The buzz and interest surrounding the SA20 has ensured that the build-up to what might be the most important and significant ODI series in South Africa’s history has been low-key to the point of irrelevance. That will change when the new tournament takes a week’s break from Wednesday to allow the public’s attention to switch to the series between the Proteas and the World Champions, England.
In case you have forgotten, the home side are likely to need to win it at least 2-1 and then hope they don’t mess up against the Netherlands in two Covid-rescheduled matches at the end of March and beginning of April to have a chance of sneaking into the World Cup automatically.
If they lose to England and/or there is a slip-up against the ‘minnows’ in orange, or it rains, then South Africa will have to escape from a potentially tortuous pre-qualifying tournament in Harare in in June and July in order to make to India at the end of the year along with the word’s other ‘big’ teams. Apart from hosts Zimbabwe, the 10-team pre-qualifier will include the likes of Ireland, Scotland, Namibia, Netherlands and one of Sri Lanka or the West Indies, any of whom can win the game which condemns South Africa to the ODI wilderness.
Should Temba Bavuma’s team lose 3-0 to England, the Harare trip is guaranteed. Should they lose 2-1 there is still a chance they can sneak into the main WC draw provided Sri Lanka only win one of their three ODIs against New Zealand in March. If Sri Lanka win two of those matches then SA will definitely need to win four of their remaining five Super League fixtures. Should Sri Lanka complete an unlikely 3-0 sweep against the Black Caps, SA will have needed to win all five.
There is another complicating caveat. Of course there is. Should South Africa be penalised a point for a slow over-rate during any of their matches, they would still be heading for Harare. Such are the margins.
The long-term scenarios are wildly divergent. Sneak into the World Cup, either automatically or with a heart-stopping victory against the UAE at the Harare Sports Club, then the England series might be quickly forgotten. But lose to England, crash in Zimbabwe, unthinkably fail to qualify for the World Cup, and – despite being hosts for the 2027 version – the ramifications of missing a generation of World Cup cricket could be catastrophic, and not just financially.
The selection of an uber-conservative squad for the England series has raised eyebrows. There are no new caps, no ‘brave’ calls on wildcards like Dewald Brevis, no sense or recognition that rebuilding is required. The 18-man (!) squad has been chosen on the basis of those ‘in situ’, not on form. Janneman Malan and Reeza Hendricks would surely not have been included on the basis of recent form. It is understandable. Sort of.
New white-ball coach, Rob Walter, was consulted before the squad was selected and announced. He is still in New Zealand from where he was interviewed for the job and appointed. What impression might he have created with the national players had he been perceived to be chopping and changing from (very) afar without involvement in the local or national game? He won’t even be in South Africa for the series. Test coach Shukri Conrad will oversee preparations.
Instead, he has adopted the pragmatic view. ‘Most of you were involved in getting the team into this situation, so you have the opportunity to get us out of it.’ Anyone expecting (or wanting) an old-school ‘tough-nut’ to knock some form into the players will be, I’m pleased to say, very disappointed. Walter was born and bred in Pretoria and has had his sharp-ends frost-bitten during five years in Dunedin coaching the Otago Volts, but that experience has made him even more committed to investing in the people who play cricket rather than ‘cricketers.’
Like all good coaches, Walter prefers to get to know the players he is inheriting before deciding if they are the best and whether he can work with them. There is also a natural ‘timing’ to his decision within the four-year rhythm of World Cups. If and when the time comes to start a substantial rebuild, he will have had conversations with Dewald Brevis, Tristan Stubbs, Jordan Hermann and many others in the up-and-coming generation.
There is also a synergy in the relationship between Conrad and Walter. Not only has Conrad, like Walter, coached at senior Franchise level, but he has spent the better part of the last decade working at National Academy and High Performance level. This season he coached the national Under-19 team through an unbeaten campaign to the Division T20 title. Conrad has a better understanding and more first-hand knowledge of the next generation than most people in the country.
So the national team will gather in Bloemfontein 48 hours before the first game while their new coach packs up his house and heads back to the land of his birth on Feb 20. Bavuma and his players shouldn’t need a coach for this assignment. All they should need to do is take a long, hard look at each other and then at themselves. They have a World Cup to get to. That’s how far we have fallen. South Africans used to worry about winning them.
There's a World Cup to Qualify for
There's an extra permutation for the Harare jaunt, Neil, I think. Ireland are still in with a shout, and neither WI nor Sri Lanka are confirmed to qualify for the WC automatically. Ireland have a series against Bangladesh in May, and depending on other results, wouldn't necessarily even need a clean sweep to qualify automatically.
I notice that the Guardian version of this piece also said that the UAE would be playing--which, unless the ICC have changed the qualifying pathway since they first announced it, also isn't yet confirmed: Oman would be the third direct qualifier for the qualifiers from that league.
In past first class players played every game facing test quality bowling now they NEVER face test quality bowling Shukri knows where to look….!!