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Comment: Rob Houwing, Sport24 chief writer
Cape Town – South Africa have set off for their sixth stab at a Cricket World Cup without one formerly trademark element to their brew: a truly superstar fielder.
Think about it – a proud tradition began some 19 years ago, and their first-time, emotional presence at the 1992 version in Australia and New Zealand, having sat out four previous tournaments during the isolation period.
Then a certain, fresh-faced Jonty Rhodes announced himself to the planet ... and virtually as a specialist fielder because his early batting exploits were modest.
But it didn’t take the nimble, hyperactive customer long to etch himself in cricket’s photographic annals, courtesy of his dive-at-the-stumps run-out of Pakistan’s Inzamam-ul-Haq at Brisbane.
Ever steelier and more resourceful and enterprising as a batman, Rhodes would go on to represent South Africa – and be a veritable cult figure just on the grounds of his majesty in the field – at three more World Cups.
His 245-match ODI career, in fact, began and ended in World Cup matches, because Kenya at Potchefstroom in 2003 was his final outing in the Proteas’ green shirt, and scene of an unfortunate finger fracture that greatly curtailed his involvement in the maiden CWC staged on his home soil.
But there was also a wondrous overlap period – during a spell in which South Africa’s collective fielding zeal and competence was unmatchable – when Rhodes and Herschelle Gibbs policed the “ring” area with well-nigh equal brilliance, the former at his customary backward point and latter lurking nearby in the covers.
Gibbs’ first of three personal World Cups came in England in 1999, where most ironically (yet entirely in keeping with a certain CWC curse for the Proteas) a desperately rare blemish by him, dropping a charging Steve Waugh at Headingley, was bitterly said by some to have cost South Africa the title that year.
Be that as it may, Gibbs, like Rhodes, belongs in the pantheon of great world fielders and remained South Africa’s undisputed trump card in that department right through the last World Cup in the Caribbean four years ago and even a bit beyond it.
Of course he has failed to make the cut for the latest tournament, firing too fitfully these days at the top of the order, albeit having lost incredibly little of his fielding prowess or mobility at the age of very nearly 37.
As a result, though, the Proteas now travel to a World Cup in the unique position for them of not carrying in their midst at least one outfielder fully worthy of iconic status.
That baton, it is true, might have seamlessly been thrust into the multi-talented hands of AB de Villiers, but his conversion to regular wicketkeeper – not completely without its own teething problems, as you would expect – put paid to the possibility.
I did refer in a previous piece to the fact that, pleasingly, there has appeared to be a renewed determination among the squad as a whole of late to restore South African fielding to – or at least close to -- its once-supreme standards.
Maybe deeply mindful that there will no Rhodes or Gibbs as a standout factor this time, an attitude of “all hands to pump” has taken root among Graeme Smith and his likely lads: something along the lines of “we may not boast a fielding individual of highest calibre, but through collective energy and alertness we will overcome”.
Especially if De Villiers behind the stumps is able to lead by tidy example – he is arguably as good as any other ‘keeper standing back – and keep a sense of general fielding order and crisp communication to the troops in the manner Mark Boucher once did in ODIs, there is no reason South Africa should be found glaringly wanting in the field.
Among the squad, after all, are several players who qualify as “very good” at fielding: I would count among them, just for instance, JP Duminy (almost certain to operate at the hot spot of backward point), Robin Peterson, Johan Botha and Faf du Plessis.
And while their going to ground with an oof has been known to mildly interest the Richter scale, Messrs Smith and Jacques Kallis have suitably big, safe and weather-beaten hands when it comes to catching.
Nor, fortunately, are there too many candidates for that gloriously descriptive Afrikaans word “lomp” in the field.
Big, awkward Lonwabo Tsotsobe is perhaps closest to the tag – he can’t get his hands to the ground in a hurry -- but even he showed against India recently that he is capable of the odd sublime catch.
There will be nobody to consistently match the incomparable Jonty or Hersch in the SA ranks for fielding freakishness at this World Cup.
But who knows, perhaps some member of the earthy, honest Proteas’ class of 2011 will unexpectedly produce his very own “Inzi moment” equivalent at the tournament ...
Cape Town – South Africa have set off for their sixth stab at a Cricket World Cup without one formerly trademark element to their brew: a truly superstar fielder.
Think about it – a proud tradition began some 19 years ago, and their first-time, emotional presence at the 1992 version in Australia and New Zealand, having sat out four previous tournaments during the isolation period.
Then a certain, fresh-faced Jonty Rhodes announced himself to the planet ... and virtually as a specialist fielder because his early batting exploits were modest.
But it didn’t take the nimble, hyperactive customer long to etch himself in cricket’s photographic annals, courtesy of his dive-at-the-stumps run-out of Pakistan’s Inzamam-ul-Haq at Brisbane.
Ever steelier and more resourceful and enterprising as a batman, Rhodes would go on to represent South Africa – and be a veritable cult figure just on the grounds of his majesty in the field – at three more World Cups.
His 245-match ODI career, in fact, began and ended in World Cup matches, because Kenya at Potchefstroom in 2003 was his final outing in the Proteas’ green shirt, and scene of an unfortunate finger fracture that greatly curtailed his involvement in the maiden CWC staged on his home soil.
But there was also a wondrous overlap period – during a spell in which South Africa’s collective fielding zeal and competence was unmatchable – when Rhodes and Herschelle Gibbs policed the “ring” area with well-nigh equal brilliance, the former at his customary backward point and latter lurking nearby in the covers.
Gibbs’ first of three personal World Cups came in England in 1999, where most ironically (yet entirely in keeping with a certain CWC curse for the Proteas) a desperately rare blemish by him, dropping a charging Steve Waugh at Headingley, was bitterly said by some to have cost South Africa the title that year.
Be that as it may, Gibbs, like Rhodes, belongs in the pantheon of great world fielders and remained South Africa’s undisputed trump card in that department right through the last World Cup in the Caribbean four years ago and even a bit beyond it.
Of course he has failed to make the cut for the latest tournament, firing too fitfully these days at the top of the order, albeit having lost incredibly little of his fielding prowess or mobility at the age of very nearly 37.
As a result, though, the Proteas now travel to a World Cup in the unique position for them of not carrying in their midst at least one outfielder fully worthy of iconic status.
That baton, it is true, might have seamlessly been thrust into the multi-talented hands of AB de Villiers, but his conversion to regular wicketkeeper – not completely without its own teething problems, as you would expect – put paid to the possibility.
I did refer in a previous piece to the fact that, pleasingly, there has appeared to be a renewed determination among the squad as a whole of late to restore South African fielding to – or at least close to -- its once-supreme standards.
Maybe deeply mindful that there will no Rhodes or Gibbs as a standout factor this time, an attitude of “all hands to pump” has taken root among Graeme Smith and his likely lads: something along the lines of “we may not boast a fielding individual of highest calibre, but through collective energy and alertness we will overcome”.
Especially if De Villiers behind the stumps is able to lead by tidy example – he is arguably as good as any other ‘keeper standing back – and keep a sense of general fielding order and crisp communication to the troops in the manner Mark Boucher once did in ODIs, there is no reason South Africa should be found glaringly wanting in the field.
Among the squad, after all, are several players who qualify as “very good” at fielding: I would count among them, just for instance, JP Duminy (almost certain to operate at the hot spot of backward point), Robin Peterson, Johan Botha and Faf du Plessis.
And while their going to ground with an oof has been known to mildly interest the Richter scale, Messrs Smith and Jacques Kallis have suitably big, safe and weather-beaten hands when it comes to catching.
Nor, fortunately, are there too many candidates for that gloriously descriptive Afrikaans word “lomp” in the field.
Big, awkward Lonwabo Tsotsobe is perhaps closest to the tag – he can’t get his hands to the ground in a hurry -- but even he showed against India recently that he is capable of the odd sublime catch.
There will be nobody to consistently match the incomparable Jonty or Hersch in the SA ranks for fielding freakishness at this World Cup.
But who knows, perhaps some member of the earthy, honest Proteas’ class of 2011 will unexpectedly produce his very own “Inzi moment” equivalent at the tournament ...
