Fast bowlers key to ruling world – Gibson
HAVING grown up in the time when Messrs Holding, Marshall, Garner, Croft and Roberts ruled the world it would only be natural that Ottis Gibson should have a love for fast bowlers.
Considering this affinity would only have been intensified once Gibson learnt the science of fast bowling, and had the pleasure of working with some of the world’s finest exponents of the art, it should not come as a shock that South Africa’s latest head coach wants the Proteas to fire with a fourpronged attack.
The West Indian is certainly hoping to fulfil this ideal in home conditions for the remainder of the series against India – even now with pace spearhead Dale Steyn having been ruled out with a heel injury.
“I’m a very fast-bowling minded coach and I guess we will always have to find a balance to see if we get four fast bowlers in the team, first of all. We’ll look at things like are the conditions suited to four fast bowlers. If not we try and shape the team in other ways,” Gibson said. “Ultimately, especially in this series and for the rest of the summer, we will be looking to see how best we can fit four fast bowlers into whatever formula we come up with.”
South Africa’s pace bowling unit certainly hunted like a pack at Newlands. Despite the absence of Steyn – who picked up two wickets before hobbling off – for the majority of the Test the fast bowlers still claimed all 20 Indian wickets to fall. It was a remarkable effort, especially in the second innings when Vernon Philander led the way with career-best figures of 6/42.
India’s batsmen succumbed to the pressure even though South Africa only had three seamers to call on instead of the four selected. Not only were India’s batsmen’s techniques exposed against the seaming ball, but also their game plans, as they were caught between attack and defence.
But with South Africa skittling India for just 132 with only the services of Philander, Morne Morkel and Kagiso Rabada at their disposal, does Gibson not think a threeman fast bowling attack is sufficient?
“We might have bowled them out for less (if Steyn was available)! Who knows?” Gibson chirped.
The replacements called up for the second Test at Centurion certainly suggest Gibson is going to stick to his guns. Local prodigy Lungi Ngidi has received a maiden Test call-up at his home ground, while Knights pacemen Duanne Olivier has also returned to the enlarged Test squad.
“When you are playing at home, you must play to your strengths,” Gibson said.
“If you want to beat the best team in the world, which India are, then maybe we have to do something slightly different to what we’ve done in the past. We have to get stuck in and be tough with the bat and the ball; get in their faces a bit and use our physicality in terms of our pace. We had, in this game, three guys bowling over 140 [km/h] so we need to use that and have a presence that says we are trying to get to where you are as a team.”
Gibson is certainly leaving no stone unturned to ensure all his fast bowlers are ready and fit for action for the duration of the summer.
“Last week we had a discussion with the medical panel about trying to set up a group of people to look after fast bowlers better. I think that fast bowlers are the bedrock of a really good cricket system and if we want to be No 1 in the world, especially in our conditions, fast bowlers are very important to that process,” Gibson said.
“We need to find ways of looking after, monitoring, training our fast bowlers better because there have been a lot of injuries even before I got here.”