T20 cricket, ODIS in focus
SOUTH AFRICA will spend almost a quarter of their time over the next eight months trying to become a more competitive team in the shorter cricket formats.
They have put 19 points of daylight between themselves and their nearest challengers, India, on the International Cricket Council ’ s test rankings.
But SA are fourth on the one-day ladder, 10 ratings points off the pace set by India. In T20 terms SA are ranked sixth. The leaders, Sri Lanka, are 18 points ahead of them.
Attempts to remedy the situation are in the works. Between July 20 and March 14 next year SA will play 17 one-day internationals and 10 T20 games in conditions that will vary from slow, turning subcontinent surfaces to the benign slabs of clay in the United Arab Emirates to their own more lively surfaces.
Adding two training sessions for each of those games means SA will use more than 22% of the days from the start of the one-day series in Sri Lanka to the end of the T20 rubber against Australia to hone their limited-overs skills.
They will do so with one eye on the World T20 in Bangladesh next March and April and the other on the 2015 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. That represents a serious commitment to the cause of ending SA’s trophy drought in ICC tournaments.
But is it the right approach or a shotgun approach?
“I don’t think anyone has sat down and worked out how many games we need to play and how many players we will need for these tournaments,” former Proteas batsman Boeta Dippenaar said yesterday. “These decisions are often made mainly on their commercial value.
“What is the master plan? I can’t tell what it is.
“It’s too simple to say we want to win the World Cup. So do a lot of other countries.”