Tall orders for Rossouw, Shezi

Times Media

TELFORD VICE

It is hard to know whether Rilee Rossouw or Mthokozisi Shezi faces the taller order in the SA squad to play Zimbabwe in three one-day internationals north of the Limpopo this month.

According to a Cricket SA statement yesterday, Rossouw has been thrust into the mix as no less than a squad replacement for Jacques Kallis, who retired from all international cricket last week. Closer to the truth is that Faf du Plessis will be first in that queue for the XI.

But, as Rossouw will know, replacing Kallis is as tough as cricket’s asks get. Except, perhaps, for the role given to Shezi, who could be invited to take his pick of which boots to fill - Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel or Vernon Philander, who have been rested for the series. That said, Wayne Parnell and Beuran Hendricks are ahead of him in the pecking order.

In 91 List A innings, Rossouw, 24, has scored 20 half-centuries and six hundreds, and averages 38.04. Shezi, 26, has taken 48 wickets at 24.33 in 35 bowling innings in the format.

Rossouw and Shezi are uncapped at senior international level, and earned their selection by topping the batting and bowling averages for SA A in a quadrangular one-day series in Australia that ended on Saturday.

Marchant de Lange, who followed Shezi in those averages, and Kyle Abbott, who rode the SA team’s bench in both tests in Sri Lanka last month, have also cracked the nod.

“If you perform at domestic level and then take it through to SA A level, you will be rewarded,” the release quoted selection convenor Andrew Hudson as saying.

A triangular also involving Zimbabwe and Australia will follow the series, and the squad for that engagement will not be named before all three ODIs: a powerful incentive for the new and newish faces to use their opportunities well.

Those concerned with SA’s depth will focus an eye sharply on how players like Rossouw, Shezi and De Lange - who last played for SA in March, 2012 because of injury - fare in Zimbabwe. They earned their keep in Australia but SA A won just two of their six round robin matches, both against what amounted to the Aussies’ third-string side. The South Africans came unstuck twice each against Australia A and India A, and three of those times by big margins.

Memories of SA’s last venture to Zimbabwe, in July, 2012 for an unofficial T20 triangular, are bound to be uncomfortable and will resonate with yesterday’s squad announcement. Then, SA lost games to the hosts and Bangladesh - not least because they picked an experimental side.

Kagiso Rabada, one of the stars of SA’s triumph in this year’s under-19 World Cup, will accompany the squad to Zimbabwe.

“We want him to experience and learn from the environment around the Proteas,” Hudson said in the statement.

The conditions SA are likely to face at this odd time of year for cricket in the southern hemisphere only add to the intrigue. Pitches in the one-day series between the A teams of Zimbabwe and Afghanistan last month did not misbehave, but on Sunday the same sides earned themselves two days off after 20 wickets fell on the second day of a match scheduled to last for four.

That game was played at Harare Country Club, which is not a venue during the series or the triangular, while the one-off test between Zimbabwe and SA starting on Saturday is at Harare Sports Club.

But the South Africans would not be human if they do not look for reassurances that a similar deluge of wickets does not await soon after they arrive in the Zimbabwean capital today.

SA ODI squad: AB de Villiers (captain), Kyle Abbott, Hashim Amla, Quinton de Kock, Marchant de Lange, JP Duminy, Faf du Plessis, Beuran Hendricks, Imran Tahir, Ryan McLaren, David Miller, Wayne Parnell, Aaron Phangiso, Rilee Rossouw, Mthokozisi Shezi.