How Faf messed up a World Cup campaign in no time flat
Faf du Plessis’ laid back approach was always in danger of blowing up in his face. The relaxed, but determined attitude he was envisioning instead replaced with loss of focus and nervousness. Hurting Protea fans will be asking themselves: will this ever end? SA Cricket’s stock response: ‘keep the faith and all will be well’ is wearing thin. It might be too late to save the current campaign, with victories over the ever overachieving Kiwis (Why can’t the Proteas do World Cups like that?) and a suddenly resurgent Australia appearing extremely unlikely.
How did the Proteas and skipper Faf in particular mess this up so quickly? The answer consist of two parts: the call at the toss (Of course!) and the underlying reason the Proteas ALWAYS panic/choke.
It is sometimes joked that the definition of stress is the confusion created when one's mind overrides the body's desire to beat up some birdbrain who desperately needs it. The Protea version would be: the confusion created when the coach’s detailed instructions are in direct opposition with the larger goal of winning the current game. What does the Protea player do? Think about it: if you defy the coach, and fail to win the game, the coach will blame YOU, potentially publicly, for the loss. Stick to the plan, and you are complicit in a slow-moving train wreck. Is it any wonder that the average Protea chokes?
Steve Jobs once commented that it doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do. You hire smart people so that they can tell you what needs to be done. Somehow, but unsurprisingly, Cricket SA did NOT get the memo. The VIPs at Cricket SA somehow believes that they know better than our extremely talented cricketers. History has repeatedly proven them wrong, but, hey, why would important people like that listen to anybody?
Amazingly, Faf has apparently not noticed that the Protea cricket team can’t chase a score to save its life. This has always been true, but was underlined during the 2015 campaign, when South Africa arguably had its best batting lineup yet. The team was to prove correct current Pakistan bowling coach Azhar Mahmood’s theory (batsmen win you games, bowlers win you tournaments). Sadly they did so with their lack of bowlers, at least once a particularly dishonest SA Cricket chief had their new bowling ace, Kyle Abbott dropped for the semifinal against New Zealand.
More to the point: the 2015 team showed that they could routinely set targets around the 400-mark (339/4 against Zimbabwe, recovering from an embarrassing 83/4; 408/5 against West Indies and 411/4 against Ireland). Less inspiring was that the very same batting lineup had trouble getting past 200 when chasing (only 177 all out chasing 308 against India and 202 all out chasing a modest 233 against Pakistan, with the only successful chase the 134/1 in the quarterfinal against Sri Lanka, as if to prove the point). Faf, were you there? How is it possible that you didn’t notice?
Admittedly, a South African captain can’t exactly come out and admit to all and sundry how terrible his team is at chasing. During regular bilateral series you have to pretend it doesn’t matter. But this is NOT a regular bilateral series, it’s the World Cup, crying out load. Put the pride away, and go for the jugular. NEVER BOWL FIRST!!!!
The good news is that the fix isn’t complicated: NEVER bowl first if you can help it and tell the players to ignore EVERYTHING the coach(es) said. Go out there, and enjoy yourselves, chaps. If we lose, at least you would have enjoyed the experience. And who knows? In spite of Cricket SA’s determined effort to destroy EVERYTHING, you might still defy them and achieve the near impossible… #ProteaFire indeed…
Friday, June 14, 2019
Sunday, May 5, 2019
Will Faf du Plessis Break the Choke?
Or Will the Protea Captain, Like So Many Before Him, Leave the World Cup Choked Up and Broken?
As the Proteas get ready to set off for England, and their eighth World Cup campaign, it is becoming obvious that this is not one of the stronger teams to attempt the feat. Quite the opposite: with every member of the fast bowling attack sporting one injury or another, the batting line up fragile, the players union threatening legal action against Cricket South Africa and the ever-increasing trend of political interference, this is probably the weakest team yet, with the possible exception of the inexperienced 1992 squad. And yet, and yet. There is one area where this team might strike a blow and succeed where all previous teams failed. That should be reason enough for any Protea fan to follow the World Cup.
In 1992, Kepler Wessels led a team of amateur cricketers, there mainly for the experience, to the World Cup semifinal, before an untimely shower rained on their parade. Four years later, Hansie Cronjé’s team conquered all before them, until confused selection left both Fanie de Villiers and Alan Donald on the sidelines, allowing Brian Lara to singlehandedly dispose of the Protea campaign. By 1999, the Proteas were already on the wane: the team stumbled into the semifinal only because Lance Klusener was in the midst of reinventing limited overs batting – it turns out you CAN hit the good balls. Inevitably, his luck eventually ran out, even if the timing could hardly have been worse. After that, the Proteas barely cracked winning 50% of their games in World Cups, and a lot less when chasing. You might argue that rather than choke, recent Protea teams have just not been good enough to make a dent. Yet the charge of choking sticks exactly because the Proteas, unlike say New Zealand, always fare worse at a World Cup than you would expect based on form and talent.
Understandably, an entire possession of coaches and captains have denied the choking tag at every available opportunity. Who would want a career’s worth of hard work and successes simply filed under ‘also choked when it mattered?’ However, the reality is that there is a wealth of self-inflicted wounds to point to, and without acknowledging past mistakes, it is hard to see how the habit will be broken.
It is tempting to pretend that the Proteas simply suffer from bad luck, and that someday soon the law of averages will rescue them from further embarrassment. That has been the preferred approach of Protea management and coaches. The problem is that at the end of every World Cup campaign, like clockwork at the first knockout game until the 2015 tournament, the excuse wears thinner. At seven losses to one win over a should-have-retired-by-now-and-watched-the-Cup-from-home Sri Lankan outfit, it should be obvious that it is more than just a bout of bad luck.
It is equally tempting, at least for those not directly involved in the campaigns, to simply dismiss the choking as hare-brained decisions and team selections that came home to roost. The most recent example would be the much-denied political interference that saw an in-form Kyle Abbott dropped for the 2015 semifinal. An even better example was the game plan for the 2007 semifinal against the Australians (who else?). On the back of the 438 game, the Proteas were extremely sloppy when they met Australia in the first round, allowing the Australians to score about 50 runs more than they should have. Predictably, Australia coasted to an easy win. Not to worry: the brains thrust (using the word loosely) had a brain wave for the semifinal: just bat like it is a 400-run pitch and voilá. Predictably, wickets tumbled as the runs faltered, but there was no going back to reason. Cricket games are seldom lost inside the first hour, but that fateful day the Proteas achieved it. And if you are scoring this at home, that definitely qualifies as a choke.
No, the Proteas choke not because they sometimes (okay, often) come up with a bad game plan – they choke because of their absolute adherence to their game plan, good or bad. This is ultimately what made the 2007 semifinal such a disaster: the fact that no batsman was allowed to say ‘wait a bit, this isn’t working…’ The Protea approach is simple: if Plan A does NOT work, we do Plan A HARDER! The result of that approach is there for all to see.
An even better example on boneheaded adherence to plan occurred during the opening game of the 2013 ICC Championship Trophy (another tournament littered with examples of Protea choking). The Protea plan was to bounce out the Indian batsmen. Not necessarily a bad plan, though one might ask how well this plan would work in Cardiff. Even the best plan, tailor-made for the pitch, don’t always work as expected, and on an unhelpful pitch this plan quickly went sideways: the Indian batsmen hooked and pulled to heart’s content. By the end, everybody wondered why the Proteas kept bowling short. Everyone other than the one man who could do something about it. When the Protea skipper, AB de Villiers, was asked about bowling short he simply repeated what he had been told: the Proteas preferred getting ‘hit off their lengths, instead of down the ground.’ Never once in fifty overs did it occur to the captain that the plan was not working, or that he should try something else. His brain comfortably parked in neutral, he was simply acting as a deposit box for the coach’s plan. A disillusioned fan might ask: Why have a captain, if he is simply going to be a recording of the coach?
The unthinking adherence to preconceived plan is why the Proteas choke. All plans will be tested sooner or later. The mark of a champion is how he responds when that happens. The Proteas, to be blunt, have not been champions for a very long time. But this is exactly where Faf can be different.
There is also this: a plan that works great today will be studied, in some depth, but future opponents, especially during a World Cup tournament. The plan will always have a limited shelf life. It is vital to have a Plan B, and even better to have Plans C and D ready to go, just in case. No Protea team have ever showed evidence of bothering with a Plan B.
The Proteas would do well to reflect on Dwight Eisenhower’s reflection on the value of plans: ‘In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.’ Faf du Plessis, are you listening? Let go of the plans. Hold on to what you learned through the planning. That flexibility might just get you to the final and then anything can happen.
In the upcoming World Cup, we don’t know if it will be the Dale Steyn hat trick or the Aiden Markram ODI maiden century that will win a key game, but it might be the Aiden Markram hat trick or the Dale Steyn maiden century that floors the opponents. You cannot plan for the latter two, but the wrong game plan can exclude such outcomes. It is vitally important for Faf du Plessis to be thinking outside the box, and to be coming up with solutions where the rest of us are just seeing problems right now.
He must also know that Aiden Markram can hit a quick-fire century without much input from his captain. However, if he is to take five wickets, in a must-win game, his skipper will be key in managing the moment. Not many skippers have that talent in them. Faf, have you called Shane Warne yet?
On the opposite end of the challenge, there is the question of what to tell Dale Steyn if he walks out to bat with South Africa stuttering at 101/6. It is unclear if there is much helpful the captain can say, whether he is still batting or not. The champion captain then, is the one already wondering what to say in such a situation, and who is ready to remind the veteran of his previous achievements with the bat.
Perhaps Faf can get inspiration from an unlikely source. If you were to compile a list of the ten most innovative cricket captains in history, Kepler Wessels is unlikely to crack a nod. Yet it was Wessels who started using a young batsman to share the fifth bowler’s duty. At first, you could see the relief on the batsman’s face when he got to the end of his fifth over having conceded only about 20 runs. What Wessels noticed, however, was that the young batsman was a competitor at heart. With every game, it was less about relief and more about competing. Before the year was out, South Africa was playing their first home ODI ever, against a strong touring team, and making no headway in the field. Then the fifth bowlers entered the fray. Not only did he take the first wicket that day, he also bowled his full quota of ten overs and took five wickets before hitting the winning runs with a six off the first ball of the final over – launching the legend of Hansie Cronjé. Legend, one would add, comes with its own challenges.
If Faf du Plessis is going to break the chokehold, he is going to have to launch a legend of his own. Let us hope Faf du Plessis is already furiously thinking where this legend is going to come from and his own role in convincing a currently middle of the road player that he really has the makings of a legend in him.
As the Proteas get ready to set off for England, and their eighth World Cup campaign, it is becoming obvious that this is not one of the stronger teams to attempt the feat. Quite the opposite: with every member of the fast bowling attack sporting one injury or another, the batting line up fragile, the players union threatening legal action against Cricket South Africa and the ever-increasing trend of political interference, this is probably the weakest team yet, with the possible exception of the inexperienced 1992 squad. And yet, and yet. There is one area where this team might strike a blow and succeed where all previous teams failed. That should be reason enough for any Protea fan to follow the World Cup.
In 1992, Kepler Wessels led a team of amateur cricketers, there mainly for the experience, to the World Cup semifinal, before an untimely shower rained on their parade. Four years later, Hansie Cronjé’s team conquered all before them, until confused selection left both Fanie de Villiers and Alan Donald on the sidelines, allowing Brian Lara to singlehandedly dispose of the Protea campaign. By 1999, the Proteas were already on the wane: the team stumbled into the semifinal only because Lance Klusener was in the midst of reinventing limited overs batting – it turns out you CAN hit the good balls. Inevitably, his luck eventually ran out, even if the timing could hardly have been worse. After that, the Proteas barely cracked winning 50% of their games in World Cups, and a lot less when chasing. You might argue that rather than choke, recent Protea teams have just not been good enough to make a dent. Yet the charge of choking sticks exactly because the Proteas, unlike say New Zealand, always fare worse at a World Cup than you would expect based on form and talent.
Understandably, an entire possession of coaches and captains have denied the choking tag at every available opportunity. Who would want a career’s worth of hard work and successes simply filed under ‘also choked when it mattered?’ However, the reality is that there is a wealth of self-inflicted wounds to point to, and without acknowledging past mistakes, it is hard to see how the habit will be broken.
It is tempting to pretend that the Proteas simply suffer from bad luck, and that someday soon the law of averages will rescue them from further embarrassment. That has been the preferred approach of Protea management and coaches. The problem is that at the end of every World Cup campaign, like clockwork at the first knockout game until the 2015 tournament, the excuse wears thinner. At seven losses to one win over a should-have-retired-by-now-and-watched-the-Cup-from-home Sri Lankan outfit, it should be obvious that it is more than just a bout of bad luck.
It is equally tempting, at least for those not directly involved in the campaigns, to simply dismiss the choking as hare-brained decisions and team selections that came home to roost. The most recent example would be the much-denied political interference that saw an in-form Kyle Abbott dropped for the 2015 semifinal. An even better example was the game plan for the 2007 semifinal against the Australians (who else?). On the back of the 438 game, the Proteas were extremely sloppy when they met Australia in the first round, allowing the Australians to score about 50 runs more than they should have. Predictably, Australia coasted to an easy win. Not to worry: the brains thrust (using the word loosely) had a brain wave for the semifinal: just bat like it is a 400-run pitch and voilá. Predictably, wickets tumbled as the runs faltered, but there was no going back to reason. Cricket games are seldom lost inside the first hour, but that fateful day the Proteas achieved it. And if you are scoring this at home, that definitely qualifies as a choke.
No, the Proteas choke not because they sometimes (okay, often) come up with a bad game plan – they choke because of their absolute adherence to their game plan, good or bad. This is ultimately what made the 2007 semifinal such a disaster: the fact that no batsman was allowed to say ‘wait a bit, this isn’t working…’ The Protea approach is simple: if Plan A does NOT work, we do Plan A HARDER! The result of that approach is there for all to see.
An even better example on boneheaded adherence to plan occurred during the opening game of the 2013 ICC Championship Trophy (another tournament littered with examples of Protea choking). The Protea plan was to bounce out the Indian batsmen. Not necessarily a bad plan, though one might ask how well this plan would work in Cardiff. Even the best plan, tailor-made for the pitch, don’t always work as expected, and on an unhelpful pitch this plan quickly went sideways: the Indian batsmen hooked and pulled to heart’s content. By the end, everybody wondered why the Proteas kept bowling short. Everyone other than the one man who could do something about it. When the Protea skipper, AB de Villiers, was asked about bowling short he simply repeated what he had been told: the Proteas preferred getting ‘hit off their lengths, instead of down the ground.’ Never once in fifty overs did it occur to the captain that the plan was not working, or that he should try something else. His brain comfortably parked in neutral, he was simply acting as a deposit box for the coach’s plan. A disillusioned fan might ask: Why have a captain, if he is simply going to be a recording of the coach?
The unthinking adherence to preconceived plan is why the Proteas choke. All plans will be tested sooner or later. The mark of a champion is how he responds when that happens. The Proteas, to be blunt, have not been champions for a very long time. But this is exactly where Faf can be different.
There is also this: a plan that works great today will be studied, in some depth, but future opponents, especially during a World Cup tournament. The plan will always have a limited shelf life. It is vital to have a Plan B, and even better to have Plans C and D ready to go, just in case. No Protea team have ever showed evidence of bothering with a Plan B.
The Proteas would do well to reflect on Dwight Eisenhower’s reflection on the value of plans: ‘In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.’ Faf du Plessis, are you listening? Let go of the plans. Hold on to what you learned through the planning. That flexibility might just get you to the final and then anything can happen.
In the upcoming World Cup, we don’t know if it will be the Dale Steyn hat trick or the Aiden Markram ODI maiden century that will win a key game, but it might be the Aiden Markram hat trick or the Dale Steyn maiden century that floors the opponents. You cannot plan for the latter two, but the wrong game plan can exclude such outcomes. It is vitally important for Faf du Plessis to be thinking outside the box, and to be coming up with solutions where the rest of us are just seeing problems right now.
He must also know that Aiden Markram can hit a quick-fire century without much input from his captain. However, if he is to take five wickets, in a must-win game, his skipper will be key in managing the moment. Not many skippers have that talent in them. Faf, have you called Shane Warne yet?
On the opposite end of the challenge, there is the question of what to tell Dale Steyn if he walks out to bat with South Africa stuttering at 101/6. It is unclear if there is much helpful the captain can say, whether he is still batting or not. The champion captain then, is the one already wondering what to say in such a situation, and who is ready to remind the veteran of his previous achievements with the bat.
Perhaps Faf can get inspiration from an unlikely source. If you were to compile a list of the ten most innovative cricket captains in history, Kepler Wessels is unlikely to crack a nod. Yet it was Wessels who started using a young batsman to share the fifth bowler’s duty. At first, you could see the relief on the batsman’s face when he got to the end of his fifth over having conceded only about 20 runs. What Wessels noticed, however, was that the young batsman was a competitor at heart. With every game, it was less about relief and more about competing. Before the year was out, South Africa was playing their first home ODI ever, against a strong touring team, and making no headway in the field. Then the fifth bowlers entered the fray. Not only did he take the first wicket that day, he also bowled his full quota of ten overs and took five wickets before hitting the winning runs with a six off the first ball of the final over – launching the legend of Hansie Cronjé. Legend, one would add, comes with its own challenges.
If Faf du Plessis is going to break the chokehold, he is going to have to launch a legend of his own. Let us hope Faf du Plessis is already furiously thinking where this legend is going to come from and his own role in convincing a currently middle of the road player that he really has the makings of a legend in him.
Wednesday, June 14, 2017
Can Somebody Please Break the Spell of Choking!
Yet again South Africa managed to choke in a knock-out game. Recently on such occasions, the standard excuse has become that this particular loss was not a choke, South Africa either competed all the way to the end (the 2015 World Cup semi-final loss to New Zealand), or it was the pressure from their own fans (the 2011 World Cup quarter-final against New Zealand) or simply had a moment of complete team-wide lobotomy (the 2007 World Cup semi-final loss to Australia). On and on. But today was different. Future editions of the Oxford English dictionary will have a copy of Sunday’s scorecard next to the word choke.
For all that, Cricket South Africa (CSA) is unlikely to change its response to the latest setback. CSA is likely to express full faith in coach and captain, regardless of the fact that both may soon be replaced. No need for any rush to judgement, you see. All very stiff upper lip and all that. You’d swear South Africa was still a British colony. And proud of it.
There is an old joke: the beatings will continue until morale improves. The Protea version would be: the choking will continue until CSA acknowledges it. Better start preparing for the next spectacular choke… On a more personal note, one wonders: is AB de Villiers simply going to spend the next two years in denial, and set himself up for heart-breaking disappointment at the 2019 World Cup? Is he going to be expecting any sympathy at the point?
Of course, acknowledging that there is a problem is just step one. The more interesting question is what has South Africa been doing wrong for the past 25 years to get themselves trapped in an endless cycle of choking? As ever, there is no single reason for such an extended period of failure. Political interference is one. Depressingly for Protea fans it’s not going away anytime soon.
Selection is another. How Wayne Parnell earned yet another recall to the team is a mystery. To their credit, the selectors corrected that mistake before the game against India. But it meant that Andile Phehlukwayo had to step into a key game cold, with no recent game experience. In the 2011 World Cup semi-final against New Zealand, of course, political interference meant that Vernon Philander was forced in cold. The selectors, though, must accept responsibility for side-lining a white-hot Kyle Abbott. They certainly had options. Morné Morkel’s form at the time was nowhere near what he is capable of. More fundamentally, this was a chance to correct their tournament-long insistence on selecting one batman too many and one bowler too few. Alas, the selectors were apparently having a grand old time in Australasia , and weren’t going to interrupt that with some real work.
But the main recent problem for South Africa is something South African batting coach Neil McKenzie mentioned in an interview reported by Firdose Moonda two days before the game. The coaches were trying to keep the players calm and confident before the game. The mere mention of trying to keep the players calm hinted at serious trouble. Such negative instructions (“Don’t panic!”) work just as well as: “Quick! Don’t think of a white rose. I said DON’T…!” Unsurprisingly the coaches failed in spectacular fashion, as witnessed by the hesitant running between the wickets on Sunday, when apart from three runouts, no less than three additional runout chances were created. Imagine the Indians had taken all of them. But as disturbing as that is, it’s not the main problem.
McKenzie mentioned a blueprint. A blueprint is something you use to ensure a complex protect is completed successfully. It is, per definition, an explicit admission that the complexity of the project exceeds the ability of the builders to figure things out as they proceed. It is also implied that the project can be planned ahead of time with a high degree of certainty. Follow the blueprints exactly, and you can be reasonably confident of a successful project. The only problem is a construction project is nothing like a game of cricket. Or any sport for that matter.
The point is not that planning doesn’t have a place in sports – obviously, planning isn’t going anywhere. Rather, the point is that plans must by definition remain fluid, since the progress of the game cannot be predicted. Blueprints printed even five minutes before the toss is of little value. Ultimately the players must own the plans. And have the authority to adjust as necessary.
This has not been the South African approach, though. In the embarrassment that followed the tour of India in 2000, CSA embraced captains who don’t bother to think for themselves, exemplified in different ways by both Shaun Pollock and Graeme Smith. AB de Villiers started his international career under Smith’s captaincy and seems to strictly adhere to the don’t-bother-me-with-ideas-while-I’m following-orders approach to captaincy.
In fairness to CSA, the coaches and messrs. Pollock, Smith and De Villiers, the brain-dead blueprint approach actually works great in regular season games. In those regular games, a disciplined team, following a well-worn, even deeply flawed plan beats the team playing a more spontaneous game more often than not. That’s because the spontaneous team just show up, play their natural game and find themselves surprised by the discipline and application of the blueprint-holders. If the Proteas want to be no more than the No. 1 rated team in the world, this approach works fine. There is no scandal in being the Dutch football team of cricket. Just perpetual heartbreak for the fans at every, single World Cup. Not to mention the Championship Trophy. Or the World Twenty20.
Knockout games are different, though. Now your opponents bother to do their homework. They check on how it is you’ve risen to No. 1. If you happen to be following a very basic blueprint (wink, wink) they notice. They start thinking about a counterstrategy. They notice, say, that your top order get to putter along through the first 40 overs, with no sense of urgency, they know they can get 40 overs out of anybody, as long as they keep two decent bowlers for the final 10. They know to look for the moment you try to accelerate, and that this is a key opportunity to take a couple of quick wickets, and send the blueprint up in smoke.
McKenzie stated that “We've tried to emphasise that our blueprint is good enough to beat any side. Our game plan is good enough to beat any side. It's making sure we can execute that." Allow me to object to the statement in the strongest terms.
In some ways, the Proteas have been blessed with lower order batsmen who bailed out an irresponsible top order in game after game, year after year, World Cup after World Cup. Notice, for example that in the 1999 World Cup, arguably South Africa’s highwater mark in World Cups, Lance Kliusener batted himself to the Man of the Tournament award, coming in at No. 9. After Biff and CSA, incredible and scarcely believably, subjected Klusener, to even more abuse, the mantle was picked up by Justin Kemp. Then Albie Morkel. Lately David Miller, Chris Morris and Phehlukwayo have all showed some ability to bail out the reckless and feckless top order. Make no mistake – it’s great to have the lower order that can bail you out on occasion, if the top order fails, as will happen from time to time. But when that lower order bailout becomes part of your game plan, your much ballyhooed blueprint, you are courting disaster.
Consider Game 2 of the warmup series against England. South Africa was chasing a fairly challenging 331, slightly more than a-run-a-ball. At one point Quinton de Kock and De Villiers were batting together, one approaching his century, the other his half. Given that those two are the most explosive batsmen in the South African top order, you’d expect them to be lifting the South African run rate to well above the required rate. Not so. Batting to McKenzie’s blueprint they seemed happy to putter along aimlessly. At the start of the over that Faf du Plessis got out the SA run rate was 5.81, at the start of the over De Villiers got out it was 5.84. In those 23 overs the required rate swelled from 7.0 to 8.0. What is the point of having two of your best batsmen bat out almost half the overs, if they are simply going to leave the real work for the lower order?
Little wonder then that South Africa eventually lost the game. True to form, Miller and Morris got South Africa to a very achievable 10 runs required from 10 deliveries. But any disciplined attack can stitch together 10 good deliveries, especially those that, unlike the South African bowling blueprint, use the occasional Yorker to keep the batsmen honest.
More to the point: in the pressure cooker of must-win games, the top order procrastination causes lower order panic, as any procrastinator well knows. We’ve seen that movie, repeatedly, and no matter how many times you watch it, the end is never going to change. It’s only CSA and AB de Villiers who seem to believe if we did the same thing again, the result next time will be different.
And we have not even mentioned rain yet. Think about it: McKenzie’s blueprint all but guarantees that if rain interrupts the South African innings, when chasing, they will be behind whatever target the Duckworth-Lewis formula produces. Instead of providing a workable plan for winning, the blueprint all but guarantees failure.
Finally, there are other random bits of brain fade in the Protea batting approach, such as their tendency to default to sweep shots against spinners, which isn’t clear if it is part of the blueprint or simply bad habits that refuse to go away. The disappointing thing from a fan’s point of view is how many of these persist for decades, many going back all the way to readmission.
The best example of how to respond to pressure comes from the 1999 World Cup, where Australia found itself with its collective back against the wall, needing to win every single game to survive in the competition, after losing to New Zealand and Pakistan in the first round. The captain, Steve Waugh, responded by saying: “Cometh the hour, cometh McGraw.” It would take a full column to do justice to the strategic genius contained in that short statement. Suffice to say that by calling on his main strike bowler, Waugh was focussing the attention to the batting and fielding effort, where the pressure is shared among eleven individuals. Waugh understood that every delivery starts with the bowler taking the initiative. No surprise then that the Australians won the next seven games on the trot to claim the cup.
Compare that to the South African bowling and fielding effort on Sunday, when it was treated as an afterthought, an unpleasant task that had to be completed by a bunch of uninterested schoolboys before they would finally be allowed to go home.
It wasn’t always thus. Back in the day when South African teams had the strategic nous to match any team, Hansie Cronjé twice defended scores of less than 150. Due apologies to CSA for bringing up the name they have spent the better part of twenty years trying to scrub out of the cricket history of the beloved country. The point is, unlike what we saw on Sunday, it CAN be done. It takes some determination and clear thinking. Both appear to be in short supply in the current Protea team.
Nobel Prize winner Anatole France once remarked: “To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.” The Proteas are so busy with the acting and the planning that they are leaving the dream to die on the vine and stamping out what remains of the believing.
It is time to tear up the blueprint and release the inner genius of our batsmen. Sure, they are prone to make mistakes. They may also learn how to recover. The blueprint destroyed the careers of some of our best batsmen, including Herschelle Gibbs and Lance Klusener. Both proven matchwinners, as it happens. The blueprint is once again threatening the careers of Quinton de Kock, David Miller and Chris Morris. It’s time to set them all free and see what they are made of. Collectively, they may just repay such faith with a trophy.
And let’s have a captain who engages his brain when he decides who should bowl the next few overs as the rain clouds build in the background.
For all that, Cricket South Africa (CSA) is unlikely to change its response to the latest setback. CSA is likely to express full faith in coach and captain, regardless of the fact that both may soon be replaced. No need for any rush to judgement, you see. All very stiff upper lip and all that. You’d swear South Africa was still a British colony. And proud of it.
There is an old joke: the beatings will continue until morale improves. The Protea version would be: the choking will continue until CSA acknowledges it. Better start preparing for the next spectacular choke… On a more personal note, one wonders: is AB de Villiers simply going to spend the next two years in denial, and set himself up for heart-breaking disappointment at the 2019 World Cup? Is he going to be expecting any sympathy at the point?
Of course, acknowledging that there is a problem is just step one. The more interesting question is what has South Africa been doing wrong for the past 25 years to get themselves trapped in an endless cycle of choking? As ever, there is no single reason for such an extended period of failure. Political interference is one. Depressingly for Protea fans it’s not going away anytime soon.
Selection is another. How Wayne Parnell earned yet another recall to the team is a mystery. To their credit, the selectors corrected that mistake before the game against India. But it meant that Andile Phehlukwayo had to step into a key game cold, with no recent game experience. In the 2011 World Cup semi-final against New Zealand, of course, political interference meant that Vernon Philander was forced in cold. The selectors, though, must accept responsibility for side-lining a white-hot Kyle Abbott. They certainly had options. Morné Morkel’s form at the time was nowhere near what he is capable of. More fundamentally, this was a chance to correct their tournament-long insistence on selecting one batman too many and one bowler too few. Alas, the selectors were apparently having a grand old time in Australasia , and weren’t going to interrupt that with some real work.
But the main recent problem for South Africa is something South African batting coach Neil McKenzie mentioned in an interview reported by Firdose Moonda two days before the game. The coaches were trying to keep the players calm and confident before the game. The mere mention of trying to keep the players calm hinted at serious trouble. Such negative instructions (“Don’t panic!”) work just as well as: “Quick! Don’t think of a white rose. I said DON’T…!” Unsurprisingly the coaches failed in spectacular fashion, as witnessed by the hesitant running between the wickets on Sunday, when apart from three runouts, no less than three additional runout chances were created. Imagine the Indians had taken all of them. But as disturbing as that is, it’s not the main problem.
McKenzie mentioned a blueprint. A blueprint is something you use to ensure a complex protect is completed successfully. It is, per definition, an explicit admission that the complexity of the project exceeds the ability of the builders to figure things out as they proceed. It is also implied that the project can be planned ahead of time with a high degree of certainty. Follow the blueprints exactly, and you can be reasonably confident of a successful project. The only problem is a construction project is nothing like a game of cricket. Or any sport for that matter.
The point is not that planning doesn’t have a place in sports – obviously, planning isn’t going anywhere. Rather, the point is that plans must by definition remain fluid, since the progress of the game cannot be predicted. Blueprints printed even five minutes before the toss is of little value. Ultimately the players must own the plans. And have the authority to adjust as necessary.
This has not been the South African approach, though. In the embarrassment that followed the tour of India in 2000, CSA embraced captains who don’t bother to think for themselves, exemplified in different ways by both Shaun Pollock and Graeme Smith. AB de Villiers started his international career under Smith’s captaincy and seems to strictly adhere to the don’t-bother-me-with-ideas-while-I’m following-orders approach to captaincy.
In fairness to CSA, the coaches and messrs. Pollock, Smith and De Villiers, the brain-dead blueprint approach actually works great in regular season games. In those regular games, a disciplined team, following a well-worn, even deeply flawed plan beats the team playing a more spontaneous game more often than not. That’s because the spontaneous team just show up, play their natural game and find themselves surprised by the discipline and application of the blueprint-holders. If the Proteas want to be no more than the No. 1 rated team in the world, this approach works fine. There is no scandal in being the Dutch football team of cricket. Just perpetual heartbreak for the fans at every, single World Cup. Not to mention the Championship Trophy. Or the World Twenty20.
Knockout games are different, though. Now your opponents bother to do their homework. They check on how it is you’ve risen to No. 1. If you happen to be following a very basic blueprint (wink, wink) they notice. They start thinking about a counterstrategy. They notice, say, that your top order get to putter along through the first 40 overs, with no sense of urgency, they know they can get 40 overs out of anybody, as long as they keep two decent bowlers for the final 10. They know to look for the moment you try to accelerate, and that this is a key opportunity to take a couple of quick wickets, and send the blueprint up in smoke.
McKenzie stated that “We've tried to emphasise that our blueprint is good enough to beat any side. Our game plan is good enough to beat any side. It's making sure we can execute that." Allow me to object to the statement in the strongest terms.
In some ways, the Proteas have been blessed with lower order batsmen who bailed out an irresponsible top order in game after game, year after year, World Cup after World Cup. Notice, for example that in the 1999 World Cup, arguably South Africa’s highwater mark in World Cups, Lance Kliusener batted himself to the Man of the Tournament award, coming in at No. 9. After Biff and CSA, incredible and scarcely believably, subjected Klusener, to even more abuse, the mantle was picked up by Justin Kemp. Then Albie Morkel. Lately David Miller, Chris Morris and Phehlukwayo have all showed some ability to bail out the reckless and feckless top order. Make no mistake – it’s great to have the lower order that can bail you out on occasion, if the top order fails, as will happen from time to time. But when that lower order bailout becomes part of your game plan, your much ballyhooed blueprint, you are courting disaster.
Consider Game 2 of the warmup series against England. South Africa was chasing a fairly challenging 331, slightly more than a-run-a-ball. At one point Quinton de Kock and De Villiers were batting together, one approaching his century, the other his half. Given that those two are the most explosive batsmen in the South African top order, you’d expect them to be lifting the South African run rate to well above the required rate. Not so. Batting to McKenzie’s blueprint they seemed happy to putter along aimlessly. At the start of the over that Faf du Plessis got out the SA run rate was 5.81, at the start of the over De Villiers got out it was 5.84. In those 23 overs the required rate swelled from 7.0 to 8.0. What is the point of having two of your best batsmen bat out almost half the overs, if they are simply going to leave the real work for the lower order?
Little wonder then that South Africa eventually lost the game. True to form, Miller and Morris got South Africa to a very achievable 10 runs required from 10 deliveries. But any disciplined attack can stitch together 10 good deliveries, especially those that, unlike the South African bowling blueprint, use the occasional Yorker to keep the batsmen honest.
More to the point: in the pressure cooker of must-win games, the top order procrastination causes lower order panic, as any procrastinator well knows. We’ve seen that movie, repeatedly, and no matter how many times you watch it, the end is never going to change. It’s only CSA and AB de Villiers who seem to believe if we did the same thing again, the result next time will be different.
And we have not even mentioned rain yet. Think about it: McKenzie’s blueprint all but guarantees that if rain interrupts the South African innings, when chasing, they will be behind whatever target the Duckworth-Lewis formula produces. Instead of providing a workable plan for winning, the blueprint all but guarantees failure.
Finally, there are other random bits of brain fade in the Protea batting approach, such as their tendency to default to sweep shots against spinners, which isn’t clear if it is part of the blueprint or simply bad habits that refuse to go away. The disappointing thing from a fan’s point of view is how many of these persist for decades, many going back all the way to readmission.
The best example of how to respond to pressure comes from the 1999 World Cup, where Australia found itself with its collective back against the wall, needing to win every single game to survive in the competition, after losing to New Zealand and Pakistan in the first round. The captain, Steve Waugh, responded by saying: “Cometh the hour, cometh McGraw.” It would take a full column to do justice to the strategic genius contained in that short statement. Suffice to say that by calling on his main strike bowler, Waugh was focussing the attention to the batting and fielding effort, where the pressure is shared among eleven individuals. Waugh understood that every delivery starts with the bowler taking the initiative. No surprise then that the Australians won the next seven games on the trot to claim the cup.
Compare that to the South African bowling and fielding effort on Sunday, when it was treated as an afterthought, an unpleasant task that had to be completed by a bunch of uninterested schoolboys before they would finally be allowed to go home.
It wasn’t always thus. Back in the day when South African teams had the strategic nous to match any team, Hansie Cronjé twice defended scores of less than 150. Due apologies to CSA for bringing up the name they have spent the better part of twenty years trying to scrub out of the cricket history of the beloved country. The point is, unlike what we saw on Sunday, it CAN be done. It takes some determination and clear thinking. Both appear to be in short supply in the current Protea team.
Nobel Prize winner Anatole France once remarked: “To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.” The Proteas are so busy with the acting and the planning that they are leaving the dream to die on the vine and stamping out what remains of the believing.
It is time to tear up the blueprint and release the inner genius of our batsmen. Sure, they are prone to make mistakes. They may also learn how to recover. The blueprint destroyed the careers of some of our best batsmen, including Herschelle Gibbs and Lance Klusener. Both proven matchwinners, as it happens. The blueprint is once again threatening the careers of Quinton de Kock, David Miller and Chris Morris. It’s time to set them all free and see what they are made of. Collectively, they may just repay such faith with a trophy.
And let’s have a captain who engages his brain when he decides who should bowl the next few overs as the rain clouds build in the background.
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
Andrew Hudson's Fully Paid Vacation
Somehow Hudson's role in the selection fiasco escaped all attention
Much has been made about the Protea selection debacle, with late night texts from South Africa apparently forcing coach Russell Domingo to change the team to include more players of colour. These reports have been furiously denied by the head of Cricket South Africa, Haroon Lorgat, and sports minister, Fikile Mbalula. Their fervour is touching, but unconvincing. Let’s just say that South African politicians have never been associated too closely with the truth, and, more depressingly, this does not appear to be changing.
The reality, though, is that Andrew Hudson and his fellow selectors got their team selection completely wrong, and having Vernon Philander forced upon them just made their flawed thinking more obvious. Recall the lengthy debate about the number seven spot in the South African batting line up. What exactly did the much debated number seven spot contribute to the campaign? The most impressive contribution, no doubt, was JP Duminy’s hat trick against Sri Lanka. The other significant contribution was Farhaan Behardien’s 64* against UAE. Other than those two, number seven weighed in with a total of 47 runs and two (count ‘em!) wickets. Most objective observers would agree that even without Behardien’s runs against UAE, South Africa should have won the game. That leaves us with the conclusion that the only arguable match-winning contribution came with the ball. Hardly surprising, considering that the number seven didn’t bat in three of the eight games, but bowled in every game but against West Indies, when the wickets fell so regularly that Faf du Plessis got three overs to compliment his ODI record. The other statistic that jumps out is Wayne Parnell conceding 85 in 9, arguably fatally damaging the Protea cause in the important game against India. He’s not alone: Against Pakistan Duminy conceded 34 in 3, and against New Zealand 43 in 5, against Zimbabwe Behardien conceded 40 in 5. Seems clear that number seven did more with the ball than with the bat. And excluding Duminy’s hat trick against Sri Lanka, it was ALL bad.
On the other hand, as the tournament went on, the selectors seem to decide if they didn’t have an allrounder they could rely on as number seven (Parnell or Behardien), they would just pick another batsman, Rilee Rossouw, and effectively shift Duminy down to the number seven spot. Rossouw, of course, did more than enough to justify his selection. But sometimes your biggest tactical mistakes comes camouflaged in the seduction of short term success. Adding Rossouw to the team meant basically going one bowler short. That has the potential to work fine, if Dale Steyn was firing on all cylinders, taking key wickets at key moments and inspiring the rest of the attack to follow suit. Leading the attack, as he always seems to do. That did not happen in this World Cup, as the fact that Steyn was the most expensive of the recognised bowlers and bowled 31.5 balls per wicket, narrowly beating out Philander (33.8) and Duminy (33.7), but way behind the leaders: Abbott (14.4), Morkel (17.6) and Tahir (21.5). It appears Andrew Hudson and his fellow selectors never noticed. Analysis and spreadsheets are slow to pick these things up. You need to be awake and watching carefully. With all due respect, this does not appear to be where Andrew Hudson was.
South Africa’s leading wicket takers at the tournament, Tahir (17 wickets for the tournament) and Morkel (15), did well, of course, but neither man leads an attack, the way Steyn (11), at his normal level of play, does. Vernon Philander (4 in 4 games), at his best, has the potential to lead the attack, but suffice to say: at this tournament he was never close to his best, producing statistics similar to those of Duminy (6 in 6 games). That led to the strange development that occurred in the quarterfinal against Sri Lanka: Kyle Abbott (9 in 4 games) leading the attack, inspiring the great Steyn himself, setting the table for Tahir and Duminy to finish a still-impressive Sri Lankan batting line-up off. At the conclusion of that quarterfinal the conclusion was obvious: Abbott had to play in the semi-final. Alleged political interference, unfortunate as it is, does not change this. Where were you, when we needed you, Andrew Hudson?
Playing both Philander and Abbott would have meant making one of three tough calls: (1) dropping a certain out-of-form batsman, (2) dropping an in-form batsman, or (3) dropping an out-of-form bowler, legend or not. The first option seems like the obvious one: drop Quinton de Kock, a man who simply did not do enough to justify his continued selection, his good innings against Sri Lanka notwithstanding. De Kock averaged 21 in the tournament. The only other batsman to average less than 50, was fellow opener Hashim Amla, who still managed double De Kock’s average. Notably, in the semi-final, with the pressure back on, De Kock looked far less convincing, and got himself out after playing himself in. Of course, dropping De Kock affects the balance of the team, given that he is also the wicketkeeper. Skipper De Villiers would have been an unwilling replacement, and taking the gloves may well have limited his ability to communicate with his bowlers. In the aftermath of a gut-wrenching loss against New Zealand, De Villiers would probably be prepared to admit: he could have figured this out, if it helped his team cross the line.
The second option available to Andrew Hudson would have been dropping the in-form Rilee Rossouw. This would have been hugely unfair to the player, but such is the price you pay for political interference. It is worth noting that in the lost semi-final Rossouw contributed an important 39 off 53 balls, and had to enter the game in the eighth over, suggesting that the final total might have been much less than 281 if he did not play. Nonetheless, the fact that remains that with a limp and leaderless attack, no amount of runs will win you the game, as was eventually so painfully proven.
The third option would have required Mr. Hudson to put some serious manhood on display: dropping Dale Steyn. After all, Steyn was the joint most expensive bowler on the day, and the worst recognized Protea bowler at the tournament (not counting the politically favoured Philander). Crucially, Steyn was unable to defend 11 runs in the final over. The problem is, of course, that cricket is a game where respect often overrules logic, and, as with the second option, it is hugely unfair to suggest that the player under discussion was responsible for the loss.
Someone had to make a tough call. This was the moment Andrew Hudson could step up, and pull his country through. I know, it's not fair at all to require such a tough decision from the chairman of selectors, caused by an unnecessary interference from people who apparently couldn't care less if the South African team made it to the final, or not. But that's the ugly reality.
Now Hudson is stepping down, no doubt worn down by the unseen, and cowardly interference he had to deal with. His legacy, such as it is, will forever be coloured by a fiasco that was not of his own making. A failed World Cup campaign the final entry on his CV. Well, at least Corrie van Zyl won't be alone.
Much has been made about the Protea selection debacle, with late night texts from South Africa apparently forcing coach Russell Domingo to change the team to include more players of colour. These reports have been furiously denied by the head of Cricket South Africa, Haroon Lorgat, and sports minister, Fikile Mbalula. Their fervour is touching, but unconvincing. Let’s just say that South African politicians have never been associated too closely with the truth, and, more depressingly, this does not appear to be changing.
The reality, though, is that Andrew Hudson and his fellow selectors got their team selection completely wrong, and having Vernon Philander forced upon them just made their flawed thinking more obvious. Recall the lengthy debate about the number seven spot in the South African batting line up. What exactly did the much debated number seven spot contribute to the campaign? The most impressive contribution, no doubt, was JP Duminy’s hat trick against Sri Lanka. The other significant contribution was Farhaan Behardien’s 64* against UAE. Other than those two, number seven weighed in with a total of 47 runs and two (count ‘em!) wickets. Most objective observers would agree that even without Behardien’s runs against UAE, South Africa should have won the game. That leaves us with the conclusion that the only arguable match-winning contribution came with the ball. Hardly surprising, considering that the number seven didn’t bat in three of the eight games, but bowled in every game but against West Indies, when the wickets fell so regularly that Faf du Plessis got three overs to compliment his ODI record. The other statistic that jumps out is Wayne Parnell conceding 85 in 9, arguably fatally damaging the Protea cause in the important game against India. He’s not alone: Against Pakistan Duminy conceded 34 in 3, and against New Zealand 43 in 5, against Zimbabwe Behardien conceded 40 in 5. Seems clear that number seven did more with the ball than with the bat. And excluding Duminy’s hat trick against Sri Lanka, it was ALL bad.
On the other hand, as the tournament went on, the selectors seem to decide if they didn’t have an allrounder they could rely on as number seven (Parnell or Behardien), they would just pick another batsman, Rilee Rossouw, and effectively shift Duminy down to the number seven spot. Rossouw, of course, did more than enough to justify his selection. But sometimes your biggest tactical mistakes comes camouflaged in the seduction of short term success. Adding Rossouw to the team meant basically going one bowler short. That has the potential to work fine, if Dale Steyn was firing on all cylinders, taking key wickets at key moments and inspiring the rest of the attack to follow suit. Leading the attack, as he always seems to do. That did not happen in this World Cup, as the fact that Steyn was the most expensive of the recognised bowlers and bowled 31.5 balls per wicket, narrowly beating out Philander (33.8) and Duminy (33.7), but way behind the leaders: Abbott (14.4), Morkel (17.6) and Tahir (21.5). It appears Andrew Hudson and his fellow selectors never noticed. Analysis and spreadsheets are slow to pick these things up. You need to be awake and watching carefully. With all due respect, this does not appear to be where Andrew Hudson was.
South Africa’s leading wicket takers at the tournament, Tahir (17 wickets for the tournament) and Morkel (15), did well, of course, but neither man leads an attack, the way Steyn (11), at his normal level of play, does. Vernon Philander (4 in 4 games), at his best, has the potential to lead the attack, but suffice to say: at this tournament he was never close to his best, producing statistics similar to those of Duminy (6 in 6 games). That led to the strange development that occurred in the quarterfinal against Sri Lanka: Kyle Abbott (9 in 4 games) leading the attack, inspiring the great Steyn himself, setting the table for Tahir and Duminy to finish a still-impressive Sri Lankan batting line-up off. At the conclusion of that quarterfinal the conclusion was obvious: Abbott had to play in the semi-final. Alleged political interference, unfortunate as it is, does not change this. Where were you, when we needed you, Andrew Hudson?
Playing both Philander and Abbott would have meant making one of three tough calls: (1) dropping a certain out-of-form batsman, (2) dropping an in-form batsman, or (3) dropping an out-of-form bowler, legend or not. The first option seems like the obvious one: drop Quinton de Kock, a man who simply did not do enough to justify his continued selection, his good innings against Sri Lanka notwithstanding. De Kock averaged 21 in the tournament. The only other batsman to average less than 50, was fellow opener Hashim Amla, who still managed double De Kock’s average. Notably, in the semi-final, with the pressure back on, De Kock looked far less convincing, and got himself out after playing himself in. Of course, dropping De Kock affects the balance of the team, given that he is also the wicketkeeper. Skipper De Villiers would have been an unwilling replacement, and taking the gloves may well have limited his ability to communicate with his bowlers. In the aftermath of a gut-wrenching loss against New Zealand, De Villiers would probably be prepared to admit: he could have figured this out, if it helped his team cross the line.
The second option available to Andrew Hudson would have been dropping the in-form Rilee Rossouw. This would have been hugely unfair to the player, but such is the price you pay for political interference. It is worth noting that in the lost semi-final Rossouw contributed an important 39 off 53 balls, and had to enter the game in the eighth over, suggesting that the final total might have been much less than 281 if he did not play. Nonetheless, the fact that remains that with a limp and leaderless attack, no amount of runs will win you the game, as was eventually so painfully proven.
The third option would have required Mr. Hudson to put some serious manhood on display: dropping Dale Steyn. After all, Steyn was the joint most expensive bowler on the day, and the worst recognized Protea bowler at the tournament (not counting the politically favoured Philander). Crucially, Steyn was unable to defend 11 runs in the final over. The problem is, of course, that cricket is a game where respect often overrules logic, and, as with the second option, it is hugely unfair to suggest that the player under discussion was responsible for the loss.
Someone had to make a tough call. This was the moment Andrew Hudson could step up, and pull his country through. I know, it's not fair at all to require such a tough decision from the chairman of selectors, caused by an unnecessary interference from people who apparently couldn't care less if the South African team made it to the final, or not. But that's the ugly reality.
Now Hudson is stepping down, no doubt worn down by the unseen, and cowardly interference he had to deal with. His legacy, such as it is, will forever be coloured by a fiasco that was not of his own making. A failed World Cup campaign the final entry on his CV. Well, at least Corrie van Zyl won't be alone.
Saturday, March 14, 2015
How South Africa can win the Cricket World Cup
The one thing AB de Villiers has not yet done
In South Africa’s current World Cup campaign captain AB de Villiers has done just about anything that can be asked of one man: he has scored 417 runs, 110 more than his next team mate, Hashim Amla, his average of 83.4 is almost 15 more than that of David Miller, his strike rate of 144 is almost 10 higher than that of Rilee Rossouw, and second only to Farhaan Berhardien’s 206. But then Berhardien has scored only 74 runs in two innings. On top of that he has taken six catches to match wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock and Hashim Amla, and only one less than Rilee Rossouw. Overall, he has managed his bowlers and fielders well, and has been relatively successful at restricting the flow of runs from opponents.
Of course, he has not kept wicket yet, but that may be about to change. Quinton de Kock has been desperately out of form, and in the only innings he spend substantial time at the crease, when he scored 24 against UAE, he was visibly nervous, and on several occasions did not respond to Rossouw’s call for a run. The last thing South Africa needs is for De Kock to run out Amla and Faf du Plessis, before getting out for a single digit score himself. It is time for De Villiers to step up to the plate and take the gloves. De Kock will have to play himself back into form in a setting that is not the knock-out stages of the World Cup.
There are more reasons to make this switch. South Africa has been selecting teams with the luxury of an extra, seventh batsman. The strategy makes no sense: when South Africa posts 400, the extra batsman inevitably doesn’t get to bat, when they fail to chase 200, the extra man contributes nothing of substance. Given the absence of any meaningful contribution from De Kock, they have effectively been playing six batsman all the same. In any event, selecting an extra batsman shows an over-conservative, English approach to the game, where you hope you don’t get beaten too badly. That is certainly not the way you win the World Cup.
The switch makes even more sense if one considers the attack: South Africa has been selecting only four recognised bowlers. This would work if Dale Steyn was in top form, leading the attack. As it is, in the tournament so far, Steyn has the worst average and economy of the recognised bowlers, and only Vernon Philander has taken (slightly) fewer wickets per game. More to the point: Steyn has shown little ability to threaten batsmen, or stem the flow of runs, even with the new ball in hand. Against UAE Steyn conceded 13 runs off his first three overs, without threatening. He was replaced by Morné Morkel, who took a wicket with his fourth ball and had figures of 5-2-7-2 at the end of his spell. The man Steyn keeps out of the team, Kyle Abbott, has the best strike rate and average of all the bowlers, is within spitting distance of the best economy, but more importantly, has looked by far the most threatening of all the bowlers. Steyn, is of course, far too experienced to be lightly dropped from the team, so the obvious solution is to select both Abbott and Steyn, at the expense of De Kock.
But, if South Africa is to win the World Cup, there is one more thing that De Villiers needs to do, and it has everything to do with the team’s obvious struggles when chasing modest totals. Consider the fact that against Pakistan the required run rate never exceeded five runs per over. And yet four South African batsmen (Rossouw, Duminy, Steyn and De Villiers himself) lost their wickets trying to play big shots that were not required. Of those four, only De Villiers may be excused, as he was concerned that he may be running out of batting partners by then. It should never have come to that. In similar situations, Indian captain MS Dhoni is quick to tell his batting partner to put away the big shots and make sure he does not give away his wicket, as he did again against Zimbabwe.
The one (additional) thing De Villiers needs to do (on top of scoring most of the runs, taking most of the catches, and now, keeping), if his team is to chase modest totals, is to walk down the pitch and to tell his partner to calm down and stick around. Afterall, if the captain is still there, the situation is under control.
In South Africa’s current World Cup campaign captain AB de Villiers has done just about anything that can be asked of one man: he has scored 417 runs, 110 more than his next team mate, Hashim Amla, his average of 83.4 is almost 15 more than that of David Miller, his strike rate of 144 is almost 10 higher than that of Rilee Rossouw, and second only to Farhaan Berhardien’s 206. But then Berhardien has scored only 74 runs in two innings. On top of that he has taken six catches to match wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock and Hashim Amla, and only one less than Rilee Rossouw. Overall, he has managed his bowlers and fielders well, and has been relatively successful at restricting the flow of runs from opponents.
Of course, he has not kept wicket yet, but that may be about to change. Quinton de Kock has been desperately out of form, and in the only innings he spend substantial time at the crease, when he scored 24 against UAE, he was visibly nervous, and on several occasions did not respond to Rossouw’s call for a run. The last thing South Africa needs is for De Kock to run out Amla and Faf du Plessis, before getting out for a single digit score himself. It is time for De Villiers to step up to the plate and take the gloves. De Kock will have to play himself back into form in a setting that is not the knock-out stages of the World Cup.
There are more reasons to make this switch. South Africa has been selecting teams with the luxury of an extra, seventh batsman. The strategy makes no sense: when South Africa posts 400, the extra batsman inevitably doesn’t get to bat, when they fail to chase 200, the extra man contributes nothing of substance. Given the absence of any meaningful contribution from De Kock, they have effectively been playing six batsman all the same. In any event, selecting an extra batsman shows an over-conservative, English approach to the game, where you hope you don’t get beaten too badly. That is certainly not the way you win the World Cup.
The switch makes even more sense if one considers the attack: South Africa has been selecting only four recognised bowlers. This would work if Dale Steyn was in top form, leading the attack. As it is, in the tournament so far, Steyn has the worst average and economy of the recognised bowlers, and only Vernon Philander has taken (slightly) fewer wickets per game. More to the point: Steyn has shown little ability to threaten batsmen, or stem the flow of runs, even with the new ball in hand. Against UAE Steyn conceded 13 runs off his first three overs, without threatening. He was replaced by Morné Morkel, who took a wicket with his fourth ball and had figures of 5-2-7-2 at the end of his spell. The man Steyn keeps out of the team, Kyle Abbott, has the best strike rate and average of all the bowlers, is within spitting distance of the best economy, but more importantly, has looked by far the most threatening of all the bowlers. Steyn, is of course, far too experienced to be lightly dropped from the team, so the obvious solution is to select both Abbott and Steyn, at the expense of De Kock.
But, if South Africa is to win the World Cup, there is one more thing that De Villiers needs to do, and it has everything to do with the team’s obvious struggles when chasing modest totals. Consider the fact that against Pakistan the required run rate never exceeded five runs per over. And yet four South African batsmen (Rossouw, Duminy, Steyn and De Villiers himself) lost their wickets trying to play big shots that were not required. Of those four, only De Villiers may be excused, as he was concerned that he may be running out of batting partners by then. It should never have come to that. In similar situations, Indian captain MS Dhoni is quick to tell his batting partner to put away the big shots and make sure he does not give away his wicket, as he did again against Zimbabwe.
The one (additional) thing De Villiers needs to do (on top of scoring most of the runs, taking most of the catches, and now, keeping), if his team is to chase modest totals, is to walk down the pitch and to tell his partner to calm down and stick around. Afterall, if the captain is still there, the situation is under control.
Thursday, December 25, 2014
Will the Proteas choke? Again?
Denying the pattern is the surest way to repeat it
Quick: why is it that Australia can dominate both ODI and Test cricket at the same time (don’t look now but they are threatening to do it again), but when England or South Africa top the Test rankings, it seems to be at the expense of ODI form? I believe the answer goes to the heart of Protea choking.
After the 2011 World Cup Protea coach Corrie van Zyl was in denial. "The opposition see every opportunity to use the word 'chokers' on and off the field for one reason: to get at us mentally. But when our own fans keep reminding us of the past, it doesn't provide motivation, it just brings extra pressure. We need to deal with this in a different way as a nation, we need to stick together."
It is hard not to sympathise with Van Zyl: he had been in the coaching team at more of these choking events than any man deserves. At the 2011 event he had taken over the team only about a year before the World Cup – not long enough, arguably, to reshape them in his own style, to harden them for battle in the way that he might have planned. The last thing Van Zyl deserves is to be remembered as just another coach whose squad choked at the World Cup.
We’ll set aside for a moment the interesting, but somewhat irrelevant question about whether South Africa choked or panicked in 2011 – as Aakash Chopra commented on cricinfo: “The fundamental difference is that while you think too much when you choke, you think too little when you panic. While choking, you want to delay the inevitable, but when you panic you want to get over with it as soon as possible, for you can't bear the growing pressure.”
The unfortunate truth is that Van Zyl’s team choked, and instead of denial, one hopes they have spent the last four years acknowledging the fact. If not, they would make it all too easy for the next must-win opponent to distract them with a familiar taunt. But acknowledgement, difficult as it is, only takes you so far. If you are going to break a bad habit, you need a strategy. This is where the average Protea supporter may have reason to be nervous.
So what do the Australians do different from the English? The answer is tied into English culture, and the fact that English cricket is, almost by definition, an extension of that culture. Contrary to Winston Churchill’s high opinion of the unique abilities of English-speaking peoples, it is worth remembering that what makes the English unique in the world is their odd combination of free society with a severe case of ingrained classism. Applied to English cricket that means that there is a wall between players and coach, even between captain and coach that shall not be crossed, as Kevin Pietersen found out at the expense of his captaincy. The players do the playing, no more, no less. The coach, and only the coach, does the thinking. Works great in Test cricket where focussed robo-players get a strategy update every two hours. Not so much in ODI cricket, where a post fielding innings update is too late to affect the outcome of the current game. This is where the audacious Australian approach of allowing the players to think for themselves yield very different results.
Disappointingly, from a Protea supporter’s point of view, Graeme Smith moved the Proteas from the Australian approach (in turn the handiwork of Kepler Wessels) to the English approach. Even more disturbingly, the post-Smith era is promising to be no better: on June 6, 2013, South Africa opened their Championship Trophy campaign against India with a loss, after winning the toss and choosing to field. Many observers commented that the South Africans bowled too short for the conditions. The only man who could change that, captain AB de Villiers, however went to the post-match interview still spouting the “you can’t bowl too full against teams from the subcontinent” non-sense that he had been briefed on before the game. Focussed robo-player indeed.
In fairness to our Biff: there has been many occasions when focussed robo-batsmen have dragged the Proteas from the edge of the abyss to safer ground, and even improbably victories. As mentioned, it works in the slower-than-molasses Test cricket.
But ODI cricket is a different matter. More often than not knock-out games are won by teams who are able to surprise their opponents. No such luck with the robo-Proteas, focussed or otherwise. They don’t even believe in Plan B, for crying out loud!
Maybe it’s a South African thing - after all the Springbok approach to strategy can be summed up with the phrase: If Plan A does not work, we do plan A harder!
In fairness to the many dedicated Protea coaches who have lead the team since readmission: it is not that these coaches got it all wrong. Rather it is that it is impossible for a coach to get all the details right the night before. Like most other things, game plans need adjusting as the game unfolds. You can have a perfect Plan A, but if it is the only plan you have, you are asking for trouble. This is where the English approach is guaranteed to have limited success in ODI cricket, as the history of the English team confirms.
Of course, it’s not all doom and gloom. In AB de Villiers the Proteas have a captain that is as competitive and as positive as any in the game. He may yet learn to trust his own instincts, in spite of the deference captains are supposed to show to coaches under the English approach. In Dale Steyn De Villiers has a leader of the attack who is similarly competitive, and unlikely to let a coach’s opinion get between himself and victory.
Quick: why is it that Australia can dominate both ODI and Test cricket at the same time (don’t look now but they are threatening to do it again), but when England or South Africa top the Test rankings, it seems to be at the expense of ODI form? I believe the answer goes to the heart of Protea choking.
After the 2011 World Cup Protea coach Corrie van Zyl was in denial. "The opposition see every opportunity to use the word 'chokers' on and off the field for one reason: to get at us mentally. But when our own fans keep reminding us of the past, it doesn't provide motivation, it just brings extra pressure. We need to deal with this in a different way as a nation, we need to stick together."
It is hard not to sympathise with Van Zyl: he had been in the coaching team at more of these choking events than any man deserves. At the 2011 event he had taken over the team only about a year before the World Cup – not long enough, arguably, to reshape them in his own style, to harden them for battle in the way that he might have planned. The last thing Van Zyl deserves is to be remembered as just another coach whose squad choked at the World Cup.
We’ll set aside for a moment the interesting, but somewhat irrelevant question about whether South Africa choked or panicked in 2011 – as Aakash Chopra commented on cricinfo: “The fundamental difference is that while you think too much when you choke, you think too little when you panic. While choking, you want to delay the inevitable, but when you panic you want to get over with it as soon as possible, for you can't bear the growing pressure.”
The unfortunate truth is that Van Zyl’s team choked, and instead of denial, one hopes they have spent the last four years acknowledging the fact. If not, they would make it all too easy for the next must-win opponent to distract them with a familiar taunt. But acknowledgement, difficult as it is, only takes you so far. If you are going to break a bad habit, you need a strategy. This is where the average Protea supporter may have reason to be nervous.
So what do the Australians do different from the English? The answer is tied into English culture, and the fact that English cricket is, almost by definition, an extension of that culture. Contrary to Winston Churchill’s high opinion of the unique abilities of English-speaking peoples, it is worth remembering that what makes the English unique in the world is their odd combination of free society with a severe case of ingrained classism. Applied to English cricket that means that there is a wall between players and coach, even between captain and coach that shall not be crossed, as Kevin Pietersen found out at the expense of his captaincy. The players do the playing, no more, no less. The coach, and only the coach, does the thinking. Works great in Test cricket where focussed robo-players get a strategy update every two hours. Not so much in ODI cricket, where a post fielding innings update is too late to affect the outcome of the current game. This is where the audacious Australian approach of allowing the players to think for themselves yield very different results.
Disappointingly, from a Protea supporter’s point of view, Graeme Smith moved the Proteas from the Australian approach (in turn the handiwork of Kepler Wessels) to the English approach. Even more disturbingly, the post-Smith era is promising to be no better: on June 6, 2013, South Africa opened their Championship Trophy campaign against India with a loss, after winning the toss and choosing to field. Many observers commented that the South Africans bowled too short for the conditions. The only man who could change that, captain AB de Villiers, however went to the post-match interview still spouting the “you can’t bowl too full against teams from the subcontinent” non-sense that he had been briefed on before the game. Focussed robo-player indeed.
In fairness to our Biff: there has been many occasions when focussed robo-batsmen have dragged the Proteas from the edge of the abyss to safer ground, and even improbably victories. As mentioned, it works in the slower-than-molasses Test cricket.
But ODI cricket is a different matter. More often than not knock-out games are won by teams who are able to surprise their opponents. No such luck with the robo-Proteas, focussed or otherwise. They don’t even believe in Plan B, for crying out loud!
Maybe it’s a South African thing - after all the Springbok approach to strategy can be summed up with the phrase: If Plan A does not work, we do plan A harder!
In fairness to the many dedicated Protea coaches who have lead the team since readmission: it is not that these coaches got it all wrong. Rather it is that it is impossible for a coach to get all the details right the night before. Like most other things, game plans need adjusting as the game unfolds. You can have a perfect Plan A, but if it is the only plan you have, you are asking for trouble. This is where the English approach is guaranteed to have limited success in ODI cricket, as the history of the English team confirms.
Of course, it’s not all doom and gloom. In AB de Villiers the Proteas have a captain that is as competitive and as positive as any in the game. He may yet learn to trust his own instincts, in spite of the deference captains are supposed to show to coaches under the English approach. In Dale Steyn De Villiers has a leader of the attack who is similarly competitive, and unlikely to let a coach’s opinion get between himself and victory.
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
A Disastrous Outing to Australia
Did Australia just wreck South Africa’s World Cup campaign? Or did they unintentionally rescue it?
After South Africa’s 4-1 loss to Australia, the Protea World Cup campaign appears to have come crashing down to earth. “We are hurting, it’s not ideal, definitely not what we planned to do,” said captain AB de Villiers. More than anything the confidence of the team as a group, as well as that of certain individual players will have suffered. The case that Australia may have wrecked the South African World Cup campaign before it even officially started has its merits.
But it is worth recalling a recent World Cup campaign that got off to a very different lead-up, and ended in tears all the same: On 12 March 2006 Australia became the first team to score more than 400 runs in an ODI match. More to the point, the Australians didn’t just creep by the milestone, they went well beyond it, scoring 434/4 in their 50 overs. In what we South Africans certainly consider the greatest chase ever, South Africa not only became the second team to score 400, but passed the Australian total of the penultimate ball of the game, with all of one wicket in hand. Hershelle Gibbs’ recent comments during a test match at the same venue notwithstanding, it’s hard to imagine that a game of cricket can get more exciting than that.
The next time the two sides met was on 24 March 2007, at the World Cup. Basking in the confidence of the 438-game South Africa displayed some very ordinary fielding, allowing the Australians to score 377/6. They may not have been consciously thinking so, but it did seem as if the South African players were of the opinion that “no matter how many runs they score, we can score more.” But, unlike the result of the previous year, this time South Africa lost by a convincing 83 runs.
Worse was to follow. As is their wont, the Proteas qualified for the semi-final against Australia on April 25, winning their first must-win game at a World Cup against England. This time South Africa had a great plan: bat first, make 400+ runs and cruise to victory. Only it wasn’t a 400+ pitch, with the result that South Africa got 149 all out. 438 bought and paid for.
Clearly beating Australia isn’t necessarily ideal preparation for the World Cup. South Africans don’t do confidence in moderation. It does not follow, of course, that getting caned by the beloved gifappeltjies is the right way to prepare. But at least captain De Villiers and coach Russel Domingo had some of the leaks in the roof pointed out to them by Hurricane Australia. The questions for De Villiers and Domingo are: which are the priority leaks and how to repair those.
Much is made, for example, about the inability of the lower middle order to weigh in with a lot of runs. Ever since the days of Lance Klusener South African fans have come to expect rapid runs to flow from the last few overs. By and large the tradition has been upheld by a string of lower order big-hitters. But recently the pipeline appears to have run dry. To many observers this is a major problem.
It is worth pointing out that in the Protea team, lower order batting appears to have developed as a matter of necessity. During the 1992 World Cup, for example, Peter Kirsten was the only top order batsmen to contribute regular scores. During the 1999 campaign, Lance Klusener, batting at number nine, was man of the tournament, and not for his bowling. Klusener regularly hit his team of trouble with rapid-fire half centuries, often adding key runs for the last wicket. Apart from the fact that that couldn’t possibly last, one has to wonder about the inability of the top order to score the runs. As a comparison, Dale Steyn is currently the regular number nine. While Steyn is no slouch with the bat, it would be quite surprising if he is South Africa’s top run scorer in the 2015 World Cup. And if he was, who would expect it to be a successful campaign?
The difference between top and lower order runs is often a matter of perception. When the top order fails, but the lower order succeeds, there is primarily a sense of relief. On top of that, top order failures are often dismissed as the result of difficult batting conditions, excellent bowling, and the like. When the situation is reversed, and the top order succeeds, but the lower fails, there is a profound sense of disappointment, as if the lower order left a large number of runs on the table, and, really, the total should have been much larger. Blame the tendency of commentators to take up the convenient topic of projected scores during the latter part of the innings.
The reality is, of course, that runs are runs, whether they come at the start of the innings, the end of the innings, or at an indifferent pace throughout. On the two occasions that South Africa set scores they posted 267/8 and 280/6, both of which appeared to be defendable. Before this tour, Australia’s last successful chase of 250+ against South Africa was in 2002. This would suggest that defending totals is the issue, more than setting them. Likewise, the fact that the attack leaked at least 300 in two of the first three games suggest the concern is bowling (and fielding). Of even more concern: since readmission, this has traditionally been Protea strengths.
The current Protea test attack is rightly the envy of the world, and has proven itself able to adapt to various conditions as the fact that they haven’t lost a test series away from home since 2006 confirms, along with the top ranking for the team. It is not without reason that Dale Steyn is rated the world’s best bowler in the format, backed up by Vernon Philander at #6.
In the ODI format, things are rather less stellar: Steyn ranks #3, followed by Morné Morkel at #11 and Lonwabo Tsotsobe at #17. Of course, the rankings tend to be a bit of a lagging indicator, averaging a player’s form over the last couple of years, as evidenced by the fact that Philander ranks #51. Nonetheless, the evidence would suggest that the terrific Protea test attack is much less of a threat in ODIs.
The difference between test and ODI bowling is that in the former the aim is to take wickets, while in the latter it is to choke (that word again) the flow of runs. Unlike say Fanie de Villiers, Dale Steyn appears to struggle more with choking than with knocking over, his career average economy rate a rather pedestrian 4.8, compared to a downright insulting 5.4 on this tour. Philander’s slightly better career average (4.4) was at least maintained on this tour (4.5). Morkel’s tour figures were embarrassing (6.1) and will affect his career average (4.9) the wrong way. The case for Kyle Abbott stepping up (career : 4.4) was only enhanced on a difficult tour (5.1), while it will be interesting to see if the selectors have faith that Farhaan Behardien whose (brief) career average matches Steyn’s, while looking much better on this tour (4.7). Interestingly, Tsotsobe has the same career average, which hardly suggests that he is the answer to the questions so rudely asked by Australia.
Of course, wickets are not completely irrelevant in ODI cricket, and Steyn proved again that he has the ability to break partnerships, taking four of his seven wickets before the death. By comparison, seven of Morkel’s ten wickets fell at the death suggesting that it batsmen getting themselves out by getting too greedy.
It is also worth noting that while the Protea combined economy rate for the tour (5.46) matched that of Australia (5.44), the death bowling was a different matter all together (Proteas: 7.1; Australia: 6.1). Here Robbie Peterson (5.1) and Philander (5.3) were the standouts, although they only bowled 3.1 and 4 death overs, respectively. Abbott (6.0 in 5 overs) and Steyn (6.5 in 11.4) were middle of the road, while Morkel (7.2 in 11) and Wayne Parnell (8.0 in 4) were underwhelming. The less said about Ryan McLaren (11.0 in 4), the better. Bottom line: the Proteas have an issue with death bowling. The (very limited) data would suggest that Peterson and Philander should share the death bowling with Abbott and Steyn.
One sensed that when both Parnell and McLaren were selected for the fourth game, the selectors weren’t looking to win the series, but rather to test different combinations. In that case, it is mission accomplished, and McLaren should be watching the World Cup from the comfort of home, while Parnell and Morkel should only travel as backups. It is also high time for the selectors to overcome their Warne envy and admit South Africa simply doesn’t have a spin bowler that can dominate batsmen (and be a jack while doing it). Thanks Imran, but we’ve seen enough.
The Australians can be said to have rained on the Proteas’ parade. In doing so they revealed many leaks in the roof. Whether the Proteas repair those leaks is first of all up to the selectors. Assuming they are brave enough to pick the right personnel, it is over to De Villiers and Domingo. And that’s a whole discussion by itself…
After South Africa’s 4-1 loss to Australia, the Protea World Cup campaign appears to have come crashing down to earth. “We are hurting, it’s not ideal, definitely not what we planned to do,” said captain AB de Villiers. More than anything the confidence of the team as a group, as well as that of certain individual players will have suffered. The case that Australia may have wrecked the South African World Cup campaign before it even officially started has its merits.
But it is worth recalling a recent World Cup campaign that got off to a very different lead-up, and ended in tears all the same: On 12 March 2006 Australia became the first team to score more than 400 runs in an ODI match. More to the point, the Australians didn’t just creep by the milestone, they went well beyond it, scoring 434/4 in their 50 overs. In what we South Africans certainly consider the greatest chase ever, South Africa not only became the second team to score 400, but passed the Australian total of the penultimate ball of the game, with all of one wicket in hand. Hershelle Gibbs’ recent comments during a test match at the same venue notwithstanding, it’s hard to imagine that a game of cricket can get more exciting than that.
The next time the two sides met was on 24 March 2007, at the World Cup. Basking in the confidence of the 438-game South Africa displayed some very ordinary fielding, allowing the Australians to score 377/6. They may not have been consciously thinking so, but it did seem as if the South African players were of the opinion that “no matter how many runs they score, we can score more.” But, unlike the result of the previous year, this time South Africa lost by a convincing 83 runs.
Worse was to follow. As is their wont, the Proteas qualified for the semi-final against Australia on April 25, winning their first must-win game at a World Cup against England. This time South Africa had a great plan: bat first, make 400+ runs and cruise to victory. Only it wasn’t a 400+ pitch, with the result that South Africa got 149 all out. 438 bought and paid for.
Clearly beating Australia isn’t necessarily ideal preparation for the World Cup. South Africans don’t do confidence in moderation. It does not follow, of course, that getting caned by the beloved gifappeltjies is the right way to prepare. But at least captain De Villiers and coach Russel Domingo had some of the leaks in the roof pointed out to them by Hurricane Australia. The questions for De Villiers and Domingo are: which are the priority leaks and how to repair those.
Much is made, for example, about the inability of the lower middle order to weigh in with a lot of runs. Ever since the days of Lance Klusener South African fans have come to expect rapid runs to flow from the last few overs. By and large the tradition has been upheld by a string of lower order big-hitters. But recently the pipeline appears to have run dry. To many observers this is a major problem.
It is worth pointing out that in the Protea team, lower order batting appears to have developed as a matter of necessity. During the 1992 World Cup, for example, Peter Kirsten was the only top order batsmen to contribute regular scores. During the 1999 campaign, Lance Klusener, batting at number nine, was man of the tournament, and not for his bowling. Klusener regularly hit his team of trouble with rapid-fire half centuries, often adding key runs for the last wicket. Apart from the fact that that couldn’t possibly last, one has to wonder about the inability of the top order to score the runs. As a comparison, Dale Steyn is currently the regular number nine. While Steyn is no slouch with the bat, it would be quite surprising if he is South Africa’s top run scorer in the 2015 World Cup. And if he was, who would expect it to be a successful campaign?
The difference between top and lower order runs is often a matter of perception. When the top order fails, but the lower order succeeds, there is primarily a sense of relief. On top of that, top order failures are often dismissed as the result of difficult batting conditions, excellent bowling, and the like. When the situation is reversed, and the top order succeeds, but the lower fails, there is a profound sense of disappointment, as if the lower order left a large number of runs on the table, and, really, the total should have been much larger. Blame the tendency of commentators to take up the convenient topic of projected scores during the latter part of the innings.
The reality is, of course, that runs are runs, whether they come at the start of the innings, the end of the innings, or at an indifferent pace throughout. On the two occasions that South Africa set scores they posted 267/8 and 280/6, both of which appeared to be defendable. Before this tour, Australia’s last successful chase of 250+ against South Africa was in 2002. This would suggest that defending totals is the issue, more than setting them. Likewise, the fact that the attack leaked at least 300 in two of the first three games suggest the concern is bowling (and fielding). Of even more concern: since readmission, this has traditionally been Protea strengths.
The current Protea test attack is rightly the envy of the world, and has proven itself able to adapt to various conditions as the fact that they haven’t lost a test series away from home since 2006 confirms, along with the top ranking for the team. It is not without reason that Dale Steyn is rated the world’s best bowler in the format, backed up by Vernon Philander at #6.
In the ODI format, things are rather less stellar: Steyn ranks #3, followed by Morné Morkel at #11 and Lonwabo Tsotsobe at #17. Of course, the rankings tend to be a bit of a lagging indicator, averaging a player’s form over the last couple of years, as evidenced by the fact that Philander ranks #51. Nonetheless, the evidence would suggest that the terrific Protea test attack is much less of a threat in ODIs.
The difference between test and ODI bowling is that in the former the aim is to take wickets, while in the latter it is to choke (that word again) the flow of runs. Unlike say Fanie de Villiers, Dale Steyn appears to struggle more with choking than with knocking over, his career average economy rate a rather pedestrian 4.8, compared to a downright insulting 5.4 on this tour. Philander’s slightly better career average (4.4) was at least maintained on this tour (4.5). Morkel’s tour figures were embarrassing (6.1) and will affect his career average (4.9) the wrong way. The case for Kyle Abbott stepping up (career : 4.4) was only enhanced on a difficult tour (5.1), while it will be interesting to see if the selectors have faith that Farhaan Behardien whose (brief) career average matches Steyn’s, while looking much better on this tour (4.7). Interestingly, Tsotsobe has the same career average, which hardly suggests that he is the answer to the questions so rudely asked by Australia.
Of course, wickets are not completely irrelevant in ODI cricket, and Steyn proved again that he has the ability to break partnerships, taking four of his seven wickets before the death. By comparison, seven of Morkel’s ten wickets fell at the death suggesting that it batsmen getting themselves out by getting too greedy.
It is also worth noting that while the Protea combined economy rate for the tour (5.46) matched that of Australia (5.44), the death bowling was a different matter all together (Proteas: 7.1; Australia: 6.1). Here Robbie Peterson (5.1) and Philander (5.3) were the standouts, although they only bowled 3.1 and 4 death overs, respectively. Abbott (6.0 in 5 overs) and Steyn (6.5 in 11.4) were middle of the road, while Morkel (7.2 in 11) and Wayne Parnell (8.0 in 4) were underwhelming. The less said about Ryan McLaren (11.0 in 4), the better. Bottom line: the Proteas have an issue with death bowling. The (very limited) data would suggest that Peterson and Philander should share the death bowling with Abbott and Steyn.
One sensed that when both Parnell and McLaren were selected for the fourth game, the selectors weren’t looking to win the series, but rather to test different combinations. In that case, it is mission accomplished, and McLaren should be watching the World Cup from the comfort of home, while Parnell and Morkel should only travel as backups. It is also high time for the selectors to overcome their Warne envy and admit South Africa simply doesn’t have a spin bowler that can dominate batsmen (and be a jack while doing it). Thanks Imran, but we’ve seen enough.
The Australians can be said to have rained on the Proteas’ parade. In doing so they revealed many leaks in the roof. Whether the Proteas repair those leaks is first of all up to the selectors. Assuming they are brave enough to pick the right personnel, it is over to De Villiers and Domingo. And that’s a whole discussion by itself…
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