SA Cricket's Moneyball Issue

Back to a Different Reality

    The recent 4-day match between South Africa ‘A’ and West Indies ‘A’ was a cracker with a 10^th-wicket partnership of 53 seeing the visitors home to a total of 224-9 after a mid-innings collapse appeared to have scuppered their chances despite claiming a narrow first innings lead.

    There were some fine individual performances including a century for SA ‘A’ captain, Neil Brand, and a commendable, unbeaten 80 from Kevin Sinclair in the fourth innings which made the difference although he was indebted to a nervy seven not out from 34 balls by last man, Jair McAllister, which was a decent effort for a man with a batting average of 3.2.

    As always with these fixtures, the bigger picture was more important than the result. The West Indies have been ‘rebuilding’ for decades and their hunt for new talent is ongoing. They are also using the three-match tour to give Test regulars Tagenarine Chanderpaul and Jayden Seales game time. Cricket South Africa’s goal is also to build a Test team, virtually from scratch.

    In under two months from now this new team will have departed South African shores for New Zealand where they will play two fixtures in the World Test Championship. Shortly before that, they will have played India in two Tests at Centurion (Dec 26) and Newlands (Jan 3) with, presumably, their first-choice team.

    That squad, along with approximately 50 of the country’s best, active cricketers, will then join up with their respective SA20 Franchises leaving Test coach Shukri Conrad to cobble together a very different squad from what is left. He has started that process already which is why the current, 16-man SA ‘A’ squad contains seven players over the age of 30 and just one under-25.

    More than enough has been said and written about the irreversible damage this situation will do to the status of Test cricket but what else could Conrad do? Complain that he wasn’t being given a fair crack at delivering Test victories, perhaps refuse to take a team to New Zealand? Resign? That’s ridiculous. However great the challenge, however steep the odds, one of the joys of sport is the dream of overcoming them.

    Conrad is living another real-life version of the journey travelled by the Oakland Athletics baseball team and their visionary manager, Billy Beane, over two decades ago when they built a champion team from disgards, has-beens and the forgotten.

    Playing opportunities for South Africans are thin on the ground. The brilliant Rapport writer, Tinus van Staaden, penned an article a month ago describing how Aiden Markram and Heinrich Klaasen had shared an apartment eight years ago, surviving on cricketing scraps with no apparent prospect of a breakthrough, never mind a contract. Markram considered qualifying for a career with the Netherlands while Klaasen was close to quitting the game altogether. You can be the most promising player in the world but you’re useless without a chance to prove it.

    But, while 23-year-old WP seamer Mihlali Mpongwana might be considered a prospect for the future along with Tony de Zorzi (26) and another former SA Under-19 player in Clyde Fortuin (28), the bowling attack in New Zealand could be led by two 34-year-olds in Hardus Viljoen and Dane Paterson, who have played one and two Tests respectively, all against England in 2016 and 2020.

    Viljoen, presumably, has done well financially from stints in the IPL, PSL, CPL and the Abu Dhabi T10. Either the prospect of adding to his solitary Test eight years ago (the one in which Stuart Broad took 6-17 on the third day to win it at the Wanderers) was too enticing to ignore, or Conrad is very persuasive. The latter, we know, is true. At least Paterson has been playing regular first-class cricket for Nottinghamshire since moving to England after his second Test.

    Dane Piedt was still under 30 when he ‘retired’ from cricket in South Africa four years ago to play Minor League Cricket in the USA – with the prospect, but no guarantee, of Major League. He went from being savaged by Rohit Sharma in the last of his nine Tests in India to playing on astroturf in a run-down baseball ground. Now, he is back with the prospect playing Test cricket again in Mount Maunganui or Hamilton in February. Extraordinary journey. The final squad for the New Zealand Tests will be full of them.

    Perhaps, like the Oakland As, they will triumph against all hope and expectation, other than their own. A 1-1 share of the series would veritably be a triumph. Then CSA’s embarrassing error in accepting the NZ Tests can be overcome, they will have dodged a potentially lethal bullet and can return to treating Test cricket as the pinnacle of the game and selecting its best players.  

    Except that more fixture clashes between the SA20 and Test cricket are already on the calendar for the years ahead and nobody is talking about them. Test cricket is already at Day Zero. Six ‘series’ of two Tests each, three at home and three away in a two-year cycle, is the minimum requirement to participate in the Test Championship. Any less and you’re out.

    If those games are played by the unwanted and unmarketable wearing Test caps, then the Proteas will no longer be welcome in the Test Championship anyway. An eight-team competition will be much easier to organise, especially if they all actually want to be part of it, with their best players.