“Whoever wins, wins. I’ve not got a lot of interest in that fixture.” - Dean Elgar on the World Test Championship final.
Telford Vice | Cape Town
ST Lucia is less than 800 kilometres from Puerto Rico, the south-eastern corner of the Bermuda Triangle. That’s a pertinent fact considering the second Test starting in Gros Islet on Friday could disappear from public consciousness like a crew vanishing from a ship in the infamous triangle, their breakfast steaming eerily from plates still on the table.
But, unlike what is said to happen in the Bermuda Triangle, the absence of the match from millions of memories would not be mysterious. While West Indies will be focused on levelling the series and South Africa on winning it 2-0 — with the teams’ supporters hoping likewise — the rest of the cricketminded planet couldn’t care less what happens. Their attention will be focused on Southampton, where New Zealand and India will contest the World Test Championship final, which also starts on Friday.
During his press conference on Thursday, Dean Elgar, ever the contrarian, took the opposite view of impending events in England: “Whoever wins, wins. I’ve not got a lot of interest in that fixture. I don’t think I’m going to pay too much attention to that game.” Even so, he did allow that “I think it’s going to be a very good game because both teams deserve to play in the final”.
There can be no surprise Elgar feels that way, and not only because he knows better than to take his eye off the only ball that should matter to him. Going into his second match as his team’s appointed captain, he is a win or a draw away from guiding South Africa to their first success in an away Test series since March 2017 — six rubbers on the road ago. It would also be only their second win in seven series, home or away.
The Windies face the converse scenario. They will try to stave off what would be their first defeat in seven home series. On the evidence of the first Test, that promises to be a tall order. The match was played at the same venue, and the visitors needed just seven sessions to win by an innings and 63 runs.
Elgar reported that the pitch prepared for Friday’s match looked similar to the surface that offered fast bowlers sharp bounce and significant seam movement last week. The match didn’t suffer from the weather interruptions that have afflicted Test played in St Lucia in June, but that could change. According to the forecast, Friday will be the only rainless day before the scheduled end of the game.
The nub of the contest will be how well West Indies’ batting line-up reacts to being dismissed for 97 and 162 last time out. And if South Africa’s fast bowlers can again deploy their lethal mix of discipline and aggression. The conditions will be central to those questions, but in an online press conference on Wednesday, Kemar Roach was adamant that Kraigg Brathwaite’s decision to bat on a responsive pitch wasn’t the problem: “We just wanted to bat better in the first innings. We’ve learnt our lesson. We know what we need to do, and we’ve put plans in place to be ready for Friday.”
The visitors will want more of the solid batting Quinton de Kock delivered in scoring career-best undefeated 141 — and none of the kerfuffle he caused when he neither took a knee, raised a fist nor stood to attention while everybody else on the field, including the umpires, showed their support for the global fight against racial justice.
That moment will attract attention again on Friday, and maybe from beyond the Caribbean and the sharp tip of Africa. With rain predicted for Southampton on all five days of the WTC final, the rest of the cricketminded world might watch after all.
When: Friday June 18, 2021. 10am Local Time
Where: Gros Islet, St Lucia
What to expect: Another example of the Caribbean’s answer to the pitches of the WACA or the Wanderers. And rain.
Team news
West Indies: Shannon Gabriel is over the hamstring injury that kept him out of the first Test and would be more than a handful if conditions are similar to last week’s. Not that his replacement, 19-year-old debutant Jayden Seales, deserves to be dropped after taking 3/75. Darren Bravo has been named in the squad of 13 for what would be his first Test since December 2020 — when he recorded his 16th innings without scoring a century. Bravo hasn’t played first-class cricket since. But those factors go out of the window when you’ve been shot out for 97 in the first innings. And when Nkrumah Bonner has been ruled out with concussion.
Possible XI: Kraigg Brathwaite, Kieran Powell, Shai Hope, Darren Bravo, Roston Chase, Jason Holder, Joshua Da Silva, Rahkeem Cornwall, Shannon Gabriel, Kemar Roach, Jayden Seales.
South Africa: Temba Bavuma’s hip problem removed him from the first Test equation, and he has yet to be cleared for Friday’s game. If he is fit, his replacement, Kyle Verreynne, is likely to make way. But an unchanged XI seems the safer option.
Possible XI: Dean Elgar, Aiden Markram, Keegan Petersen, Rassie van der Dussen, Kyle Verreynne, Quinton de Kock, Wiaan Mulder, Keshav Maharaj, Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortjé, Lungi Ngidi.
What they said
“We have enough experience in the dressingroom with myself and Jason [Holder]. Hopefully we can have Shannon [Gabriel] around. I thought Jayden [Seales] showed great maturity, and Alzarri [Joseph] is also in the fray. Once we get our plans right, once we are patient and execute as well as we have been doing for the last two years, I don’t see why we can’t out-bowl the South African team.” — Kemar Roach throws down the gauntlet.
“We’ve had a bit of rain around the island the last few days, so I think the wicket is maybe a little softer. But from a grass-cover perspective it looks pretty similar to the first Test. I haven’t wrapped my head around what I’ll do at the toss just yet, but I’m generally a bat-first kind of guy because you don’t win the game on the first day.” — Dean Elgar hopes for more of the same from St Lucia’s pitch.
First published by Cricbuzz.
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