Bloom or bust in the World Cup

Sunday Times

TELFORD VICE analyses SA’s squad for the tournament

Strengths

HUGH Page did not have to think at all long or hard to come up with an innovative, nimble-footed, whirlwind of a reason to be cheerful about SA’s World Cup squad.

“We have the best one-day player in the world: AB de Villiers,” Page said, although he was quick to add that, “I would like to see him batting higher than No. 5.”

But the happiness did not end there: “It’s a hell of a team. We’ve got as good a chance now as we’ve ever had of winning a World Cup.”

Former SA batsman Peter Kirsten concurred: “They have a very well-balanced squad with two of the world’s greatest batsmen in Hashim Amla and AB de Villiers.”

Not that one, two or even 11 of the very best players guarantee success. But, with De Villiers the top-ranked ODI batsman in the world, Amla third and Quinton de Kock eighth, SA are the only team to have three batsmen in the top 10.

Amla, the great deflector, hits the ball where he should not. De Kock hits it where most batsmen do - but he does so higher and further than he has a right to.

De Villiers, though, sticks out as the most dangerous player in the format. He has the innovation, the athleticism and the power to dismantle any bowler and he will be a nightmare for opponents, particularly on the flat, true surfaces that will be prepared for the tournament in Australia.

Add Faf du Plessis, JP Duminy and David Miller to that mix, and SA’s top six looms as among the most potent in the game.

Kirsten also pinned high hopes on SA’s attack: “There’s plenty of quality in a bowling unit of Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and Vernon Philander.

“Vernon is not striking as well as we would like him to, but the wickets in New Zealand might help him.

“Imran Tahir should get wickets among the tailenders, which will save SA a lot of runs.”

Steyn is the only SA bowler in the top 10, but few attacks can match SA’s as a SWAT team of swing, seam and spin.

There is no questioning Steyn’s status as the pre-eminent fast bowler of his generation and he plainly revels in his role as the leader of SA’s attack, regardless of the format.

Morkel, meanwhile, bowled both aggressively and tightly in the test series against West Indies this season - attributes that will serve him well at the World Cup.

Tahir showed in the first T20 against West Indies at Newlands on Friday, when Chris Gayle’s prized wicket was part of his haul of 3/28, that he is a more consistently effective bowler in the shorter formats than he has shown in test cricket.

“In T20 he’s a matchwinner, in one-day cricket he’s brilliant, in test cricket he’s got a defensive field,” Faf du Plessis said of Tahir after Friday’s match.

“What’s difficult with him is that he bowls a lot of variation. If you’ve got defensive fields with guys on the boundary and you don’t pick him, he’s difficult to slog for six.

“He’s more comfortable in this format because he can bowl aggressively. He gets his tail up and he can just do his magic.”

All that came together for Tahir at the 2011 World Cup, where he was SA’s top wicket-taker. But that tournament was played in the subcontinent conditions that he grew up in, and in which he has taken 29 wickets at 15.41 in 12 ODIs.

In three games in the format in Australia, Tahir has claimed 1/131. In New Zealand, where he has played two matches, he has figures of 4/69.

But Tahir will back his confidence and his skill to overcome those challenges. SA will, too - especially with class of the calibre of Steyn and Morkel in action at the other end.

Weaknesses

“IF we can just rid ourselves of that semi-final psychosis,” Peter Kirsten said with the air of a man who has been there, done that and got the scars to prove it.

Kirsten was among the Originals, the men who played in the first World Cup SA contested, in Australasia in 1992. They rode a wave of wonder all the way to the semi-finals against England, only to be done in by the primordial rain rules in effect at the time.

“SA to win need 22 runs off 1 ball,” the Sydney Cricket Ground scoreboard infamously read. Even that was wrong: SA, in fact, needed 21 runs off one ball.

With that, the die was cast - SA have never won a knockout match in any of the six World Cups they have played in.

For Kirsten, that was as close to a weakness that SA’s class of 2015 would have to overcome.

“It’s just fate, I suppose,” he said, searching for a way to couch what he was about to say in kind enough terms to soften the blow. “They’ve got to get rid of it.

“People are going to cotton on to this choker tag, but the boys have learnt to live with it. So I don’t think it’s going to worry them too much psychologically.

“But it’s a fact that we’ve bombed out, especially in semi-finals. The mental aspect is a worry.”

Another was the uncertainty surrounding JP Duminy and Quinton de Kock, who have been selected despite injuries.

“That could affect the balance of the side,” Kirsten said. “If they are not able to play, that would have major implications.

Duminy’s batting was conspicuous by its absence from SA’s one-day series in Australia in November, which was lost 4-1.

De Kock, meanwhile, could be among the most explosive batsmen at the World Cup, “and you don’t want AB (de Villiers) to keep wicket because his workload will be too heavy”.

Former selector Hugh Page was bothered by the inclusion of Wayne Parnell and Farhaan Behardien: “Parnell has been very inconsistent; it’s surprising that despite that he’s made the squad. Behardien has not done that well - there are others who deserve to be there ahead of him.”

In 40 ODI bowling innings, the stupendously talented Parnell has taken five wickets just twice and as many as four once. He has batted 23 times in the format, and scored one half-century. Behardien, meanwhile, scored 117 runs in five innings in the series in Australia.

For Page, the non-selection of Morne van Wyk was “a disappointment”. “Despite his age, he’s a matchwinner,” Page said of the 35-year-old. “We’ve seen him play really well in the last while, and it’s a shame they didn’t go for that experience.”

Van Wyk is the second-highest runscorer in the franchise one-day competition this season, in which he has scored two centuries for the Dolphins. As a wicketkeeper who also opens the batting, he would slot in neatly should De Kock’s injury complicate matters.

“Another weakness could be their death bowling,” Page said. “I worry sometimes about guys who can finish off an innings or keep the runs down.”

For the Dolphins, Kyle Abbott has proven himself as a bowler who has the nerve to survive and prosper when others grip the ball with knuckles white when push comes to shove at the end of the innings. However, even though Abbott is in the squad, at this stage he cannot be considered a certainty in an attack in which Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel will be constants and Vernon Philander will, for the time being, be preferred.

But, reservations and all, Page was satisfied that SA’s would take a glass at least half-full to the World Cup: “We’re being critical of peripheral players. At least there are no glaring omissions.”