There are few deeper pleasures in sport than watching a team you love take shape. Some pleasures are immediate, more visceral, but watching 11 individuals blend into something more than the sum of their parts is drama of subtle splendour, almost an honour.
It was difficult for the Proteas to know who or what they were last summer — and for various good reasons. For one, new coach Shukri Conrad was bedding down.
At the same time, the former captain of the side, Dean Elgar, was calling it a day, cricket’s grapevine telling us he was peeved to lose the Test captaincy to Temba Bavuma.
There were other retirements. Heinrich Klaasen, he of the magic willow, retired from Test cricket before he had properly begun it. History will note that he was one of the most destructive white-ball batsmen this country has produced. As a Test cricketer, though, there will only be a giant question mark next to Klaasen’s name. He played just four Tests.
With the passing of last summer, the Proteas have played four further Tests, two against the West Indies and two against Bangladesh. Both series have been away and South Africa have won three out of four, which puts them handily in fourth position in the World Test Championship (WTC) cycle for 2023-2025, with the final to be played at Lord’s next year.
India and Australia are first and second, while third are Sri Lanka, who arrive on these shores in a couple of weeks. The first of two home Tests against them will be played at the end of this month and — big ask — if the Proteas can win both, they will muscle the Lankans out of third to occupy that position.
While we’re at it, the points system for the WTC needs explaining: there are 12 points for a win, six in the unlikely event of a tie and four for a draw.
The key statistic by which teams are ranked is not points, because some teams have more points than others by virtue of having played more and won more. The key statistic is rather the percentage of wins in relation to the number of matches played.
At this point in proceedings, the top two teams — India and Australia — look likely to contest the final, as they did last time. Then again, neither team is so far ahead of the chasing pack that their positions might not be toppled by a late lunge from a chaser.
A late lunge is what the Proteas and Conrad are hoping to pull off. After Sri Lanka, Pakistan arrive. If ever a team blew hot and cold, it is the Pakistanis.
Sublime one day, filthy rotten the next, no-one seems to know what the Pakistanis are doing, least of all themselves. Gary Kirsten walked out of the white-ball coaching job a week ago, and their Test coach, Jason “Dizzy” Gillespie, seems to have no idea whether he’ll bring the team to South Africa.
It might be argued that with four home Tests in the offing, and, therefore, an opportunity to prepare pitches to local strengths, the time is now for the young Proteas. Test cricket locally has taken a battering in the past year or so, what with sending an understrength team to New Zealand in February. Happily, things are changing for the better.
Test cricket locally has taken a battering in the past year or so, what with sending an understrength team to New Zealand in February. Happily, things are changing for the better
Such was the public — and international — pushback that Cricket South Africa will not double-book the SA20 and a Test series again. With fit-again (or unused) players such as Gerald Coetzee and Marco Jansen in the wings, the future looks as bright as a clear summer’s day at the Wanderers.
So what of Conrad’s emerging Test side? Stellar Test teams are defined — among other things — by the quality of their opening partnerships. Think Justin Langer and Matthew Hayden, or Graeme Smith and Herschelle Gibbs or, further back, England’s Len Hutton and Cyril Washbrook.
In Tony de Zorzi, a young left-hander originally from King Edward VII school in Joburg but now at Western Province, the Proteas have one for the future. De Zorzi is watchful, plays late, and, crucially, has the stamina to play a long innings.
He threatened to score a century as an opener earlier in his career, finally doing it in the slightly obscure surrounds of Chattogram in the second Test against Bangladesh two weeks ago. Like all good openers, who must always have a dose of greed, De Zorzi went big and plundered 177. It was a well-composed innings, full of thunderous lofted drives wide of long-on and some punchy cover-driving. The left-hander will face more challenging attacks. But you can only play, as the old cricket adage goes, what’s in front of you.
Sooner or later De Zorzi will have to come to terms with Australia’s Josh Hazlewood. That, however, is a matter for another day. For the time being he is bedding down his partnership with skipper (in Bavuma’s absence) Aiden Markram.
So to Tristan Stubbs, a young cricketer whose name might make you think he’s a minor character in a Thomas Hardy novel. Stubbs is a tall, athletic right-hander out of Grey High School and the Eastern Cape. He’s talented and audacious. And he reverse sweeps as naturally as you or I might eat breakfast cereal.
He’s the real deal. And probably the single most exciting thing to happen to South African cricket since the emergence of Kagiso Rabada.
Stubbs seems to enjoy his cricket. And, unlike so many T20 campaigners the world over, seems to have a place in his heart for the long-form stuff that is Test cricket. Like De Zorzi, he scored a maiden Test hundred in Chattogram. There are surely more to come.
Another to score a debut Test hundred on the day was Wiaan Mulder, remarkably one of three St Stithians College old boys in the side (the others being Ryan Rickelton and Rabada). The story is told of Mulder arriving at the school for a bursary interview as a laaitie. He was barefoot, this being the primary school custom of boys from the West Rand. It did not, however, prevent him from being given a bursary, which helped him mature as a talented and, so the story goes, slightly tubby young cricketer.
Having been in and out of the Test side, Mulder finally seems to have nailed down a place. A fine SA20 last season helped Mulder gain in confidence. He’s a good catcher and bowls a heavy ball, favouring away-swing to the right-hander — a priceless delivery. With Jansen, a similar such player, back in the mix for the Test summer, it will be interesting to see which way Conrad goes.
So, after a year or two of Test neglect, it’s all adding up to something exciting. Questions press, certainly. Bavuma seems unable to last a season (or a series) without one injury or another, and the middle-order, with Rickelton and ’keeper Kyle Verreynne, seems capable of big things and small scores.
Of South Africa’s two summer guests, the Sri Lankans pose the greater threat. They’re a handy side. Further, they have one of the coming players in world red-ball cricket in Kamindu Mendis
This said, South African sport, generally, has found its happy place. The rugby Boks have led the way. Not far behind are Bafana Bafana and our recently beaten World T20 finalists, the women cricketers.
Then there’s a role played by tournaments on our shores, such as the SA20. In Mulder’s case, it acted like a finishing school. As a player he’s close to the real deal. He’s about to play the best cricket of his career.
A note of caution. Of South Africa’s two summer guests, the Sri Lankans pose the greater threat. They’re a handy side. Further, they have one of the upcoming players in world red-ball cricket in Pasqual Handi Kamindu Dilanka Mendis, better known as just Kamindu Mendis.
A left-handed batsman, he bowls with either arm and set out his stall with a century against England at Old Trafford in August. Demonstrating that he is no one-hit wonder, he followed it up in Galle a month later with centuries — one of them being 182 not out — in consecutive Tests against New Zealand, a team who are pretty perky in subcontinental conditions themselves, having become the first team to whitewash India there recently.
A South African side, meanwhile, is also taking shape. But we shouldn’t get too far ahead of ourselves.
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