SA batting beast has six months to stir, or be shaken

Sunday Times

TELFORD VICE, Cape Town

NOT so fast, Lance Klusener said this week when the conversation turned to the batting worth to SA’s one-day side of players like Vernon Philander, Wayne Parnell, Kyle Abbott and Dale Steyn - bowlers to a man.

“The top six are there to score the runs. Then you can start to think about the bits and pieces from the other guys that can get you out of trouble occasionally.”

Occasionally? Klusener’s booming bat down the order got SA “out of trouble” with uncanny regularity at the 1999 World Cup. Well enough, in fact, to put them in the semi-finals. Without him, that would not have happened.

Frequently, the only “bits and pieces” left were the bowling figures of those who dared tangle with the lusty left-hander hulking at the crease.

For all that, Klusener was right in his refusal to spend too much time talking up bowlers’ batting ability: SA won 29 ODIs - and lost 36 - when he batted anywhere south of No. 6.

Cricket’s Kluseners are rare birds; not often seen nor heard on the scorecard. Part of that is by design. However much the one-day game has changed, it has never been engineered away from its original premise as a padded cell for specialist batsmen. Safe within its overly protective confines, they can go mad.

The perennial problem for SA is that their batsmen go too mad, especially when there is a major trophy on the line. Next year, when the World Cup strips itself of its case and flaunts its glory, SA’s sanity will doubtless be tested again.

Players of immense skill and experience have been struck silly by the malady in each of SA’s previous six trips to the tournament. What chance does a top six that will look something like Quinton de Kock, Hashim Amla, Faf du Plessis, AB de Villiers, JP Duminy and David Miller have of keeping their heads and their averages and strike rates once SA start their campaign against Zimbabwe in Hamilton on February 15?

“I’m not sure if anyone sitting on the sidelines could make the top six better; maybe someone like Morne van Wyk,” Klusener said.

Predictably, Zimbabwe were no match for SA in their ODI series in Bulawayo, where the visitors wrapped up a 3-0 win on Thursday. But, Klusener said, nuts and bolts still had to be tightened.

“It’s about settling on that line up as soon as possible. That way you can prepare properly and people know what’s expected of them.”

SA expect De Kock, De Villiers, Duminy and Miller to hit the ball as hard and as often as they are able. To Amla and Du Plessis falls the job of keeping enough padding in the right places in the walls of the cell to stop the cuckoos from flying over the nest.

“It’s about getting those players in the right order,” Klusener said. “For instance, do you want Faf and Hashim batting together for a long time?

“Also, if it’s 100/1, then No. 3 is the place for AB. If it’s 0/1, probably not.

“If they get it all right, you score 300.”

This SA top six is a beast, perhaps even more so than all those that have gone before it - an assertion Klusener said, wisely, was too early to make conclusively.

All those who have been to World Cups before have returned empty-handed, and usually with their capacity for greatness diminished.

But, in six months, the beast will have to stir, ready or not.