Leading Edge: SA future bright despite giants’ toppling

Sunday Times

TELFORD VICE, Johannesburg

On a muggy April day in 1992, as the ganja clouds rose from several sections of the crowd crammed into Sabina Park in downtown Kingston, Jamaica and the Blue Mountains lurked in the distance, SA had their asses kicked.

They lost that one-day international by 107 runs and crashed by 10 and seven wickets in two more played on consecutive days in Trinidad. Then they won the first four days of the test in Bridgetown but lost the fifth, and with it the match.

On a boat trip around Barbados on the evening of the rest day that, quaintly, interrupted play after three days, a glowering Curtly Ambrose towered above his huddled teammates like a lighthouse in a storm.

Cab drivers were more interested in talking about Nelson and Winnie than they were in discussing the cricket, although they seemed chuffed that the country that had refused to allow its all-white teams to play against black people - and had been punished for that - had finally sent a side to these parts.

Once there, SA encountered the mightiest team in cricket. That undeniable fact was a mitigating factor to cling to as the defeats mounted.

Twenty-two years on SA have only lost only two of the two dozen other tests they have played against West Indies. SA’s evolvement into a quality team is a key reason for the steady reversal of their fortunes against the men of the Caribbean, but another is the Windies’ even steadier decline. They have become an embarrassment to a cricket culture that counts Frank Worrell, Viv Richards and Malcolm Marshall among its members. They ooze mediocrity from every pore, and that’s on a good day.

That 1992 Windies side was adorned with Desmond Haynes, Brian Lara, Richie Richardson, Courtney Walsh and Ambrose. In the most recent test between these teams, also in Bridgetown, in June 2010, the only players in West Indies’ XI who could argue that they belonged in that company were Chris Gayle and Shivnarine Chanderpaul, and they would have to argue hard. Unsurprisingly, SA - Graeme Smith, Hashim Amla, Jacques Kallis, AB de Villiers, Mark Boucher, Dale Steyn, and all - won by seven wickets.

Ah. Them - Smith, Kallis, Boucher; the giants of SA’s team, all since toppled by retirement. Does their exit in quick succession mean a Windiefication awaits us, a wasting away of status and a fading of glory?

No. For one thing, South Africans aren’t wont to lean on their laurels as heavily as the West Indians have: the fickleness of our national character validates the cliche that every SA team know they are only as good as their last game. For another, there is more world class talent waiting in SA’s wings than there has been for decades.

From Quinton de Kock to Beuran Hendricks to Kagiso Rabada to Aiden Markram, the kids are better than alright. Wayne Parnell is a gem whose time to shine has come. Stiaan van Zyl’s must also, as must Simon Harmer’s. That’s already three batsmen, at least one allrounder, a wicketkeeper, two quicks and a spinner.

That’s not a cloud or a mountain in the distance. It’s the future and it’s coming soon to a cricket ground near you. Shades, everyone.