Van Zyl, Windies need Benoni to behave

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Cape Town

WEST Indies will hope the real Willowmoore Park stands up in their three-day tour match against a SA Invitation XI starting in Benoni on Wednesday.

The ground could be described as a frisbee - small and flat. It certainly was in December, 1948 when Denis Compton needed a minute more than three hours in its cosy confines to hit 42 fours and five sixes on his way to scoring 300.

But there is a side to Willowmoore Park that is as dark as the concrete floodlight pylons that give the ground the look of a prison compound.

In October, 2009, Morne Morkel and Ethy Mbhalati sent down just seven overs of a first-class match between the Titans and the Warriors in Benoni before the game was abandoned because of wet bowlers’ run-ups.

Last December, India’s tour match there was cancelled because of a soggy outfield. Worse yet, 19 overs had been bowled in the One-Day Cup game featuring the Titans and the Knights in Benoni on October 19 this year when play was called off due to a dangerous pitch.

“You never know what you are going to get here,” Stiaan van Zyl, who was in the SA Invitation squad who were supposed to play against India last season, said yesterday.

Damn straight. Van Zyl said the SA Invitation XI’s planned training session yesterday had been cancelled because of soggy nets. More rain has been forecast for Wednesday ...

It is in Van Zyl’s interests to get on the park in Benoni, considering he is likely to replace the injured JP Duminy in the first test in Centurion next Wednesday.

“I’ll be able to have a first dart at the Windies’ bowlers and they’ll get a look at me, but luckily there won’t be any TV cameras around so I’ll be able to concentrate completely on the bowlers,” he said.

But at least Van Zyl knows his way around SA conditions. Not so the West Indians, who have only this match to acclimatise before the test series.

In fact, they will have some rustiness to resolve regardless of the conditions. Of the visitors’ test squad of 15, the only batsmen who were involved in the Windies’ aborted one-day series in India in October - the last time they played as a team - are Denesh Ramdin and Marlon Samuels. However, Samuels last played a first-class match in June.

That said, all but one of the other players in the squad have seen first-class action in West Indies’ regional competition this season. The exception is reserve wicketkeeper Chadwick Walton, but he played first-class cricket for West Indies A in New Zealand in October.

But it is a long way from the slow surfaces of the Caribbean and Middle Earth to SA’s lustier, livelier pitches - even in Benoni. Or, depending which Willowmoore Park turns up on Wednesday, especially in Benoni.