Knowledge is Power
It’s advantage Otis & Co for World Cup
● “There’s nothing we don’t know about a World Cup in England,” Dale Benkenstein said, his confidence firm despite the fact that the tournament was last played on the sceptered isle 20 years ago.
Not that there could be any faulting his logic. The intimate and fresh knowledge that SA’s coaching triumvirate — Ottis Gibson at its head, batting coach Benkenstein and spin bowling consultant Claude Henderson — have between them will lend SA advantages few other teams will be able to boast.
Gibson was recruited into a South Africa tracksuit in July and August 2017, during his second stint as England bowling coach.
Benkenstein was Hampshire’s coach from February 2014 to July 2016, while HenThat
Up north it’s slow but down south you get belters Dale Benkenstein Batting coach
derson lives in Leicester. All three also come with significant county experience as players: 362 first-class caps of the stuff.
Benkenstein sees that as being useful in terms of the conditions “not only on the field but also off the field”, what with SA playing their nine round-robin games at seven venues up and down the country. “It’s not only about the different pitches but the different grounds and the different sizes of the grounds, and about what works at which grounds — seam or spin,” Benkenstein said.
“And there are varying conditions in England. Up north in places like Durham it’s quite slow but down south you get belters.”
Experience of English conditions isn’t limited to the coaching staff, what with 14 of the 15 members of the squad having played there. The exception is Anrich Nortjé.
Better yet, Nortjé and Rassie van der Dussen are the only South Africans who haven’t played list A games in England.
could become important, because, like Benkenstein said, “As we know as South Africans, the differences in the World Cup can be small.”
Small nuggets of knowledge can indeed become big advantages in the white-hot cauldron of competitiveness that seems to bubble with toil and trouble every four years at the World Cup. An obvious example is the complications the slope at Lord’s — where SA take on Pakistan on June 23 — can play with fielding techniques.
But there are all sorts of nooks and crannies at the Oval, where Faf du Plessis’ team take on Bangladesh three days after their encounter with England there, that can only be known by those who have been there often enough to have built up something like a relationship with those grounds.
The same goes for the Rose Bowl in Southampton — where SA play India on June 5 and West Indies five days after that— Cardiff — for the Afghanistan clash on June 15 — Edgbaston in Birmingham — for New Zealand on June 19 — Chester-le-Street near Durham — to take on Sri Lanka on June 28 — and Old Trafford in Manchester — for the Australia match on July 6.
Other teams are hardly strangers to the well-trodden turf of England. But at least SA won’t lag behind in this department.
Of the other nine head coaches, five have played for teams based there: Afghanistan’s Phil Simmons, Justin Langer of Australia, Bangladesh’s Steve Rhodes, India’s Ravi Shastri, and West Indian Floyd Reifer, who turned out for Scotland in three list A games in 2004. But only Simmons, with Ireland, England’s Trevor Bayliss and Rhodes, a Yorkshireman, have coaching experience there.
Half the teams at the tournament — Australia, India, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and West Indies — will arrive with homegrown mentors. And it may serve as motivation for Gibson to be reminded that the only foreignborn head coach to win a World Cup is Gary Kirsten, a national hero in India in 2011.
All of Australia’s five wins in the 11 tournaments yet played have been achieved under one of their own — Mickey Arthur has been their only foreign coach and he didn’t make it to a World Cup with them.
Gibson, then, could carve himself a big niche: not only the second foreigner to win but the first to do so with a side who haven’t claimed the trophy before.