Ken Borland

Younis Khan has posted three centuries in his last four Tests against South Africa and, on the eve of the daunting task of taking on the Proteas at the Wanderers, the 34-year-old veteran says the key for Pakistan’s batsmen is to remain positive.

Practically everyone, from the pundits and the bloggers, to those who comment online, agrees that Pakistan’s fortunes in this three-match series will rest on how well their batsmen cope with South Africa’s formidable pace attack and, given all the hype, there is the danger that the touring batsmen will become inhibited, switch to survival mode and ultimately allow the bowlers to dominate.

Younis is a cavalier strokeplayer at heart but he has also played several notable rearguard innings during his 79-Test career, but in a short interview he gave this week he stressed the word “positive” no fewer than six times in two minutes.

“We are very positive, we know that to win against South Africa we have to play with a positive frame of mind and play some positive cricket. If we play like that we have a good chance against South Africa.

“If we play to our potential then we can provide them with some good competition. South Africa know from when we played them in Abu Dhabi and Dubai that we played some good, positive cricket, they know how we play.

“South Africa are the number one team and are doing a very good job these days in both departments, batting and bowling. They have a very balanced team, so I wish Pakistan plays some positive cricket against them. We have some younger players as well, who are also very positive, so I think this is a good chance for those youngsters as well,” Younis said as he surely channelled Norman Vincent Peale.

Captain Misbah ul-Haq concurred on Thursday.

“Being positive is the way to go, we have to back our ability. We need to be aggressive, put the bad balls away and always think positively – it’s the only way to compete against the top sides.”

But Pakistan batsmen are not particularly well-known for assured footwork and that, combined with them being used to flat sub-continental tracks and the Wanderers being renowned for the moving ball,  both swing and seam, will bring Dale Steyn and Vernon Philander into the contest in a big way.

Steyn has taken 36 wickets in seven Tests at the Wanderers and has claimed five in an innings there on three occasions and 10 in the Test against New Zealand in 2007. He thrives on the pace he gets off the hard surface and the late swing he is able to generate.

Philander has played just one previous Test in Johannesburg and almost bowled South Africa to victory over Australia with five for 70 in the second innings of their 2011 encounter, and his ability to move the ball into or away from the batsman from a tight off-stump line will make him a handful on a pitch that traditionally sports some grass.

While seam and swing are two of the Wanderers’ best attributes for pace bowlers, the pitch also provides steepling bounce and that will interest both Morne Morkel and potential Pakistan debutant Mohammad Irfan.

There has been plenty of hype around Irfan, mostly due to the fact that he is over seven feet tall, but his candidacy as a match-winner for the tourists will surely be undermined by his lack of experience.

Although he is 30 years old, he has played just five ODIs and two T20 internationals, and has an underwhelming four wickets to his name.

As Morkel pointed out, being that tall makes it imperative that the bowler finds the right length to bowl.

“It’s obviously an advantage to get bounce, but you have to get a fuller length over here, especially at the Wanderers, where it’s the key. Otherwise a lot of batsmen will just leave you on length.

“But sometimes when you try to get the ball fuller, you just put the ball there. Irfan won’t have any experience of these pitches and their extra bounce, so it will take some time for him to adapt,” Morkel said.

South African captain Graeme Smith, who will become the first cricketer to captain in 100 Tests, was being feted by Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula on Thursday for his ability to rise above adversity. “He has the spirit of never surrender and is the paragon of human perfection,” was the high point of the razzmatazz, but his team have normally felt very comfortable at the Wanderers and it’s a venue they know and understand well.

“We have good experience of playing at the Wanderers and on the Highveld there’s usually more swing and good pace and bounce. We understand what we need to do and we just have to be clinical,” Smith said.

South Africa’s batting was clinical enough against New Zealand, with four centuries in the two innings they had in the two Tests, but the quality of the Kiwi attack was nowhere near what Pakistan will bring to the contest.

Left-armer Junaid Khan is well-equipped to also take advantage of the conditions in Johannesburg, but South Africa’s batsmen have handled Umar Gul and spinner Saeed Ajmal well in previous Test meetings.

There is, of course, a celebratory mood in Johannesburg as one of the city’s favourite sons achieves what no one else has managed in the great history of Test cricket, and on his birthday too, but Smith is confident both he and the team will be able to keep their emotions in check come 10.30am on Friday.

“Tomorrow I’ll wake up and turn 32 and lead South Africa for the 100^th time in a Test, so that will be one of the proudest moments in my life. It won’t be easy to maintain focus, but I had a taste of it when I played my 100^th Test at the Oval and we were able to be successful.

“But that was in a foreign city and I was able to create a bit of space, but here in South Africa there has been such an outpouring of love, it’s been very special and I’ve been walking around in a buzz.

“The team training has been tough, though, and there’s a good maturity in this group and I can feel the energy in the way we’ve prepared. We just need to go out and put it into play and hope for a good day one,” Smith said.

Pakistan will probably line up on Friday with two debutants in opening batsman Nasir Jamshed (Taufeeq Umar has a shin stress-fracture and is going home) and Irfan, while many of their squad will be experiencing the Bullring for the first time.

If anything, they might be the ones who find themselves distracted by the atmosphere.

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As South African cricket spends the week celebrating the remarkable leadership career of their greatest Test captain, Graeme Smith, it is perhaps time to also consider a daring change in captaincy for the limited-overs team.

When the first Test against Pakistan starts at the Wanderers on Friday, Smith will head out for the toss for the 100^th time, the first captain in the history of the game to reach the milestone. He will turn 32 on the same day and Smith is universally respected as a leader and batsman, even more so outside of South Africa.

While the focus will rightly be on how Smith has led South Africa to the pinnacle of Test cricket, it is worth remembering how it all started.

In March 2003, then selection convenor Omar Henry announced that the 22-year-old Smith, who had played just eight Tests, would be the successor to Shaun Pollock following the dismal showing at the World Cup South Africa hosted.

It was a daring gamble, but the physically imposing Smith had already shown the strength of character that marked him out as a leader of men. Nearly 10 years later, he is still at the helm of a ship that has survived some stormy seas to become the undisputed champion of Test cricket, as dominant away from home as they are in South Africa.

After leading South Africa in 149 ODIs, Smith handed over the reins to his anointed successor, AB de Villiers, 18 months ago.

De Villiers, one of the finest batsmen of the modern era, a team man to the core and blessed with a certain charm, has little previous captaincy experience, however, and whether he is the right man to be Smith’s long-term successor is now in doubt.

De Villiers, selection convenor Andrew Hudson and coach Gary Kirsten all believed  AB could do the job, but there is no harm in admitting that was a mistake and moving on to allow him to concentrate on being a key, match-winning batsman for South Africa and keeping wicket in the limited-overs games.

Choosing leaders can be hit-and-miss – Mark Boucher, Nicky Boje and Jacques Kallis have all tried their hand at it when Smith has been injured – and this is also proven by the case of Hashim Amla.

A leader all through his school days at Durban High School, Amla captained the Dolphins when he was just 21 and national recognition followed suit in 2011 when he was named vice-captain of the Proteas.

But yesterday Amla confirmed that he was seriously considering relinquishing that post, because he was not willing to be captain of the team when the selectors turned to him in the wake of the suspension of De Villiers for a slow over-rate offence.

“I’m considering stepping down from the vice-captaincy, there’s no point in being vice-captain if I’m not willing to be captain. I turned down the captaincy when AB wasn’t there because I wanted to concentrate on my batting,” Amla admitted in Sandton on Tuesday.

There is a maze of on-field and off-field responsibilities a captain has to negotiate and the local boo-brigade that consistently snipe away at Smith will hopefully realise just what a phenomenal skipper he has been when they consider he has carried that burden for 10 years, while the likes of Amla and De Villiers, both quality men, are struggling with it after just 18 months.

The ODI series against New Zealand saw De Villiers go on record as saying he found it tough to concentrate on all the decisions he had to make in the field (as his over-rate disaster showed) as well as keep wicket and focus on his key batting role.

Faf du Plessis stood in when De Villiers was suspended after the first game and perhaps that is the route the selectors should now go down on a permanent basis when the Proteas are in green. It wouldn’t even be as much of a gamble as Smith’s appointment was.

Du Plessis was AB’s captain at Afrikaans Hoër Seunskool (Affies) and was impressive in leading the SA A side last year, and was cool and calm in the field against New Zealand last week.

With Du Plessis taking over the captaincy, De Villiers could play as the limited-overs wicketkeeper/batsman because that move was a success, the 28-year-old averaging 77 since taking over the gloves, while South Africa have won 32 of the 42 ODIs they’ve played with him behind the stumps.

The Test captaincy is another matter and Smith can hopefully soldier on until 2015 – the year of the next World Cup, when he may well hang up the boots. De Villiers is also then likely to have to fill the number four batting slot vacated by the retirement of Jacques Kallis, so the task of keeping wicket as well will surely be too much for someone who will be 30 and does not have the most stable of backs.

And if De Villiers is not ready then for the skipper’s armband, Du Plessis will have had two years of experience in the limited-overs game.

There has also been plenty of gnashing of teeth over what will happen to the South African team when the awful day of Kallis’s retirement finally dawns, and De Villiers doing the wicketkeeping job permanently has been mentioned as one of the cures to losing such an incredible all-rounder.

But De Villiers should rather have the responsibility, because he has the ability, to replacing the thousands of runs Kallis scores.

The Australians dominated world cricket in the 1990s and 2000s without a genuine all-rounder and the Proteas should look to specialists to do the same. Six specialist batsmen (Dean Elgar, Alviro Petersen, Amla, De Villiers, Du Plessis and JP Duminy; the latter pair both part-time bowlers too), a wicketkeeper/batsman (Thami Tsolekile or one of the younger contenders), and four specialist bowlers (Robin Peterson, Vernon Philander, Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel) will give South Africa a team that is still highly capable of being the best in the world.

Their current captain, Graeme Smith, has laid the platform for a period of sustained dominance, but what of the person behind all those runs (the most ever in successful fourth-innings run-chases) and victories?

Kallis is eminently qualified to speak on Smith’s character: “It’s incredible to achieve what he has, after taking over at his age. He has proven a lot of people wrong, he has faced down so much criticism and he has always led from the front. I don’t think 100 Tests as captain will ever be done again.

“If he says the team needs to do something, he’s always the first guy to go and do it. As the opening batsman, he sets the tone, he takes on challenges and he never backs down. At certain times he’s in the opposition’s face and at others he’s just absorbing pressure. He’s learnt which character to be at certain times, and that’s the biggest improvement in his captaincy,” Kallis said on Tuesday.

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