Gap narrows, but SA still have edge over Zimbabwe

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Harare

Harare and Bulawayo are 366 kilometres apart as the crow flies. In test terms, the gap between SA and Zimbabwe is wider than that. But, as one-day rivals, it is narrower.

Hashim Amla’s team proved the first half of that assertion true when they did not need to get out of third gear to win the one-off test by nine wickets with a day to spare in Harare on Tuesday.

But AB de Villiers’ men are less likely to be able to canter to victory in the first of three one-day internationals between the teams in Bulawayo on Sunday.

The home side will fancy their chances in the shorter, less predictable format and on a Queens Sports Club pitch that tends to be even flatter than Harare Sports Club’s already sleepy surface.

They will also like the look of a SA attack without Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel, who along with Vernon Philander have been rested for the series.

Or, in Brendan Taylor’s disarmingly honest assessment delivered as Zimbabwe were licking their wounds in the wake of SA’s win in the test match: “Now that Dale and Morne are gone for a while, that will give us some confidence.

“But the one-day series will be a new challenge. I guess we’re more comfortable with the format, and Bulawayo’s slower pitch suits our style of play.”

That said, Zimbabwe have won only two of their 31 completed ODIs against SA - and the most recent of them was played more than 14 years ago.

Also, although SA’s bowling strength can only be adversely affected by not having Steyn and Morkel to call on, their squad remains packed with potent pacemen.

Kyle Abbott, Marchant de Lange, Ryan McLaren and Wayne Parnell would all walk into many teams around the world. So would Beuran Hendricks, who was selected but has had to withdraw with a back injury.

However, much of the focus will be on Mthokozisi Shezi, the left-armer from the Dolphins who has earned his first SA call-up.

None of the regular batsmen have been rested, and the only new face on that front is the Knights’ Rilee Rossouw.

What with a World Cup looming in six months’ time, SA coach Russell Domingo said, “it’s great to be able to look at what we have outside” the tried and trusted.

Not that he expected the Zimbabweans to behave like laboratory rats in SA’s grand plan to win a major trophy.

“They are a very competitive one-day side,” Domingo said. “We came here two years ago for some T20s and they whipped our socks.”

That was in July, 2012, when an experimental SA side stumbled to embarrassing defeats to Zimbabwe and Bangladesh in an unofficial triangular series.

This time, things are likely to be different. But humility is healthy.