Leading Edge: What will the devil make SA do at World Cup?

Sunday Times

TELFORD VICE, Cape Town

GOOGLE the phrase “Prepare for War”, and the first response is a link to a bookseller’s site flogging a tome so titled. “Do you know,” the site asks in its sales spiel for the book, “how Satan can use ‘doorways’ including yoga, role-playing games and meditation to bring demonic destruction into your home?”

We don’t know. Sorry. Besides, here in SA cricketland demonic destruction has historically been delivered not by Satan but by something yellow and arrogant and too bloody clever by half. We call them a damn fine cricket team. They call themselves Australia.

If we want to keep tabs on the season’s hottest sledging trends, we should turn up the stump microphones in Australia’s games. If we want to know what design tweaks will be made to SA’s kit next summer, we check out what Australia are wearing this summer. And if SA want to measure themselves against opposition they know they can trust to reveal the truth, they play Australia.

Of course, no-one wants to know that their cricket team is poor, least of all those whose job it is to sell them as a commodity for broadcast on television – which is where the game makes the money it needs to pay its suits and its tracksuits. Why risk confirming that the team are a bunch of losers when you can fake it in the fiscal interest?

So, in seasons past, SA have prepared for the World Cup by playing, as far as possible, anyone and everyone who would not embarrass them. In 1992, for instance, all but one of their pre-tournament opponents were Zimbabwe, Western Australia, a combined Australian Academy and South Australia XI – twice, nogal - Tasmania, Queensland and a Bradman XI that included callow youths called Michael Bevan, Michael Slater and Adam Gilchrist as well as a fella five months shy of his 47^th birthday who could, they say, play a bit. His name was Barry Anderson Richards. That game lasted 15 balls before it was washed out.

The odd team out were Pakistan. SA beat them in a friendly. A few games later, Pakistan were the World Cup champions. Go figure.

This time, things are different. SA are preparing for war – not that we should confuse people dying with religion or the 2015 World Cup – by playing their own great Satan, Australia.

Who knows whether the fact that the teams will have contested eight one-day internationals by the time the World Cup starts in February is a happy accident or the result of intelligent planning. If Cricket SA’s suits would answer a ringing phone or an email while they are polishing their spin on reality in their polyfiller tower, we could tell you which it is. But they don’t. So we can’t.

Either way, the games against the Aussies will stick out as the most relevant in the slew of 21 ODIs SA will have played between the end of last season and the World Cup. And so they should, especially as SA’s other opponents – Zimbabwe, New Zealand and West Indies – are unlikely to test them anything close to fully.

Thanks to the Australians, SA will know their strengths and weaknesses as well as possible by the time the first ball is bowled in their opening match of the World Cup, against Zimbabwe in Hamilton on February 15.

Having won twice – including in a final – and lost once against Australia in Zimbabwe in the past in the past few weeks, SA are probably better in touch with their strengths.

So, will South Africans harbour quiet hopes that their team is not quite as successful in their five ODIs in Australia next month to level the mental see-saw? Like hell: a win is a win. And against the Aussies it’s worth two. But a hiding Down Under would bring skeletons out of their cupboards.

What SA need is a close series. If they win, good. If they lose, the devil made them do it.