Ken Borland

New SA Test captain Hashim Amla

Rookie captain Hashim Amla will have two uncapped players under his care as South Africa begin a new era of Test cricket without Graeme Smith and Jacques Kallis in Sri Lanka next month.

Batsman Stiaan van Zyl and off-spinner Dane Piedt, both key members of the champion Cape Cobras team, have been called up for the two Tests against Sri Lanka as South Africa simultaneously look to continue the successes of the last five years and build for the future.

Amla claimed the Test captaincy yesterday ahead of the strong challenges of AB de Villiers and Faf du Plessis, with the national selectors opting for the continuity the 31-year-old will bring, both in terms of leadership and the balance of the team.

While both Amla and De Villiers have been an integral part of the journey that has seen the Proteas grow into a formidable outfit – a road the national selectors want to keep following – making De Villiers captain of the Test side would have robbed the team of an extra option as the Unlimited Titans star has made it clear he would give up the wicketkeeping gloves if he was skipper in the longest format of the game.

While convenor of selectors Andrew Hudson stressed that Amla was “the best leader to take South Africa forward”, he conceded that “AB continuing to keep wicket gives us more options”.

Losing two mighty oaks like Smith and Kallis leaves South Africa in a position of vulnerability as they travel to a venue which has proven their toughest sub-continental destination, and Hudson said they were banking on the calmness Amla brings to make the transition as smooth as possible.

But South Africa will also be heavily dependent on Amla’s prolific flow of runs and he was confident that the extra pressures of captaincy would not have an effect on his batting.

In his one previous season of captaincy, when he led the Dolphins to a share of the 2004/5 SuperSport Series four-day title, he averaged 54.38, scoring three centuries, including a superb 249 in the final against the Central Eagles.

“It’s an honour and privilege to be given this responsibility. Previously I concentrated on my batting a lot, but now it’s time to contribute to the team more. I’m here to serve the team and I will give all my heart to the position. The biggest positive is that I can add more value to the team.

“I’m positive it won’t affect my batting, I hope it won’t and I’m going to try and score as many, if not more, runs as before. I hope I can still get better as a batsman,” Amla said.

South Africa’s last Test tour of Sri Lanka, in 2006, effectively robbed Ashwell Prince, the only previous player of colour to lead the Proteas (albeit in a stand-in basis as Smith was injured), of any chance of captaining his country again as they were beaten 2-0 and Amla is aware of how tough their opposition are to play in their home conditions.

“It’s going to be quite a challenge because Sri Lanka are a very resourceful team. But it’s the sort of challenge you want, these are exciting times. It took us a few years to find a winning combination 10 years ago and it would be naïve to think that everything will just fall into place this time,” Amla warned.

Left-hander Dean Elgar is set to slot into Smith’s opening position alongside Alviro Petersen, while either Quinton de Kock or Van Zyl will fill the number seven spot if South Africa decide to play the extra batsman in Sri Lanka.

But with two frontline spinners in the squad in leggie Imran Tahir and Piedt, the Proteas could play both slow bowlers with Vernon Philander, who averaged 40.00 with the bat last season, moving up to number seven.

Dolphins strike bowler Kyle Abbott has been included ahead of all-rounder Ryan McLaren.

“We have to uncover new talent. There’s a generation of senior players at the core of the team, but who’s next, who will replace them? We must bring those players through and hopefully these guys will be them,” Hudson said.

There are no surprises in the ODI squad, with orthodox spinner Aaron Phangiso, left-arm paceman Beuran Hendricks and Du Plessis being brought into the team that will play three matches before the Test series.

De Villiers will remain in charge of the ODI team in the vital period before the World Cup while, in a role-reversal of the situation in the Test side, Amla will be his vice-captain.

Test squad: Alviro Petersen, Dean Elgar, Hashim Amla, AB de Villiers, Faf du Plessis, JP Duminy, Quinton de Kock, Vernon Philander, Dane Piedt, Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel, Imran Tahir, Stiaan van Zyl, Wayne Parnell, Kyle Abbott.

ODI squad: Hashim Amla, Quinton de Kock, Jacques Kallis, AB de Villiers, JP Duminy, David Miller, Ryan McLaren, Vernon Philander, Wayne Parnell, Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel, Imran Tahir, Aaron Phangiso, Beuran Hendricks, Faf du Plessis.

Hashim Amla should have more to celebrate than just tons of runs

Hashim Amla has had one season of captaincy for the Dolphins nearly 10 years ago as a 21-year-old but is now set to be handed the reins of South Africa’s Test team as CSA’s board meet today in Sandton to decide the successor to Graeme Smith.

The fact that Amla had success in that solitary season in charge down in Durban, leading the Dolphins to a share of the 2004/5 SuperSport Series four-day title and the semi-finals of the 45-over Standard Bank Cup, will have little bearing on tomorrow’s decision, save for one important factor.

While Amla relinquished the captaincy after one season, and has been reluctant to lead ever since, the extra responsibility had no noticeable effect on his batting, as he averaged 54.38 in the four-day competition, scoring three centuries, including a superb 249 in the final against the Central Eagles, and went on to make his debut for South Africa that season.

Amla’s main rival for the Test captaincy is the early favourite, AB de Villiers, who has already led South Africa in 40 ODIs.

De Villiers has the advantage of added experience in the role, but if he does become Test captain, it could well force a change in the successful balance of the national team, with the wicketkeeping gloves likely to be taken away from him.

Former South African captain Shaun Pollock, who was Smith’s predecessor, admitted that it was a tough call between Amla and De Villiers.

“There’s no doubt Hashim is a very calm individual and I don’t think being captain will affect his batting too much, but it’s difficult to comment on his tactical awareness unless you’ve played under him. The advantage Hashim has is that he’s just a batsman and there’s not too much on his plate,” Pollock told The Pretoria News yesterday.

“AB has the experience, having led in ODIs already, and knows what the role entails. I’ve been impressed with some of his captaincy, he’s shown some flair and managed things well. But would he have to change his role and give up the gloves because there’s a lot on his plate?” Pollock added.

Faf du Plessis has also been mentioned as a candidate, but he is likely to be left to concentrate on cementing his place in the Test side as a specialist batsman.

Both Amla and De Villiers are going to be key batsmen as South Africa move into the post-Smith-and-Kallis era, and there’s no doubt both will be able to lead from the front and command the respect of their team-mates. Both are universally respected in the cricketing world and both enjoy a good relationship with the media, handling their PR duties with aplomb.

But the factors that are likely to tip the vote Amla’s way are the lesser disruption it would cause to the balance of the team and the strong transformation message it would send out on behalf of Cricket South Africa, who were recently accused of only paying lip-service to affirmative action by the sports minister.

The fact that Amla, a devout Muslim and the first Protea of Indian heritage, has been able to develop into such a key person in the national camp on and off the field suggests he will also be able to pull the different threads of the several cultures within the squad together into a strong unit.

The national selectors will also today announce the squads to tour Sri Lanka next month for three ODIs and two Tests and are likely to reel in Stiaan van Zyl and one of two off-spinners Dane Piedt or Simon Harmer, as new caps for the five-day games. The other off-spinner is still likely to travel to Sri Lanka as a net bowler to gain experience of sub-continental conditions.

Whoever the Test captain is will be mindful of South Africa’s previous tour to Sri Lanka in 2006 where Ashwell Prince wound up losing 2-0 and never captained the Proteas again.

Probable Test squad: Alviro Petersen, Dean Elgar, Faf du Plessis, Hashim Amla, AB de Villiers, JP Duminy, Stiaan van Zyl, Vernon Philander, Dale Steyn, Imran Tahir, Morne Morkel, Dane Piedt, Quinton de Kock, Ryan McLaren, Wayne Parnell/Beuran Hendricks.

Probable ODI squad: Hashim Amla, Quinton de Kock, Jacques Kallis, AB de Villiers, JP Duminy, David Miller, Vernon Philander, Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel, Imran Tahir, Wayne Parnell, Beuran Hendricks, Ryan McLaren, Simon Harmer.

Russell Domingo joked yesterday that he would have given away his children if offered beforehand a score of 172 for four in the ICC World T20 semi-final and, even though that tournament once again ended in disappointment for South Africa, the coach is confident that the Proteas will become world champions one day soon.

“It’s an important year ahead for South African cricket, we start planning for that dreaded competition that all South Africans hate – the World Cup – but like the New Zealand rugby team after years of heartache, our team is not far away from becoming world champions in one of the limited-overs formats,” Domingo told a gathering yesterday of the sport’s major stakeholders at the Repucom Breakfast to announce their marketing research results.

South Africa coach Russell Domingo

“I can assure you that we have got the players, we just need to support them. The players believe that they are under more scrutiny than anyone else in these tournaments, which is probably fair, but there is a maturity in the side now and they deal with pressure so much better. I know we didn’t win the World T20 semi-final, but if someone had offered me a score of 172 for four beforehand, I would have almost given away my children for it!,” Domingo added.

South Africa are also going to have to find a new Test captain and fill the gaps created by the retirements of Jacques Kallis and Graeme Smith, but Domingo said there are capable replacements in the system, although they will need to be given time to find their feet.

“The biggest thing the South African public must come to terms with is that whoever replaces them needs to be given time, like Jacques was at the start of his career. They need to be allowed to develop, but the game moves on and it will be a new and exciting team taking a different direction. We’ve got to be patient.

“As far as the captaincy goes, there are three or four good candidates that I would feel comfortable with, so there’s a lot of good leadership in the team,” Domingo said.

Cricket South Africa CEO Haroon Lorgat said the panel set up to choose the new Test captain are still doing their work.

“The selectors met earlier this week, but I still want to talk to the candidate as well. It’s a board appointment on the back of that panel’s recommendation and we will finalise our thoughts on June 3,” Lorgat said.

Despite the disappointment of having to host a curtailed tour by India, Lorgat said CSA are on track to only narrowly miss their financial targets for 2013/14.

“We targeted R280 million profit for this financial year and I reckon we’ll be less than R20 million short despite not having the full India tour. This is partly due to the exchange rate, we don’t mind the dollar rate and the weakening of the rand because that has cushioned the knock, but we’ve also stripped a lot of the costs out of the system,” Lorgat said.

Haroon Lorgat pointed out the positive

Comparisons are often made between cricket and the two other major sports in South Africa – football and rugby – but, according to Repucom, CSA are doing well.

Proteas coverage attracted a total unique TV audience, across both the SABC and SuperSport, of 14.02 million people, compared to 13.3 million for rugby and 19.61 million for soccer.

Domestic cricket received 290 hours of live coverage, compared to 65 hours for the Currie Cup, 236 hours for SuperRugby and 346 hours for the Absa Premiership.

CSA differs from rugby and football, however, in that the majority of their money comes from overseas.

“The model of cricket is based on international revenue, the vast majority of our money comes from offshore. Probably half our income is from broadcast rights and 80% of that is offshore,” Lorgat confirmed, which explains why CSA can afford to push the development and spread of the game on free-to-air TV.

Even the relationship with the Board of Control for Cricket in India is looking more rosy, according to Lorgat, whose arch-nemesis, Narayanaswami Srinivasan, the BCCI president, is in danger of being jailed for fraud and corruption.

“We’ve cleared some air with the BCCI and we’re in a better space with them. But the wheel has turned and now they have issues and are inward-looking,” Lorgat said.

Jacques Kallis in full ODI flow - what SA coach Russell Domingo will want to see

Going into the tournament with confidence is one of the laws of success in the World Cup, according to South Africa coach Russell Domingo, and he has already mapped out his plans for a summer that could be the making of his tenure in charge of the Proteas.

“Confidence going into the World Cup is always vital. Playing well throughout the year leading up to the tournament is probably more important than anything else.

“If you’re losing a lot beforehand, then you have to make changes in personnel or strategy just before the tournament, which is never ideal. The players need to feel comfortable in the strategy you’re going to use,” Domingo said after his presentation to the country’s leading coaches at the CSA Level IV Coaching Conference at the High Performance Centre yesterday.

One of the strategies which Domingo believes will be highly applicable in the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand from next February is the use of bouncers, while he defended the Proteas’ scarce use of yorkers.

“How many bouncers you use depends on the opposition and the pitches, but it’s a very useful weapon. Someone like Kumar Sangakkara ducks just about every bouncer so those are dot-balls.

“The stats show that a wide yorker is very hittable if you just miss your length. Very few people bowl six yorkers an over at the death, even Lasith Malinga, who has the best yorker of anyone, doesn’t bowl it  every time.

“Predictability is very dangerous at the end of the innings, you can’t just bowl yorkers, you have to mix up your deliveries. The short ball is very important in this regard because it causes doubt and fear in the minds of batsmen, and cause them to get into strange positions sometimes as well,” Domingo said.

South Africa coach Russell Domingo

Although Jacques Kallis has halved his cricketing commitments, Domingo said the great all-rounder was still an integral part of their plans for the World Cup. There is no doubt that, used in the top-order to set up the innings, Kallis can be a batting kingpin for South Africa, while he is also still good for a few overs as well.

But in order for the team’s planning to be complete by the time they begin their World Cup challenge against Zimbabwe in Hamilton on February 15, Kallis is going to have to play most of South Africa’s ODIs in the next nine months.

“We have 24 ODIs before the World Cup, but to ask Jacques to play in all of those is unrealistic. But he’ll definitely be needed to play in the vast majority of those because we have to develop a strategy for playing with Jacques Kallis. We have to incorporate him back into the team and it effects the balance – we could play seven batsmen instead of six batsmen and an all-rounder. It’s a different dynamic because we’ve developed a strategy for playing without Jacques Kallis in recent times,” Domingo said.

AB de Villiers was just an eight-year-old child when the World Cup was last held in Australasia in 1992, the wonder of South Africa’s return to the international fold turning to dismay when poor rain rules ended their dream run at the semi-final stage and started a seeming curse for the team in that tournament that they have yet to shake off.

De Villiers will almost certainly be the captain of South Africa’s World Cup squad this time around, and he is also the favourite to inherit Graeme Smith’s Test captaincy.

“The captaincy is not cut-and-dried and there are some really good options. It would be a tough ask for AB to be captain, keep wicket and be a key batsman, and the selectors will take that into cognisance. I have input with the selectors and then their recommendation goes to the board, who make the final decision,” Domingo said while trying to throw journalists off the scent.

But he possibly let slip his feelings on the matter when he said: “It’s going to be a big challenge for the new leader to step up and fill the massive void that Graeme has left. But the maturity of the Test side will enable him to do it and senior guys like Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel, JP Duminy, Faf du Plessis and Hashim Amla know that a new leader is coming in and will bring different ideas to the team.”

South Africa have been offenders before when it comes to going into World Cups without covering all their bases, but with the domestic competitions arranged to help their planning and a limited-overs tour to New Zealand and Australia in October/November, they should not want for preparation.

“I’ll be looking for consistency in selection and strategies, and hopefully we’ll have settled on our combination and the style we want to play. The last 10 ODIs before the World Cup, I’ll look to play the best XI as much as possible.

“We have a pretty good idea of the 15 we want, but it would be naïve to think all 15 of those will make the World Cup because of injuries, loss of form or a domestic player shooting the lights out and putting his name in the hat,” Domingo said.