The fast and the furious
PROMISE: COACH GIBSON TO USE UNRELENTING PACE
Approach echoes the great West Indies attacks of 70s and 80s. Cape Town
Barbados-born Ottis Gibson grew up in the halcyon years of great West Indian fast bowlers and the new Proteas coach seems intent on drawing energy from South Africa’s own historic abundance of quicks as he looks to power the team back to the No 1 ranking in Tests.
The Proteas raised eyebrows with their selection of four fast bowlers and spinner Keshav Maharaj for the first Test against current world No 1 India in Cape Town, but the plan worked in impressive fashion with the visitors blown away for just 209 and 135 as South Africa won by 72 runs.
The unrelenting pressure and hostility exerted by Vernon Philander, Kagiso Rabada, Morne Morkel and Dale Steyn drew comparisons with the great West Indian pace quartets of the 1970s and 80s, and Gibson confirmed it would be his preferred tactic for the rest of the home summer.
“When you’re at home, you want to play to your strengths and we have some high-quality fast bowlers and rather sporty pitches,” Gibson said at Newlands.
“Centurion should have the same pace and bounce so that will probably be the make-up of the team going forward, although we will do what’s best for the conditions.
“I’m a very fast-bowling minded coach I guess and I’m always asking ‘can we get four fast bowlers in and are conditions conducive?’ For the rest of the summer, I think we’ll be seeing how we can best fit four fast bowlers into the team. If you want to beat the best – and India are No 1 – then maybe you need to do things slightly differently and we want to get in their faces a bit, use our pace.”
Steyn breaking down again will obviously cause a change in personnel for the second Test in Centurion from Saturday, and the most like-for-like replacement in terms of pace would be Chris Morris or Lungi Ngidi.
Gibson was mindful of the injury crises the Proteas have just emerged from, saying he was in discussions with Cricket South Africa to ensure there is no recurrence. “Every time you lose a player it is a concern, but I felt really sorry for Dale because he has worked so hard to get back and he did a lot of good stuff in the first innings. There were injury problems even before I got here and it is something we are trying to rectify.
“Fast bowlers are the bedrock of a really good cricketing system and we have to find ways of looking after, training and monitoring our fast bowlers better,” Gibson said.