Proteas face selection quandary for World Twenty20
by Telford Vice,
2016-02-23 05:00:00.0
"JIRRE jong," a journalist flustered by having to make several revisions to his report on the see-sawing first Twenty20 between SA and England at Newlands on Friday said, as he placed his recorder in front of captain Faf du Plessis at the press conference that followed.
Du Plessis looked up, flashed a smile and quipped: "En daar wen ons sommer a moerse game!"
A moerse game, indeed — SA won by three wickets off the last ball. Two days later at the Wanderers, another moerse performance, more emphatic than exciting, had SA home and hosed by nine wickets with 32 balls to spare.
With that, SA had reeled off five consecutive victories over England in the shorter formats.
In a season that will be remembered for troubling Test series in India and against England, that is a consolation rather than a cause for celebration.
For now, that is. SA’s first match in the ICC World Twenty20 in India, also against England, is 25 days away. Should Du Plessis’s men still be alive when the final is played at Eden Gardens on April 3, and should they win the tournament, the five defeats they have suffered in eight Tests in the past few months will be all but wiped from South Africans’ memories.
That is not how things should be, but is how South Africans tend to regard their teams: they are as good, or as bad, as their most recent performance.
However, a hurdle remains to be cleared before such fantasies can be entertained seriously.
Australia will play three Twenty20s in SA early next month. Only on the evidence of that series will South Africans dare to hope, or not, that it might just rain on their team’s trophy drought at the ICC World Twenty20.
The form book says South Africans will have reasons to be cheerful — Australia have lost four consecutive games in the format.
But the last team they beat was, that’s right, SA: twice in three matches to win their rubber in Australia in November 2014.
We are, of course, getting ahead of ourselves. First we need to ask what to do with Quinton de Kock and Dale Steyn, who missed the Twenty20s against England through injury but should be fit to face the Aussies. They would walk into any Twenty20 team in the game. Except, it seems, SA’s.
How would you make room for De Kock, considering the inclusion of AB de Villiers creates another opportunity to follow the fashion for picking as many all-rounders as possible? And why, even if you are trying to bring Steyn back into the mix, would you fiddle with an attack that showed in both Twenty20s against England that they have everything it takes to come out on the right side of an equation that is loaded against bowlers?
FOCUSED: AB de Villiers celebrates scoring his century in the fifth and final one-day international against India last year. The Proteas captain is aiming for another big knock on Wednesday. Picture: REUTERS
"JIRRE jong," a journalist flustered by having to make several revisions to his report on the see-sawing first Twenty20 between SA and England at Newlands on Friday said, as he placed his recorder in front of captain Faf du Plessis at the press conference that followed.
Du Plessis looked up, flashed a smile and quipped: "En daar wen ons sommer a moerse game!"
A moerse game, indeed — SA won by three wickets off the last ball. Two days later at the Wanderers, another moerse performance, more emphatic than exciting, had SA home and hosed by nine wickets with 32 balls to spare.
With that, SA had reeled off five consecutive victories over England in the shorter formats.
In a season that will be remembered for troubling Test series in India and against England, that is a consolation rather than a cause for celebration.
For now, that is. SA’s first match in the ICC World Twenty20 in India, also against England, is 25 days away. Should Du Plessis’s men still be alive when the final is played at Eden Gardens on April 3, and should they win the tournament, the five defeats they have suffered in eight Tests in the past few months will be all but wiped from South Africans’ memories.
That is not how things should be, but is how South Africans tend to regard their teams: they are as good, or as bad, as their most recent performance.
However, a hurdle remains to be cleared before such fantasies can be entertained seriously.
Australia will play three Twenty20s in SA early next month. Only on the evidence of that series will South Africans dare to hope, or not, that it might just rain on their team’s trophy drought at the ICC World Twenty20.
The form book says South Africans will have reasons to be cheerful — Australia have lost four consecutive games in the format.
But the last team they beat was, that’s right, SA: twice in three matches to win their rubber in Australia in November 2014.
We are, of course, getting ahead of ourselves. First we need to ask what to do with Quinton de Kock and Dale Steyn, who missed the Twenty20s against England through injury but should be fit to face the Aussies. They would walk into any Twenty20 team in the game. Except, it seems, SA’s.
How would you make room for De Kock, considering the inclusion of AB de Villiers creates another opportunity to follow the fashion for picking as many all-rounders as possible? And why, even if you are trying to bring Steyn back into the mix, would you fiddle with an attack that showed in both Twenty20s against England that they have everything it takes to come out on the right side of an equation that is loaded against bowlers?
Change: -0.47%
Change: -0.57%
Change: -1.76%
Change: -0.34%
Change: 0.02%
Data supplied by Profile Data
Change: -1.49%
Change: 0.08%
Change: -0.47%
Change: 0.00%
Change: -0.04%
Data supplied by Profile Data
Change: -0.34%
Change: 0.03%
Change: -0.10%
Change: -0.22%
Change: -0.69%
Data supplied by Profile Data
Change: -0.28%
Change: -1.15%
Change: -0.07%
Change: -1.21%
Change: -0.22%
Data supplied by Profile Data