SA plan to avoid landing in alphabet soup against Gayle

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Cape Town

IF you were wondering how seriously SA and West Indies would take the third T20 at Kingsmead on Wednesday, here’s your answer: not very.

What with the Windies having clinched the series at the earliest opportunity by winning at Newlands on Friday and at the Wanderers on Sunday, they did not bother training or holding a press conference on Tuesday. SA, meanwhile, have opted to rest captain Faf du Plessis.

On top of that, the weather, an ancient enemy of cricket in Durban, seems unwilling to play ball - a thunderstorm has been forecast to arrive an hour before the 6pm (SA time) start.

A Cricket SA release on Tuesday quoted team manager Mohammed Moosajee as saying the Du Plessis decision was “a precautionary measure ahead of a busy one-day international period over the next three months”.

Also, Du Plessis apparently has “a longstanding hip niggle and any amount of rest will be beneficial to him in the long run”.

So SA will be led on Wednesday by Justin Ontong, who might be remembered as an international player for something besides then United Cricket Board president Percy Sonn ordering his selection on transformation grounds during SA’s tour to Australia in January, 2002.

At the start of the T20 series, Ontong was in the squad purely as cover for JP Duminy, who is recuperating from a knee injury. Talk about being in the right place at the right time.

But on Wednesday he will be tasked with staving off what would be only the second whitewash in a home series of at least three matches, regardless of the format, in the 70th such rubber SA have played since re-admission. The only time they have yet suffered this ignominy was when Australia whipped them 3-0 in the test series of March, 2006.

Ontong thus faces a tall order for a man who has not scored a half-century in any of his 43 matches for SA across all formats and has taken one test wicket, nine of the ODI variety and one in T20s. At least a contributing factor to why he has not delivered on his considerable talent is that, in his 26 previous series for SA, only six times has he been picked for more than one match in the rubber.

He will have to lean hard on the experience he has gained while captaining the SA Academy XI, the SA Invitation XI, SA A, the Lions and the Cobras. They add up to 147 matches in charge, 69 of them won and 52 lost.

All that said, Ontong was the epitome of ebullience at his press conference on Tuesday, greeting the assembled reporters with a friendly, “Howzit gents; how you doing; are you well?” and bidding them farewell with a warm, “Cheers, hey.”

Enough already, Mr Nice Guy. What are you going to do about the man-of-the-series-in-waiting, the juggernaut, Chris Gayle, who has launched 167 runs off 72 balls so far - only 21 of those runs not coming by way of bludgeons to the boundary.

“Ja, the Gayle force winds,” Ontong said. “He’s due for a failure, so hopefully it happens (today).”

So, what’s the plan?

“I don’t think it’s ideal for me to say it, because then Gayle will hear it. We’ve got plan A. And B.”

If neither of the two work for SA on Tuesday, there are 24 more where those came from.