Ken Borland

Panicky wholesale changes to the South African team are not likely to be considered ahead of the second Test against Australia starting in Port Elizabeth on Thursday, but JP Duminy and Robin Peterson will be in the spotlight.

South Africa were crushed by 281 runs in the first Test at Centurion yesterday, which was only fair given how poorly they batted, bowled and fielded, and how superbly Mitchell Johnson bowled and the likes of Shaun Marsh, Steven Smith, David Warner and Alex Doolan batted.

Duminy scored 25 and 10 in the Test and, in both innings, batted for over an hour. In the first innings he was looking good, had seen off Johnson but then threw away his wicket holing out to spinner Nathan Lyon, and in the second innings he fell to a freakish catch at short-leg by Doolan.

But Duminy has underperformed for a while, scoring just 77 runs in his last seven innings and the under-pressure selectors may feel change has to come in the number six position.

South Africa’s spin bowling stocks are often the subject of despairing, even furious letters in the pages of this newspaper, and it will be difficult for the selectors to solve this long-standing problem.

Peterson was selected on the basis of being the most accurate, reliable spinner, someone who can hold up an end. But the orthodox left-armer went for 136 runs in 34 overs and was easily milked by the Australian batsmen. He did claim three wickets, but generally looked entirely unthreatening.

Imran Tahir remains the best wicket-taking spinner in the country, but we all know what happened to him the last time he was up against the Australians.

Warriors off-spinner Simon Harmer is next in line, but we should be cautious before throwing an untried 25-year-old into action against a team that plays spin bowling so well.

South Africa’s attack looked ineffectual across the board, mostly due to bad strategy, but the selectors will certainly consider employing an all-pace attack and bringing in left-armer Wayne Parnell on his home ground, to add something different.

That would probably save Duminy, who would then be the spinner in the team, although his probable replacement, Dean Elgar, bowls slow left-arm too.

Alviro Petersen could be under pressure at the top of the order, given how insecure he looked at Centurion, but dropping him would be harsh considering he made consecutive half-centuries in the two Tests against India before the massacre by Australia.

Although Ryan McLaren did not make a telling contribution in the Test, he performed his role as a holding bowler well and the huge defeat had its origins elsewhere.

Yesterday’s result will be a massive blow to the confidence of the South Africans, but it should be remembered that, barring the large hole left by Jacques Kallis, this is the same team that took them to number one and beat Australia on their home turf.

The talent and skill is there, it just needs to be activated by a change in mental approach by the South Africans. It was noticeable in the field how low the intensity was and it was poor decision-making that compounded their woes.

The decision to bowl first was an awful one, the bowling strategy was misguided and the batting against Johnson was laborious.

AB de Villiers - only SA player to get a pass mark

So poor has South Africa’s performance been in the first Test against Australia at SuperSport Park that AB de Villiers is probably the only one worthy of a pass mark for their efforts.

De Villiers was the only batsman who didn’t capitulate in the face of the ferocious Mitchell Johnson onslaught, batting with remarkable assurance in scoring his 91 out of a dismal total of 206. Quick of mind, feet and hands, De Villiers was simply a class apart.

It is hard to know quite why the rest of the South African team have put in such a lacklustre, soft performance. They had 10 days’ preparation before the first Test and pronounced themselves ready for action on the eve of the game.

Which suggests the malaise is mental more than anything else. And there have been numerous examples of muddled thinking seriously jeopardising their chances in the first Test.

After 40 overs in the Australian second innings, exactly six percent of the deliveries South Africa had bowled would have hit the stumps, a ridiculously low figure especially on a pitch with inconsistent bounce that brings lbw into play in a big way. But it was how South Africa bowled in the first innings as well, with too much line-and-length stuff outside off stump that the Aussies just left alone and not enough bowling that targeted the stumps or the body.

South Africa also erred strategically in how they played Johnson, whose figures of seven for 68 were the second-best recorded in Tests at Centurion, behind Kyle Abbott’s stunning seven for 29 on debut against Pakistan last summer.

The top-order seemed intent on trying to play Johnson’s short-pitched thunderbolts with the bat, instead of swaying out of the line and dropping the hands and bat out of the danger zone.

Australia’s batsmen handled Morne Morkel’s intimidatory deliveries much better by simply getting out of the way.

South Africa’s sloppy fielding yesterday – centurion David Warner was dropped three times – was another clear sign that the wheels were falling off.

There isn’t much South Africa can do ahead of the second Test in terms of changing personnel. The XI for Centurion were generally considered to be the best players available, but unfortunately they just didn’t pitch for the contest.

Young batsmen like Quinton de Kock and Stiaan van Zyl certainly have their backers, but are they really more likely to succeed than the people they are replacing? Alviro Petersen and JP Duminy are the two South African batsmen under the most pressure, and both were dismissed in most disappointing fashion in the first innings.

Robin Peterson, chosen for his greater accuracy and ability to do the holding role, was taken for a hundred runs in his first 26 overs in this Test, which makes one wonder whether the selectors shouldn’t just go for the greater wicket-taking ability of Imran Tahir, even if he is also expensive.

Coach Russell Domingo is known for his love of statistics and it would be interesting to know whether the poor decision to bowl first upon winning the toss was mostly motivated by him or whether it was the captain’s call.

Statistics are good for establishing trends at grounds, but they can never supersede the conditions that are actually in front of the team.

Domingo and bowling coach Allan Donald have both admitted that their intensity was not what it should have been. If the South Africans have the courage to face their shortcomings at Centurion with honesty, then they could yet rebound into contention in this series.

South Africa would appear to have used up their nine lives, but there is way too much talent in the team for them to be manhandled the way they have been by Australia. The brilliant Johnson apart, South Africa’s players should be standing toe-to-toe with their counterparts. They need to rediscover the passion that took them to number one, and quickly too, because the pretenders to the throne look ready to ascend.

South Africa’s cricketers were able to survive a close encounter with a lion during their trip to Hoedspruit to support Mark Boucher’s rhino conservation efforts, but Mitchell Johnson proved an entirely more ferocious beast at SuperSport Park on Thursday to leave the Proteas in tatters at the end of the second day of the first Test against Australia.

Johnson claimed four wickets, three of them in a sensational opening burst of four overs, to send South Africa limping to stumps on 140 for six, still needing 57 just to avoid the follow-on.

How to play Johnson is probably the most common question in international changerooms these days as the left-armer took his record in his last six Tests to a phenomenal 38 wickets at an average of just 14.15.

While one should praise the South African batsmen’s efforts to get into line against the most fearsome fast bowler in the game, technically they were far too eager to get bat to ball when Johnson dug the ball in short.

Barry Richards, Peter Kirsten and Kepler Wessels were all prolific run-scorers in county cricket, where they faced the best generation of fast bowlers – the West Indians – day in and day out. Wessels also played eight Tests against the Caribbean dominators (seven for Australia) and averaged a highly-creditable 44.66 against them. So that trio of great South African batsmen certainly know a thing or two about playing fast bowling and their advice had a common theme of either getting out of the way or making sure you drop the hands.

“It’s about handling the intimidation and the pace, around 147km/h, and you’ve also got to look out for the in-swinger. The key is keeping your balance, keeping your head still and don’t get your right foot too far across.

“The batsmen also need to get their hands down quicker and bob and weave more. You’ve got to choose the right time to pull, but they were good balls to Smith and Du Plessis,” Kirsten, a diminutive batsman but high-quality player of pace, said yesterday.

Richards said the key was not getting yourself in a bad position.

“There wasn’t a lot of swing out there, so it was all about the bounce, the short ball. You need to get out of the way, make sure you don’t get caught in a bad position. Like Graeme Smith did – he’s a tall and imposing batsmen and he tried to ride with the bounce, but it got big on him and he had nowhere to go.

“It’s not easy, but if the ball is short, you’ve got to sway or duck out of the way,” Richards said.

The former Hampshire opening batsman had many epic tussles with fellow South African Mike Procter, another awkward fast bowler with an unusual action.

“Proccie had this big in-swinging bouncer that used to follow you. So you had to go the other way, but it’s not easy to duck your head towards where the ball is coming from!” Richards said.

Wessels, who has served as a batting consultant for the South Africans in the past, said accepting that getting hit was likely was an important part of successfully playing fast bowling.

“You have to get in line and drop the hands and if you’re going to take it on the body then just accept that you’re going to get hit,” Wessels said.

It takes bundles of courage to face truly fast bowling like Johnson’s, but Wessels said it was important to still remain positive.

“You need to have one back-foot scoring stroke and just evade the other balls. The West Indies had four guys of Johnson’s pace and initially I just tried to survive. But then after two hours you’d just have 15, so I decided to attack them.”

The South African batsmen have also obviously not faced someone as fast as Johnson for some time, which Wessels said meant they would need some time to adjust.

Proteas coach Russell Domingo said no matter how well prepared they were, “you can never replicate the pressure and intensity of Test cricket like that”.

“It’s what we expected of him, but the challenge is with his action, you don’t know which ones to leave. He’s skiddy, which makes him so dangerous, whereas someone like Morne Morkel has a high arm action and gets more consistent bounce,” Domingo said.

Johnson admitted that the inconsistent bounce of the Centurion pitch had him licking his lips.

“There are a few cracks and I felt when I was batting that there was something there, just back-of-a-length. Smith’s dismissal was one of those good balls that took off and the ball to Faf took off a bit as well. It surprised him and it surprised me too. I do enjoy bowling on these sort of pitches,” Johnson said.

Spectators enjoy watching Johnson in action and the way he went about his business on Thursday was much like a lion kill. The South African batsmen were probably feeling a bit like the unfortunate impala last night.

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.