Kagiso Rabada ambled along a corridor at the SA team’s hotel, clearly in deep conversation.

Twenty-two years from now they will still be talking.