Sunday Times
TELFORD VICE, Cape Town
If AB de Villiers and his men wonder what that ticking is as they step over the boundary today to play the first of three one-day internationals against Sri Lanka in Colombo, it is the sound of their countdown to the World Cup.
SA have eight months and more than 20 games to ensure that, when the alarm goes off, their awakening is not rude. The Sri Lankans, who are ranked a place above the visitors, would prefer the ticking to be followed by a boom.
De Villiers would rather get through the series without such drama. “It would be great to win all the matches (in Sri Lanka), but there are more important things (to do) in order for us to achieve those results,” he told a press conference yesterday. “There are no secrets to a winning formula.”
Perhaps not. But there is no ignoring the ghosts that will swirl around SA leading up to the World Cup.
For instance, today’s venue, the R. Premadasa stadium, seems an incongruous place to begin preparing for a tournament that will be played in Australasia. But that fact is laced with irony for SA.
It is there that they should have met the Lankans in the 2011 World Cup semi-final. All they had to do to make that happen was beat piddling New Zealand in their quarter-final in Dhaka ...
Coulda. Woulda. Shoulda. The Kiwis, crafty as ever, found a way into the South Africans’ heads and with that a way to win against a team far superior to theirs.
More irony: SA’s first game of next year’s World Cup, against Zimbabwe on March 15, is in Hamilton. That’s right - in New bloody Zealand.
Today’s venue was also where SA suffered three defeats in the 4-1 hiding the Lankans handed them in last July’s ODI series.
“Each and every one of us learnt a valuable lesson last year on how to play spin and seam bowling, and just about the weather here,” De Villiers said. “It’s very hot playing here this time of the year, and it was difficult to build proper innings and partnerships.
“A few of the guys went through bad patches here last year. They’ve learnt valuable lessons and I think they will do better this time around.”
Jacques Kallis was not one of those guys, having made himself unavailable for selection. This time, he is on board. Or is he, having missed Thursday’s tour match in Moratuwa with a stiff back?
“Jacques is ready to go,” De Villiers said. “It’s all a matter of how much he can bowl. He looks like he can run in. We’ll assess again, but he will be ready to play.”
During Kallis’ down time, De Villiers said, he had been “working with some of the younger guys on how to play spin properly”.
Dale Steyn was also not around last year, and illness and injury limited Hashim Amla to playing in three of the five games.
Kallis, Steyn and Amla are three big reasons why SA should deliver a performance exponentially better this time than the shapeless cricket they played in Sri Lanka last year. Another is Imran Tahir, who was not selected for that series but is in the mix this time.
“He’s a great asset to our team,” De Villiers said of a leg spinner whose bowling is as exciting as he is excitable. “I’m looking forward to using him in some very big moments.”
Tahir could be De Villiers’ trump card. He caught fire at the 2011 World Cup in the Asian sub-continent, taking his 14 wickets in SA’s five games at an average 10.71, and will want to seize his chance in today’s similar conditions.
He will not, however, have to deal with Dinesh Chandimal, the rangy batsman blessed with effortless timing who scored two half-centuries in five innings in Sri Lanka’s ODI series in SA in 2011-12. Chandimal looked like the future of Sri Lanka’s batting on that tour, but he has been dropped after scraping together 38 runs in three innings in England in May.
But SA will be more focused on themselves, and on that sound: tick ... tick ... tick ...
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