Ken Borland

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.

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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.”