Wickets will be on the menu in first Test
● Never mind who’s batting, tell the taxi to wait if you’re off to Centurion on Wednesday.
Pakistan are fresh from being knocked over for fewer than 250 three times in five innings by New Zealand’s middling attack on the Emirates’ forgiving pitches.
SA were dismissed a dozen times in their 14 innings at home last season. Against proper attacks, which do not include those of Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, they posted a first innings of more than 350 just once in four matches.
Let’s remember where the first of SA’s three matches against Pakistan will be played. The captain who has won the toss at Centurion has inserted the opposition 15 times in the 23 Tests played at the ground.
The team batting first have been dismissed for fewer than 250 six times. But they have made more than 400 another halfdozen times. There are, then, runs to be scored given discipline and resolve.
Subcontinental sides have proved short on those qualities. Eight of the 17 teams shot out for under 200 at Centurion have been from Asia, whose sides have lost all nine Tests they have played there, while SA have lost only twice: to England and Australia.
Add to that the fact that Centurion is intent on atoning for the slow surface in last summer’s match against India — it drew acidic criticism from SA’s players and prompted Northerns boss Jacques Faul to admit this week that he and his ground staff were “nervous” about what Wednesday would bring. So you won’t want to blink for fear of missing a slew of wickets.
Pitches for domestic games at Centurion this season have been more sluggish than in the past. But this is a proud, well-run venue, and it is unlikely to get it wrong twice.
SA could, then, do with the safe return to their ranks of the previously peerless Hashim Amla, who has not scored a century for 19 completed Test innings. Part of the problem is that across another 19 innings earlier in his career he made six centuries including an undefeated 311. When you’ve flown so high, anything lower is a crash warning.
“It’s about getting back to work on the things that he needs to work on‚ but he is an experienced player,” Ottis Gibson said. “He has had dips in form but he knows what he needs to do.”
Amla did that on Friday, scoring 61 for the Cobras against the Warriors in Port Elizabeth, where he suffered a first-baller on Wednesday.
But, as Amla will know, St George’s Park is a long way from Centurion in every sense.