Ken Borland

Graeme Smith is the captain who has sent the opposition in to bat more than any other skipper in Test history and the statistics for Centurion show that South Africa have won four of the last six Tests there batting second.

So the decision to send Australia in to bat on the first day of the first Test at SuperSport Park yesterday perhaps should not have been as surprising as it was. Except that the conditions really did not justify it: there was bright sunshine, the temperature was already high, the pitch had a slight greenish-yellow tinge to it but nothing out of the ordinary. It was the sort of day that just feels like a “batting day”.

The first session was always going to be tough for batsmen and the Australians struggled to 83 for three at lunch and were 98 for four soon after the break. But by the close of play, Shaun Marsh and Steven Smith had added 199 to take the tourists through to 297 for four at stumps.

Apart from not being at their sharpest, once again starting a Test series slowly, South Africa were guilty of not playing what was in front of them; the statistical history might have said one thing, but the here and now of the actual conditions were suggesting the opposite.

Coach Russell Domingo is known to be an ardent follower of statistics and Ryan McLaren admitted after the day’s play that the decision at the toss had been motivated by past history.

“The stats going into the game say enough – in most games, the team bowling first ends up winning, it’s a high percentage and it’s what’s worked in the past,” McLaren said.

Yesterday, however, it was a case of the pitch offering the usual amount of assistance for the first hour and then flattening out.

“The ball moved around a bit in the beginning, but it was slowish off the pitch. And then the ball got softer and the pitch became slower and flatter as the day went on,” McLaren admitted.

The overall record at Centurion indicates that the team batting second have won the Test 10 times in 19 matches, which is only slightly greater than 50%. Australia, having not appeared here since 1997, just played what was in front of them.

“We were surprised actually that we were sent in to bat,” Steven Smith said. “We thought it would be quite tough this morning, but if you get through that initial period then it would be quite nice for batting. And there is good pace and bounce in the wicket and if you get through the start, then it is good for batting.

“There are a few cracks forming too and, with the heat overhead, we’re hoping to get a big total and then use those cracks.”

South Africa’s bowlers toiled admirably, but were not at their sharpest. Dale Steyn, suffering from a stomach bug, deserves special mention for bowling 20 overs and taking two for 54.

His strikes removed dangermen David Warner (12) and Michael Clarke (23), but it’s apparent that there is a definite release in pressure once the seamers come out of the South African attack.

Australia were precariously placed on 113 for four after 40 overs midway through the second session when Robin Peterson came on to bowl. Marsh and Smith hit 22 runs off his four overs to change the momentum and added 63 runs in the 14 overs before tea.

Smith, originally a limited-overs dasher, plays with a refreshing simplicity and plenty of good sense, and he admitted that tightening up his technique and being more patient have been the two major factors in his recent success.

Marsh, able to average no more than 35.02 in first-class cricket, went to his second Test century and surprised everyone. A controversial selection, his inclusion was a hunch that did pay off and is going to be celebrated for a long while.

The left-hander was able to play within himself, occupying the crease for five-and-three-quarter hours, but he was accomplished when driving down the ground or cutting.

“Marsh and Smith played really well, you have to give credit to them. Shaun showed how good a player he is, he was under pressure, he took a few blows, but he adapted well,” McLaren said.

South Africa took more blows on the first day than Australia, but they have shown time and time again that they can adapt to misfortune, even if much of it was self-inflicted right at the start of the day.

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Now that the sun has finally set on the glorious Test career of Jacques Kallis, South Africa will spend the rest of the summer trying to ascertain the best way of replacing a genuine, almost unique three-in-one cricketer.

And that is going to take time. Whoever steps into the great man’s shoes today, whether that be another all-rounder like Ryan McLaren or Wayne Parnell, or an extra bowler in Rory Kleinveldt, or even an extra batsman in Dean Elgar, it should not be taken as a guarantee that that will be the way forward in the future for South Africa.

“Whether we choose the extra batsman, an all-rounder or the extra bowler depends on which one of those options is right for the conditions and for this stage of the series,” captain Graeme Smith said yesterday on the eve of the Test.

Kallis has been a key factor in South Africa reaching number one in the Test rankings, but he has retired before the Proteas can honestly say they have built a dynasty like that of the West Indies in the late 1970s-1980s or the Australians from the late 1990s-2000s.

And one of the chief stars of that great West Indian outfit, fast bowler Michael Holding, had some advice for the South African team: “Don’t look for another Jacques Kallis!”

Holding pointed to England’s experience in trying to replace Ian Botham, the great Somerset all-rounder.

West Indian great Michael Holding

“England tormented themselves for many years trying to find the new Ian Botham, choosing players like Derek Pringle and David Capel. But you cannot replace a player like that every day, you’re going to hang around and wait a long time, and the same applies to Kallis.

“If South Africa want four fast bowlers then they must just pick them. If you want four fast bowlers, then you have six batsmen and a wicketkeeper. We did it because we had enough depth in our batting with Jeffrey Dujon scoring hundreds at number seven and only one of our fast bowlers not scoring a 50 in Tests,” Holding said yesterday at a SuperSport breakfast.

The problem with South Africa just playing four frontline seamers is that they will then not have a specialist spinner in their line-up. Coach Russell Domingo has already said he does not feel JP Duminy is ready yet to bowl 20 overs in a Test, and the same surely applies to Elgar, and Smith is reluctant not to have a specialist spinner in the team.

“The forecast is for pretty warm weather and if it’s hot, you generally have a good batting surface. Then we’re certainly reluctant not to play a specialist spinner, we feel his role is crucial and I would be surprised if we don’t play one,” Smith said.

South Africa’s tactics revolve around creating pressure through strangulation and their efforts to stringently police the run-rate can be nullified by a team attacking the spinner and hitting him out of the attack, something Australian batsmen have always been most adept at doing.

Which is where the fourth seamer, performing a holding role, becomes a crucial part of the attack.

The presence of McLaren, who has a first-class batting average of 30.63, added to the usefulness of Robin Peterson, Vernon Philander and even Dale Steyn down the order, would also give South Africa plenty of batting depth if conditions are in favour of the bowlers.

While South Africa should be eternally grateful for the 13 289 runs, 292 wickets and 200 catches Kallis provided from 1995, it is time to move on and choose the best balanced XI to win Tests, not try to find someone to mimic the same role as a top-order batsman and bowler.

Notwithstanding the effort to find a solution to the Kallis conundrum, Holding fancies South Africa to have the edge over Australia in the three-Test series.

“South Africa are a very, very good side, even without Jacques Kallis, who leaves a big hole. They have more depth than this Australian team, which is not as good as previous ones.

“I think it will be a very tight series, Australia have a fair amount of confidence but South Africa are a better team and should end up in front. The better batting team will win,” Holding said.

The man known as “Whispering Death” because of his near-silent approach to the crease and the destruction he wrought at the other end, encouraged South Africa to seize the initiative.

“Michael Clarke knows in his mind that they are underdogs, he’s not just saying it. South Africa should recognise that they are the better team, but never ever be complacent.”

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Australia’s previous tour to South Africa – in November 2011 – was famous for their incredible 47 all out at Newlands, but the entire two-Test series was characterised by the bowlers dominating. And this year’s three-Test series which starts at Centurion on Wednesday is shaping up to be similar.

Of the 8 innings in that previous series, only two were above 300 and South Africa’s 339 all out in the second innings at the Wanderers (where Australia levelled the rubber) was the highest total.

Australian wicketkeeper Brad Haddin scored a match-winning half-century to win that thrilling second Test and he said on Monday that his approach in this series would be to “get them before they get you” … in other words, the feisty veteran is not going to hang around, he’ll be trying to score quickly before the inevitable ball that dismisses him comes along.

But Hashim Amla was the most successful batsman in that series with centuries at both Newlands and the Wanderers, and he was typically unruffled on Monday by all the talk about a bowling shootout and batsmen having to hit out before they get out.

“Conditions will be the deciding factor, but regardless of those, I will try and occupy the crease, that’s the best way to score runs. Both teams are quite attacking, but it’s impossible to say what the pitch will be like until the game starts,” Amla said.

The Bearded Wonder is probably at the other end of the scale to Australian batsmen like Haddin and David Warner when it comes to batting. That pair are both extremely aggressive in their approach, while the likes of Michael Clarke and Steven Smith can be described as very positive; it is only opener Chris Rogers who has shown the propensity for patience that Amla epitomises.

And with an Australian attack that is bound to be a handful on what is expected to be a helpful surface at SuperSport Park, South Africa seem to be banking on grinding out runs with captain Graeme Smith stating that “batting ugly” normally wins the day here at home.

There is even more focus on Amla now as the banker in the batting line-up with the retirement of Jacques Kallis, but he was, again, unfazed.

“Nobody can replace Jacques and I don’t feel like I’m any more of a senior batsman now. Sure, the team does have a different dynamic now, a different flavour, but there was a contingency plan because we knew the day was going to come when Jacques retired.

“The way Faf du Plessis has fitted in in exceptional circumstances means we hope he can slot in again and do his thing. We all believe he can, he’s proven he’s a world-class performer,” Amla said.

With Du Plessis almost certain to replace Kallis at number four in the batting order, the only unknown when South Africa announce their XI at the toss on Wednesday morning will be who comes in lower down the list as the all-rounder.

When the Proteas played their warm-up match last week at the Wanderers, Ryan McLaren seemed the steadier, more likely option. Wayne Parnell was more threatening with the ball but also more expensive, while Rory Kleinveldt was impressive with the ball but is not as consistent a batsman as McLaren.

If bowlers hold as much sway as they are expected to, then South Africa will surely want the better batsman amongst their all-rounders.

That being said, Amla was full of confidence that they could handle the Australian attack, however dismally the soft English batting line-up fared against them.

“We’ve played against Australia a lot and against the same bowling attack, and we’ve had success against them. We don’t think there are too many big issues,” he said.

Australia, who have lost their number three batsman in Shane Watson to injury for the first Test, continue to talk up their bowlers, but there is less confidence when it comes to their batting.

“We had a really good hit out on the Johannesburg centre wicket against our own bowlers but it was very uncomfortable at times, I was petrified!” Haddin said.

“The obvious challenge is going to be the first innings, when big runs are very important.”

Haddin saw South Africa as the favourites and whether Australia’s all-out approach can rattle them remains to be seen against the bowling attack that has most consistently applied the strangulation method in the last four years, not just the last six months.

The typical Aussie brashness was not there when Haddin said “South Africa are number one for a reason, they’ve played consistent cricket over a long period of time. They deserve the tag as favourites, but you play Test cricket to test yourself. We hope they’re not too good.”

Unlimited Titans coach Rob Walter yesterday conceded that the right two teams will be competing in the RamSlam T20 Challenge final because his side only showed glimpses of their true ability through the competition.

The Titans were beaten by the David Miller-inspired Dolphins in Thursday night’s qualifying playoff for the final, leaving the KwaZulu-Natal side to take on the Cape Cobras in the final at Newlands on Sunday.

“To sum up our campaign, I would say we showed glimpses of what we can do, but never really put it all together. It was an inconsistent campaign and making the playoff for finishing third was a small reward for the times we did play well,” Walter told The Pretoria News.

“Our skills can be better in everything and you’d hope a team always has that mindset. We were short in all departments and you can’t do things well one day and not the next if you’re going to win competitions. We need to improve our skills and execute them more consistently.”

The Dolphins were sent in to bat and posted a daunting 200 for four in their 20 overs. Their innings was dominated by Miller, who hammered an outrageous 93 not out off just 37 balls.

The Titans had fought back well after a rapid start by Cameron Delport and Morne van Wyk had taken the Dolphins to 50 midway through the seventh over. Their night would have been very different had Miller been given out lbw on five when Albie Morkel, the ball after dismissing Daryn Smit, angled a delivery into the left-hander from around the wicket and struck him on his pads. The ball would clearly have hit the stumps, but umpire Ian Howell ruled not out, presumably believing the ball had struck the batsman just outside off stump.

“The Miller lbw shout was out, but those aren’t given sometimes. It was a big decision in a big game and at 80-5 in the 13^th over, it would have been a different match. But the Dolphins and Cobras playing in the final is a fair reflection of the competition as a whole.

“I think they should use DRS in all televised matches, with one referral. Against the top-quality players you generally only get one chance. But it was an extraordinary innings and at some point you just have to give credit to the batsman. I haven’t seen striking like that for a long time, he didn’t mistime a single ball and it was a serious effort,” Walter said.

Although the Titans bowlers were taken to the cleaners by Miller – most notably Ethy Mbhalati (two overs for 35) and Roelof van der Merwe in an 18^th over that cost 34 runs – Walter said their performances had not been poor.

“I don’t think we bowled badly, it’s just that Miller hit every length and all our slower balls. It’s easy to criticise in retrospect, but sometimes the bowlers just have to go with how they feel on the day.

“And I was proud of the way we batted, it was a bloody good chase. On any other day, Heino Kuhn’s 76 off 39 would have been the stand-out innings and then Mangaliso Mosehle produced a flippen’ awesome cameo at the end [31 off 14].”

But T20 is a school of hard knocks and Walter was left to reflect that “it was a game of very small margins”.

“Losing Albie Morkel and David Wiese back-to-back took the wind out of our sails. Before that the required run-rate was less than 13 and it was game on.”

For Walter, the performances of senior players like Kuhn, Van der Merwe, Farhaan Behardien and the Morkel brothers were positives from the campaign as a whole, and youngsters like Graeme van Buuren and Theunis de Bruyn also produced match-winning showings that they could be proud of.