Sunday Times
TELFORD VICE, Cape Town
WHEN AB de Villiers needed an example to help him illustrate the compliment he was trying to pay one of his players on Friday, he found what he was looking for sitting right next to him.
“That Dale Steyn delivery is going to get nine out of 10 batsmen in the world out,” SA’s captain said after his team had beaten New Zealand by 72 runs in the second one-day international in Mount Maunganui to claim the series ahead of Monday’s last match in Hamilton.
“Except ‘Hash’. Maybe ‘Hash’ would have blocked that to mid-off.”
With that, Hashim Amla, who having been named man-of-the-match for his 119 was seated alongside De Villiers, beamed through his beard and chuckled that he “would probably have nicked it”.
Levity aside, that cameo captured three of the major reasons SA have dominated the series.
De Villiers was a fury of innovation and torque at the crease in the first match on Tuesday, when he scored an undefeated 89. As a captain, he has been unafraid to entertain an unconventional idea - like bringing himself on to bowl.
Steyn has taken only three wickets - Imran Tahir, Vernon Philander and Trent Boult have four each - but his personality has allowed him to loom over his quarry of cowering kiwi birds like a menacing storm cloud.
Amla has left the New Zealanders, the most resourceful players in cricket, scratching their heads for ways to curb his serene unorthodoxy from running away with the innings.
Philander, too, can be satisfied with knocking over the seasoned Martin Guptill twice, and the series’ top runscorer, Luke Ronchi, once. He has the best strike among SA’s regular bowlers and the second-best in the series.
The pitches have offered Philander help and allowed him to bowl the fuller length that has earned him 115 wickets in 26 tests, but South Africans will hope he has discovered how to transfer his success from one format to another.
De Villiers, Steyn and Amla are proven performers in test and one-day cricket but the ODI jury remains out on Philander, who has taken 21 wickets in his 17 one-dayers.
“He has all the skills and the talent to handle the new ball like he did today,” De Villiers said of Philander after Tuesday’s match.
Philander himself is not scared of anything, much less anything piddly one-day cricket can throw at him: “The intensity creeps up playing ODIs, but it’s not going to make a massive difference to who I am.
“It’s probably just going to enhance my game, and it can only be good for my game because I’ve got a lot to contribute to this team.”
JP Duminy scored an important unbeaten 58 in the first match, and was the victim of a marginal “umpire’s call” lbw decision on Friday just as his innings was taking shape.
Tahir, meanwhile, is operating with the slick assuredness that SA have come to bank on in ODIs.
So much for the heroes. What of the villains?
Concern will be starting to stir over Quinton de Kock, who has gone five ODI innings without scoring a half-century. That fact is cast in stark relief by another: after his first 19 innings he had five centuries.
In this series, De Kock has been undone by a fine away swinger from Boult and by his own misjudgment when he was bowled off his inside edge by Mitchell McClenaghan. It is too early to panic, but SA will want De Kock firing sooner rather than later.
The other worry is Ryan McLaren, who was welcomed back from a broken arm on Tuesday by having two of his overs smashed for 16 runs each and another for 13.
But there is more good news than bad for SA. “We came here to win the series and we’ve achieved that,” De Villiers said. Job done, and well done.
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