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Cape Town – You’ve probably heard this one many times before, but the timely restoration of Jacques Kallis to the Proteas’ plans ought to restore sanity to their mainline batting department.
The veteran all-rounder turned 36 on Sunday, and might have spent part of his birthday watching the national side get out of jail at the Wanderers to share the Twenty20 international series – from which he was rested -- with Australia 1-1.
Deep down, coach Gary Kirsten and his charges will know that they were lucky not to be “swept” 2-0 by the Aussies, with some five overs of tail-end carnage in the Johannesburg match from Wayne Parnell and Rusty Theron – cool-headed and emphatic though it was – meaning that the tourists had to suddenly try to shove the cork back in the proverbial champagne bottle.
The Proteas were better beaten at Newlands than the scoreboard suggested, and when they slumped to 84 for seven late in the 14th over of their pursuit of 148 in the return fixture in the Bullring, another pasting seemed firmly on the cards until the eighth-wicket tornado which at least gave one or two frisky young Australian bowlers something of a reality check ahead of the ODI series.
The three encounters in that leg of the tour begin at Centurion on Wednesday, with each squad sporting a more experienced look than was the case in the T20 phase.
South Africa’s specialist batting over the past few days has looked unconvincing – although in the helter-skelter world of T20 that sometimes just happens anyway – and it was a situation not helped by still-obvious snags in terms of depth to the order as a whole.
Of the biggest names with the willow, only JP Duminy’s bright 67 off 53 balls at Newlands really served as a reminder of ability.
In the ODIs, the Proteas will be hoping that the injection of Kallis, in particular, and others like Faf du Plessis and Mark Boucher in the middle order, will give the XI a steelier look on paper as a batting collective.
Even without Dale Steyn, similarly given some deliberate “feet up” during the T20 series, the South African bowlers were reasonably convincing , with Lonwabo Tsotsobe certainly the stand-out for economy – he went for just four runs an over in maximum stints each time which is an amazing statistic in this form of cricket.
Off-spinner Johan Botha also shook off winter rust impressively, whilst Morne Morkel’s series was spoiled only by being thumped unceremoniously for three sixes in his last over at the Wanderers.
With someone like Albie Morkel still ruled out by injury, Kallis offers key balance with his customary ability to get through something close to a full spell if required as a medium-fast factor in ODIs, whilst the opportunity to see leg-spinner Imran Tahir ply his trade in local conditions will attract great interest amongst the South African public if conditions or team structure warrant his presence.
Wanderers batting hero Parnell remains a bit of an enigma: he is probably going to be duelling with Tsotsobe, most of the time, for one berth as a left-arm factor in both the ODI and Test plans.
At the moment the latter has an edge as a pure bowler, after Parnell was expensive in his opportunity at the Wanderers on Sunday, although the former SA U19 captain will always offer more at the crease – something beautifully illustrated on Sunday – and is also notably more mobile in the field.
That is an advantage not to be discounted in limited-overs cricket, where South Africa have a few less-than-ideal players for stealth and athleticism in the outfield ...
