Ken Borland

When Willie le Roux hared off to Wasps in 2017 he knew that he was putting his Springbok career at risk such were the stricter rules surrounding the use of overseas players at the time. But he was still in the Green and Gold two years later and his experience at fullback was important in winning the 2019 World Cup.

And now, with almost another two years having passed, Le Roux is still the first-choice fullback at an evergreen 31-years-old. This is both a blessing and a concern because should the Toyota Verblitz star get injured, it is probably the position in the squad for the series against the British and Irish Lions where coach Jacques Nienaber has the least back-up, especially with Warrick Gelant unlikely to recover in time from his ACL surgery.

Damian Willemse was a late call-up to the World Cup squad as a replacement for Jesse Kriel and has only accumulated six caps. His recent form for the Stormers has been promising rather than spectacular and there are many who believe Sharks fullback Aphelele Fassi should now be considered the back-up to Le Roux.

Fassi himself is uncapped though and the development of his undoubted talent was put back a bit by the serious shoulder injury he suffered last year.

So fullback looks a little thin for Nienaber’s liking, and he could be looking at utility players like Francois Steyn, Johan Goosen or Raymond Rhule to provide cover there or maybe even Kriel, Handre Pollard or Sbu Nkosi in an emergency.

In terms of the all-important tight five, while there is pleasing depth in the front row and lots of in-form Black stars like Bongi Mbonambi, Lizo Gqoboka, Ox Nche, Scarra Ntubeni, Joseph Dweba and Trevor Nyakane to choose from, injuries have marred Nienaber’s options at lock.

World Cup winners RG Snyman and Lood de Jager are both racing against time to be fit and are unlikely to make the 45-man squad that will be announced on Saturday.

While the Springboks’ starting pair of Eben Etzebeth and Franco Mostert are absolutely world-class, there is a lack of experience thereafter.

Marvin Orie has been capped only three times and Jason Jenkins has played just a solitary Test. The other two main contenders for a place – Ruan Nortje and JD Schickerling – would both be making their international debuts.

Toulouse hardman Rynhardt Elstadt has helped his French club to European glory and top of the log domestically, and can cover lock as well, but has played just two Tests. The Springbok management will be loathe to move Pieter-Steph du Toit to the second row given what a tremendous impact he has had playing on the flank.

As we have seen so often in rugby, making changes to long-standing rules of the game almost invariably brings unexpected consequences and there has been a lot of talk recently about doing away with one of cricket’s most famous traditions, a move which I believe will boomerang badly on the sport.

South African captain Faf du Plessis was the latest to bring up doing away with the toss, although his beliefs lost some credibility because they came straight after the Proteas had been mauled in their two Tests in Sri Lanka.

Various high-profile Australians have also backed the ending of the toss, but again, these comments were mostly made after they had lost the Ashes in England.

Proponents of the eradication of the toss propose that the visiting team just gets to choose whether they want to bat or bowl, thereby supposedly removing home advantage, which the anti-toss advocates say has become a major problem in world cricket.

Happily, a couple of months ago the ICC Cricket Committee discussed doing away with the toss and decided that it was an integral part of the game and should be spared.

No doubt they had a better grasp of the actual facts surrounding the issue. Home ground advantage has always played a role in cricket, as it does in just about every sport, but winning or losing the toss actually does not have a major effect.

In this decade, the team winning the toss still only wins 43.78% of Test matches, so it is not a massive advantage. There is a slight benefit because only 35.13% of teams that lose the toss go on to win the match. Historically, Australia are the only side that wins more than 50% of the Tests in which they have won the toss, and even then it’s just 50.49%, only slightly higher than their overall success rate of 47.16%.

I believe giving the visiting team total control over what they do first would have a major bearing on the game, which is where the unintended consequences come in, especially in countries like India or New Zealand.

It’s fair to say the weather is out of the control of the people who prepare the pitches in those countries and they can only do so much to negate the effect of overhead conditions. Doing away with the toss would grossly undermine teams like India and New Zealand – in the heat of the sub-continent, dry, dusty, deteriorating pitches are almost inevitable and India would be batting second every time; conversely, New Zealand is usually pretty damp and overcast and the Black Caps would find themselves sent in to bat every time.

It would happen often in England as well that the home team would automatically have to bat at the most difficult time and it could also affect the Proteas at home.

What it boils down to is the ICC actually using the mechanisms they already have in place to ensure fair conditions – they already have rules in the playing conditions when it comes to unfair pitches and they just need to enforce them more diligently, especially when it comes to the sub-continent and even some South African green mambas.

The perception that away teams are struggling does have some basis in fact. In this decade, the visiting team has lost 51.75% of Tests, up from 46.40% in the 2000s. It is interesting, though, that the away team has been winning Tests in the last 20 years at pretty much the same rate as they have been doing through the history of the game.

It is, of course, the number of away draws that has dropped significantly in recent times; down from 47.31% of Tests in the 1960s to just 20.76% in this decade. That is obviously a positive but it also points to the rise of T20 cricket and batsmen being able to hit the ball but not defend against the turning, seaming or swinging delivery.

The problem is not the toss, it’s modern-day batsmen being ill-prepared for foreign conditions, and sometimes the ICC allows the home union to get away with cheap shots in terms of pitch preparation.