SA need a hug after brutal beating

Times Media - February 17, 2014

TELFORD VICE, Johannesburg

It’s a good thing for SA that the second test is at St George’s Park, where Graeme Smith and his men will want to soak up some of Port Elizabeth’s famed friendliness in the wake of the mauling they took from Australia in Centurion on Saturday.

Powered by Mitchell Johnson’s career-best 12/127, the best performance by a seam bowler in a test since Irfan Pathan took 12/126 for India against Zimbabwe in Harare in September, 2005, the visitors surged to victory by 281 runs with a day to spare. Now the pressure is on SA to find a way to counter Johnson’s distinctly unfriendly extreme pace by the time the series resumes on Thursday.

They will be helped by the fact that slower and lower St George’s is unlikely to deliver a pitch like the one at Centurion.

Although the surface was far from unplayable, yielding three centuries, two other innings of more than 80, a total of 1093 runs scored at almost three-and-a-half runs an over, and only one dominating bowling display, it was described by Michael Clarke as “nasty” and “dangerous”.

But even if the second test was played on King’s Beach, SA would surely still carry the internal and external bruises of the Centurion slaughter. Or would they?

“I don’t think there’s much mental scarring - we’ve lost a game of cricket,” Smith said in attempting to delink mere sport from the pressures of real life. “We’ve been beaten comprehensively, but it’s important that we move away.”

However, there was a chilling reality to Ryan McLaren being struck a fearsome blow on the earflap of his helmet by Johnson. Blood spilt and a groggy McLaren spent several minutes recovering before being caught behind off Johnson having faced six more balls.

“It looks like he’s been scrumming for three days with Bakkies (Botha) and Victor (Matfield), but he’ll be OK,” Smith said.

That moment of levity aside, Smith knew SA’s supporters would not be in the mood for wisecracks: “There’s going to be a lot of criticism and emotion from the fans. We didn’t live up to expectations and we deserve everything that comes our way.”

South Africans will have been shocked by the way their team, officially the No. 1 side in the world, were shown to be by some distance not even the best XI in Centurion.

Not only did a single bowler blow them away at the crease, their own bowlers struggled to penetrate - it is a sobering fact that Johnson took only two fewer wickets than SA’s entire six-man attack.

Even more alarmingly, their fielding crashed to a standard seldom served up by a professional team in SA. The Australians, by contrast, did not drop a single catch.

For all that, it is too soon for the selectors to panic. But Dean Elgar, the spare batsman in the squad, could find himself having to deal with Johnson in Port Elizabeth. JP Duminy, whose highest score in his last seven test innings is 28, would be the most likely player to make way.

The Australians have the opposite problem. They are wondering how to squeeze their premier allrounder, Shane Watson, into their team. Watson was ruled out for Centurion with a calf problem and will not be considered for the second test unless he is able to bowl.

Both teams will travel to Port Elizabeth today before resuming their practice schedule tomorrow.

“We’ll turn up for training in two days time and it will be like we haven’t bowled a ball in this series,” Michael Clarke said on Saturday.

If only the South Africans could do that.