Kirsten influence beginning to show in batting line-up
FOR the first time in 10 years covering six one-day series, a rubber between South Africa and Pakistan is not going down to the wire.
The fifth and last match of the series will be played in Sharjah tomorrow, but SA clinched victory by winning the fourth clash by 28 runs in Abu Dhabi on Friday.
That said, it has been an eventual journey for AB de Villiers’s team. They were fortunate to scrape home by a solitary run in the first game before being soundly beaten in the second. SA returned that favour in the third match.
Batting was the problem in the first two matches: being bowled out for 183 and 143 is not what most one-day wins are made of. That’s where Gary Kirsten came in.
He was summoned as a “batting mentor”, and the rest is in the results. For Alan Dawson, the credit for the success of that move belonged to Russell Domingo.
“When batsmen go through a good run they can become complacent and that’s when imperfections creep in,” Dawson said.
“Gary would have picked up on these factors and I take my hat off to Russell for being man enough and bold enough to ask for his help.
“When you are part of the squad you can find yourself going along with the problem. But when you’re looking at things from outside, like Gary is doing, you can see what’s wrong.”
SA had the same top seven in the first two games, save for Du Plessis and AB de Villiers swapping between four and five.
The next two games featured a new opening pair — Hashim Amla returned from paternity leave for Colin Ingram and Quinton de Kock replaced Graeme Smith, who was ruled out with post-concussion syndrome. Du Plessis was at No 3 instead of JP Duminy, who moved to No 4.
In the first match, SA’s highest score was delivered by their No 8 batsman, Wayne Parnell, who made a nuggety 56. Their best effort in the second game came from Ryan McLaren, who batted at No 7 for his 29.
A measure of orthodoxy had returned by the third match, when Du Plessis scored 55 and Duminy 64. The plan came together properly on Friday, when De Kock celebrated his maiden ODI century, an impressively mature 112, Amla added 46, and two of the first three partnerships topped 50 runs.
SA’s totals were 259/8 and 266/5 respectively.
But questions about SA’s approach remain for former Proteas fast bowler Makhaya Ntini: “Parnell played very well with bat and ball, and it’s not good that a man who is in form is kicked out [after the first two games]. They also said they wanted to see what Vernon Philander [who has yet to play in the series] could do in this format, and then they make him the water boy.”
Not even Dale Steyn’s careerbest 5/25 on Friday, the most memorable ODI bowling performance in years, can invalidate Ntini’s point.