TELFORD VICE
The state of the SA team without Jacques Kallis would have been at the top of the selectors’ agenda when they met yesterday to choose the squad to play Australia in the test series starting next month.
But the state of the cricket nation ahead of what promises to be SA’s toughest assignment since they became the No. 1 team in August, 2012 cannot be discerned by answering only that important question.
The state of AB de Villiers’ hand would also have been discussed, as well as Alviro Petersen’s state of mind and how to get around the fact that spin bowling in SA is in such a sorry state.
Kallis retired from tests after the series against India last month, taking 166 caps out of SA’s pool of experience and with them his teammates’ knowledge that they could depend on modern cricket’s great allrounder to get the job done.
De Villiers is on the mend from surgery and should be fit in time to take on the Aussies, but a contingency plan will have to be made in case he is not.
Petersen has resigned the Lions captaincy amid claims of “interference” levelled at the franchise’s selection convenor, Hussein Manack - who is also a national selector.
Imran Tahir is inconsistent, Robin Peterson is limited, JP Duminy cannot be lumped with the spinner’s entire workload, and while the domestic scene is not without promising slow bowlers blooding them against a team as merciless as Australia would be negligent.
Former national selector Hugh Page resolved three of those issues in one fell swoop.
“I’d play Ryan McLaren in place of Jacques Kallis, and I’d pick Quinton de Kock and leave the spinner out - we’re going to need four seamers and the Aussies play spin pretty well,” Page said yesterday.
Page based his argument on the fact that, of the 99 wickets Australia took to beat England 5-0 in the Ashes, 75 belonged to the pace trio of Mitchell Johnson, Ryan Harris and Peter Siddle.
“If we don’t have guys who can play quick bowling, we’re going to get stuffed,” Page said. “Quinton de Kock can play quick bowling.”
De Kock, Page said, could be picked either as a batsman or a wicketkeeper. Or, of course, as both. That would mean tolerating his current deficiencies behind the stumps for the time being.
“He’s the best prospect in SA cricket since Jacques Kallis,” Page said. “Why should we wait until he’s ready?”
Because Thami Tsolekile is a better gloveman is one answer, but that has not helped him crack the nod in the past.
Page used Dean Elgar’s trial by fire on his debut in Perth last season as a cautionary tale against selectorial folly.
“He (Elgar) is a good player at first-class level but he was well and truly exposed by the Aussies,” Page said.
Elgar lasted 12 deliveries in the first innings, four in the second, scored no runs, and he was Johnson’s victim both times. Two innings later he made 103 not out against New Zealand, but in his five innings since then he has failed to reach 50.
If the selectors look past what appears to have been Petersen’s petulance at the Lions, the two half-centuries he scored in four innings against India last month should secure his place.
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