The season when SA shuffled sideways
What worked, what didn’t and what must change
“PERHAPS they’ve gone sideways,” was Lance Klusener’s opinion on whether South Africa went forwards or backwards in 2013-14.
Played 29, won 16, lost 11 sounds like a decent return for a season’s work. But the Proteas are not most teams.
“When I sit down in front of my TV, I want to see them win,” Klusener said.
SA had to fight back from their first loss in 16 tests to draw their series against Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates in October.
Against India, they emerged from a Wanderers test they should have won to win at Kingsmead.
Reality finally bit against Australia, who blew SA away at Centurion and, less emphatically, at Newlands. Between those games, the Proteas delivered their finest test performance of the season to win at St George’s Park.
To Mitchell Johnson belongs the unofficial man-of-the-summer award for the visceral vi- olence of his 12/127 at Centurion.
Almost in that league was Michael Clarke surviving a murderous Morne Morkel to score an undefeated 161 at Newlands. Even David Warner’s scores of 12, 115, 70, 66 135 and 145 failed to match Clarke’s courage for drama.
Imran Tahir’s five wickets before lunch on the first day in Abu Dhabi sticks in the memory, as does Graeme Smith’s 234 in Dubai and the contrasting but brilliant centuries Faf du Plessis and AB de Villiers scored against India at the Wanderers before things turned stupid.
Dale Steyn’s culpable homicide of the Aussies on the last afternoon in Port Elizabeth is also trapped in amber.
But South Africans will remember the test summer not for any isolated performance. Instead, they will never forget what they were doing when Jacques Kallis retired from tests on Christmas Day.
They will also know, forever, where they were when news of captain Smith calling it quits broke at 10.21pm on March 3.
“Kallis left a very big hole; maybe we didn’t realise how big,” Klusener said. As for Smith picking the third day of the Newlands test to announce his retirement, “That didn’t help.”
Of the series loss against an Aussie outfit that were expected to be a softer touch than some of their predecessors, Klusener said: “They’re a good team right now. We ran into an Australian team on the up.”
But Klusener was not as forgiving about the way the Proteas tackled the shorter formats this summer, in which they won seven of 11 one-day internationals and six of the same number of Twenty20s.
“We need better direction in the ODI team,” he said.
“What is our best XI? We don’t know. It’s nice to rest players, but you need your best team to play 80% of the time and I don’t know whether that’s happening.
“There’s a lot of resting going on. There’s not a lot of winning going on.
“Our role definition could be better. I don’t think we quite know how we want to play.”
For Mike Procter, SA’s season was summed up by their loss to India in their World T20 semifinal in Dhaka.
“AB (de Villiers) is not Lance Klusener,” Procter said. “How come you want him to bat for only five or six overs? How can
AB de Villiers is not Lance Klusener. How come you want him to bat for only five or six overs? How can you open with a part-time spinner against India?
you open with a part-time spinner (JP Duminy) against India?
“I’m not pin-pointing that particular game; I’m using it as an example of what is bad thinking overall in our cricket right now.
“You’ve got to look at it like Gerrie Nel would — with common sense.”
Oscar Pistorius should know his fate before SA resume hostilities in Sri Lanka in July.