“We definitely need a new generation of batsmen. Who are they going to be?” - Jimmy Cook
Sunday Times
TELFORD VICE in Cape Town
ON December 10, 1928 Donald Bradman wrote, signed and dated a note in an autograph book: “If it’s difficult I’ll do it now. If it’s impossible I’ll do it presently.”
His test debut, in Brisbane, had ended five days earlier. Four days later in Sydney he would be Australia’s 12th-man. Bradman’s demotion might have had less to do with him having scored 18 and one than the fact that England won by 675 runs.
It was the only time he was dropped in what, until Asia’s ascendency gained momentum, was the most storied career in the game.
Almost 90 years on Bradman’s 14 simple, powerful words hold valuable lessons for a South Africa team who find themselves between generations — particularly battingwise.
Young bowlers have they many. Or at least enough to balance the loss to retirement of Morné Morkel and the diminishing presence of Dale Steyn and Vernon Philander.
Kagiso Rabada and Lungi Ngidi take the edge off the anxiety South Africans will feel at the dismantling of an attack that sent the national team soaring.
In Keshav Maharaj and Tabraiz Shamsi there are options for replacing Imran Tahir, who will turn 40 two months before South Africa play England at The Oval in the opening match of the 2019 World Cup.
Finding bowlers to step into boots that have been so ably filled for so long is undoubtedly difficult, but it’s happening and sensibly. South Africa are doing that now.
Matters look more like impossible on the other side of equation. AB de Villiers has packed his kit and gone, and only four years after Graeme Smith’s retirement followed that of Jacques Kallis and Mark Boucher.
Hashim Amla is a shadow of the player he used to be, an impression only made more stark by the fact that he was so excellent for so long.
Aiden Markram, Temba Bavuma, Reeza Hendricks and Wiaan Mulder are fine young batsmen. But are they good enough to step into what looms as a yawning breach?
“AB was always going to be very difficult to replace, like Kallis,” former test opener Jimmy Cook said. “In fact I don’t think we’ve properly replaced Kallis yet.
“We definitely need a new generation of batsmen. Who are they going to be? Markram is a quality player … who after that? That’s what South African officials need to be looking at.”
Prompted, Mulder earned Cook’s vote: “He’s got a lovely temperament. He’s a nice, down to earth character. I think he can go far.”
But it was difficult not to feel and indeed share Cook’s concern at the scarcity of viable candidates to step in for, for instance, Amla. How might anyone take over from a player who has, for more than 10 years, been central to South Africa’s team and the way they play?
“The short answer is you don’t replace him,” Cook said. “Not only is it that he is a class batsman, it’s the experience that someone like that has gained over all the years which is hard to just pass on to a new player.
“Somebody like Markram is an outstanding young batsman but, without the experience, he’s found it difficult in Sri Lanka. Even Hashim, with all his experience, has struggled in Sri Lanka.
“Guys get used to making runs; they know how to go about it. Good young players do emerge but the experience of knowing what to do in different situations takes a while to come through.”
Among the many good things Quinton de Kock has done in his 158 games in all three South Africa shirts is not indulge in the kind of cliché-mongering that makes some players difficult to take seriously.
“It’s just nice to finally bat a game with ‘Hash’,” De Kock said after he and Amla had shared an opening stand of 91 in the second one-day international in Dambulla on Wednesday.
“I can’t remember the last time we batted together [for a significant period]. It’s just nice to score some runs together.”
De Kock doesn’t say much. But, as with Bradman, there’s more than meets the eye to his words.
Amla has been first out in all four ODI innings he and De Kock have opened this year, not counting today’s third match of the series against Sri Lanka, and only once in the eight matches in the format he has played in 2018 has he passed 50 — although his 43 on Wednesday promised a return to form.
But, at 35 and creakier than ever, indeed looking older than his years when sharpness is required in the field, he is clearly staring into the sunset of a wonderful career.
There are probably a fair few kilometres left in Amla’s tank, but as he showed when he quit the test captaincy in January 2016 in the middle of South Africa’s series against England he makes his own decisions.
But, with or without Amla, futureproofing their batting is something South Africa are going to able to do presently rather than now.
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