Crossroads
Proteas batting reaches defining moment
● On December 10 1928 Donald Bradman wrote, signed and dated a note in an autograph book: “If it’s difficult I’ll do it now. If it’s impossible I’ll do it presently.”
His Test debut, in Brisbane, had ended five days earlier. Four days later in Sydney he would be Australia’s 12th man. Bradman’s demotion might have had less to do with him having scored 18 and one than the fact that England won by 675 runs.
It was the only time he was dropped in what, until Asia’s ascendency gained momentum, was the most storied career in the game. Almost 90 years on, Bradman’s 14 simple, powerful words hold valuable lessons for a South African team who find
AB was going to be difficult to replace, like Kallis
Jimmy Cook
Former Test opener
themselves between generations — particularly batting-wise.
Young bowlers have they many. Or at least enough to balance the loss to retirement of Morné Morkel and the diminishing presence of Dale Steyn and Vernon Philander. Kagiso Rabada and Lungi Ngidi take the edge off the anxiety South Africans will feel.
In Keshav Maharaj and Tabraiz Shamsi there are options for replacing Imran Tahir, who will turn 40 two months before SA play England at The Oval in the opening match of the 2019 World Cup.
Matters look more like impossible on the other side of the equation. AB de Villiers has packed his kit and gone, and only four years after Graeme Smith’s retirement followed that of Jacques Kallis and Mark Boucher.
Hashim Amla is a shadow of the player he used to be.
Aiden Markram, Temba Bavuma, Reeza Hendricks and Wiaan Mulder are fine young batsmen. But are they good enough to step into what looms as a yawning breach?
“AB was always going to be very difficult to replace, like Kallis,” former Test opener Jimmy Cook said. “In fact I don’t think we’ve properly replaced Kallis yet.
“We definitely need a new generation of batsmen. Who are they going to be? Markram is a quality player … who after that? That’s what South African officials need to be looking at.”
Prompted, Mulder earned Cook’s vote: “He’s got a lovely temperament. He’s a nice, down-to-earth character. I think he can go far.”
But it was difficult not to feel and indeed share Cook’s concern at the scarcity of viable candidates to step in for, for instance, Amla. How might anyone take over from a player who has, for more than 10 years, been central to SA’s team?
“The short answer is you don’t replace him,” Cook said. “Not only is it that he is a class batsman, it’s the experience that someone like that has gained over all the years which is hard to just pass on to a new player.
“Somebody like Markram is an outstanding young batsman but, without the experience, he’s found it difficult in Sri Lanka. Even Hashim, with all his experience, has struggled in Sri Lanka.
“Guys get used to making runs; they know how to go about it. Good young players do emerge but the experience of knowing what to do in different situations takes a while to come through.”
Among the many good things Quinton de Kock has done in his 158 games in all three SA shirts is not indulge in the kind of clichémongering that makes some players difficult to take seriously.
“It’s just nice to finally bat a game with ‘Hash’,” De Kock said after he and Amla had shared an opening stand of 91 in the second one-day international in Dambulla on Wednesday.
“I can’t remember the last time we batted together [for a significant period]. It’s just nice to score some runs together.”
De Kock doesn’t say much. But, as with Bradman, there’s more than meets the eye to his words.
Amla has been first out in all four ODI innings he and De Kock have opened this year, not counting today’s third match of the series against Sri Lanka, and only once in the eight matches in the format he has played in 2018 has he passed 50 — though his 43 on Wednesday promised a return to form.
But, at 35 and creakier than ever, he is staring into the sunset of a wonderful career.
There are probably a fair few kilometres left in Amla’s tank, but as he showed when he quit the Test captaincy in January 2016 in the middle of SA’s series against England, he makes his own decisions.
But, with or without Hashim Amla, future-proofing their batting is something SA are going to be able to do presently rather than now.