To spin or not to spin? SA have thinking to do

Sunday Times

TELFORD VICE, Centurion

THEIR names adorn the trophy contested by Australia and Sri Lanka in test matches. One calls the other “the whirly twirly rubber man”, a man who continues to put time, money and effort into helping his compatriots recover their lives in the wake of a devastating tsunami. Together, they account for 1508 of the 5322 wickets taken by the 10 most successful test bowlers.

They are Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan, and cricket - not just spin bowling - has never seen anything quite like them. Warne played his last test in 2007, Muralitharan in 2010. And yet they do not glow any less brightly in cricket’s firmament.

Warne and Muralitharan are the game’s enduring rock stars, destined to be remembered for all manner of reasons, good (Murali) and bad (Warne).

Clive Eksteen, best known for having toiled all day for no reward against Michael Atherton and Jack Russell at the Wanderers in December, 1995, has no clue what it feels like to be them. Neither does Paul Harris, who was invariably tasked with keeping it tight, nothing more, nor Aaron Phangiso, who is regarded as a viable option at international level only as a defensive bowler in the shorter formats.

Pat Symcox had a certain swagger and Paul Adams brought breakdancing to bowling, but they were not Warne or Muralitharan.

For most of those two superstars’ careers, their sides’ team sheets mights as well have come pre-printed with their names. Not so SA’s spinners, who are the first to face the chop when captains and coaches get creative.

“I was backed in the side, but that’s pretty much how you feel most of the time,” Harris said. “If you see a bit of rain falling before a game, you get nervous.”

That happened again at Centurion last week, when even Sulieman Benn, the West Indian left-arm spinner, got a game ahead of his SA counterpart, Robin Peterson.

As it happened, Hashim Amla and Russell Domingo got it spot on - SA’s all-pace attack needed just 102.5 overs to dismiss the Windies twice and clinch a crushing victory.

But, for Harris, there was a bigger picture: “It’s ridiculous - you should always pick a spinner, no matter what. What message are we sending to young spinners if we don’t always have a spinner?

“Five days is a long time and West indies are not very good, but against better teams you will always need a spinner.”

What with SA’s steady supply of quality quick bowlers letting fly on pitches bespoke for that purpose, spin are, at best, a secondary option and, at worst, an afterthought.

Teams will generally have the upper hand in their home conditions. In SA’s case, that means fast bowlers will be depended on to get the job done more often than not. And they do, which is a big part of the reason SA are the No. 1 test team.

But the reality of modern cricket is that teams need to be able to perform in all conditions. Not that that means spin should be relegated to lesser importance unless SA are playing in the sub-continent - a player is not going to become part of a team in any real way if he is only called on when he is needed.

Cricket teams are fuelled by culture as much as they are by runs and wickets. That culture needs to be built and nurtured. SA have done a fine job of that, and it seems they have managed to overcome the loss to retirement of major players like Graeme Smith, Jacques Kallis and Mark Boucher with their culture intact.

But there is room for improvement in the way they think about spin. Benn, for instance, was the Windies’ best bowler after Kemar Roach cried off with injury on the first day at Centurion.

Whether Peterson would have had the same impact had, say Dale Steyn been taken out of SA’s attack is debatable - particularly as the home side also had Vernon Philander, Morne Morkel and Kyle Abbott to call on.

The difference is that Benn was given his chance.