Times Media
TELFORD VICE, Cape Town
CRICKETERS like to insist that what happens in games played in one format has no bearing on the events of matches played in another. Nonsense.
Are we to believe that the South Africans who take the field in Wednesday’s first T20 against Australia in Adelaide are not going to wonder out loud quite how the Aussies managed to make such a mess of their test series against Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates? You could write the banter from anywhere ...
“They lost by how much?”
“Two-bloody-nil, bru! And we thought they were a decent side ...”
The Australians started this conversation themselves at the weekend when Ben Cutting said, “... for us to try to bring the focus back on home soil and start with a win would get the ball rolling for (the test squad) when they get back next week. That’s a big thing for us.”
Note that Cutting spoke before Australia crashed to defeat by 356 runs in Abu Dhabi on Monday. Note, too, that the fact that not one member of that XI is in the Australian T20 squad will make no difference to this discussion.
The South Africans are not big on subtlety, but they will know that Australia’s lacklustre test performance will be uppermost in the mind of every living Aussie who has yet swung a bat. And what better time to exploit that distraction than the start of a T20 series that neither team are overly interested in playing, what with the start of the World Cup just 102 days away.
Wednesday’s game will be followed by matches in Melbourne and Sydney, and by Sunday evening the rubber will be over. Thus, the sting of a klap delivered on Wednesday could easily linger for at least one more match.
Which is all that will be required to win the series and put pressure on the losers going into the one-day series, which starts in Perth next Friday. The Aussies’ one-day squad, meanwhile, includes four of the players who will want to - and be expected to - atone for the disaster in the desert at the earliest opportunity.
So much for the myth that what happens in one format stays in that format, particularly on a tour that will cram eight matches in five far-flung cities into 19 days.
Of course, SA could end up with the bloodier noses. They are without Faf du Plessis, Hashim Amla, AB de Villiers, Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel - that’s 225 international caps in this format right there, or 36 more than the 189 earned by all 15 men in SA’s squad.
On top of that, JP Duminy will undertake his first match in charge in a full international. But the new captain was bullish yesterday.
“Most of the players who have replaced the senior players have earned their spots,” Duminy said. “They have performed around the clock on the domestic scene and it’s exciting to have them in the set-up.”
Among the most exciting of those players, Wayne Parnell, is nursing a swollen toe. X-rays revealed no fracture but his fitness was not confirmed on Tuesday.
There was happier news about Imran Tahir, who has recovered from a shoulder problem.
Comments
No comments yet. Start the conversation.