Ken Borland

The way things are going in South African cricket, CSA are soon going to have to appoint a lawyer to sit on the national selection panel just to make sure nobody’s rights have been unfairly prejudiced by not being chosen.

In the good old days, all that mattered was runs and wickets and the balance of the team – referring to having gritty batsmen capable of looking after the new ball, some strokeplayers in the middle-order, an all-rounder or two, and a bowling attack suited to the conditions.

But nowadays, being deserving of a place seems to mean you are entitled to be chosen. Never mind that the selectors can only field 11 players at a time and there are, of course, no substitutions in cricket, unless someone gets concussed.

Selection is a thankless task because you can never please everybody. And even 15 years after the fact, your selections can still be dissected and slammed, as we have seen in the SJN Hearings.

The squad selected to play in next month’s T20 World Cup caused uproar over two main areas – the sudden dropping of George Linde and the continued absence of Faf du Plessis, Imran Tahir and Chris Morris.

I do believe Linde’s omission was the wrong call, but Victor Mpitsang and his panel are spot-on when it comes to Du Plessis, Tahir and Morris.

Morris is the easiest to deal with because the selectors have been told by the all-rounder’s people that he is not available for international cricket. Despite his tendency to tell the media all about the lack of contact he has had from Cricket South Africa. And, in case you were wondering, AB de Villiers has also officially made his retirement from the Proteas final.

Du Plessis and Tahir are trickier because they are still very much available for the Proteas, provided the finances around a short-term deal for free agents are to their liking. And both have been performing well, Du Plessis playing a couple of standout innings in the recently-completed Caribbean Premier League and Tahir had a successful campaign in the same competition.

The former Proteas captain struggled at the start of that tournament though after a long layoff caused by a serious concussion and then missed the last few games with a groin injury.

It is true that the current South African batting line-up is lacking experience, but they have been together now for this year and are ever-improving. Having Du Plessis in the XI would almost certainly mean leaving out Rassie van der Dussen, who averages 36 in T20 Internationals at a strike-rate of 134, figures which are remarkably similar to Faf’s – average 35, strike-rate 134.

Both he and Tahir have been true heroes for the Proteas, but we need to accept that the time to move on has come. The 42-year-old Tahir has a ready-made replacement in fellow wrist-spinner Tabraiz Shamsi, who for some time now has been the number one ranked bowler in T20 Internationals. And playing them both is not a realistic option because it would make an already long tail even longer.

I also find it infuriating when people rave about performances in T20 leagues and give them the same status as international cricket. These ‘mercenary’ leagues are domestic competitions and are not of international standard, simply because all of them have rules forcing the selection of a majority of local players. Even the IPL, which comes closest to bridging the gap, is still a franchise tournament.

But there is so much anger aimed at the Proteas these days that I have no doubt that if the trio of veterans had been selected, then there would have been an outcry over choosing old cricketers who have not been part of the team for the whole year.

Of course, the controversy has also been used by those whose rage is always directed at Graeme Smith and Mark Boucher to rant about their supposed shortcomings and unfair treatment of players.

At some stage we have to move on from the past and the Proteas are heading into this T20 World Cup in far better shape than I think most people expected.

The Proteas have enjoyed a superb record-equalling run in T20 cricket of late and will go into next month’s T20 World Cup with their confidence at a high. While Sri Lanka were disappointingly hapless during the 3-0 series whitewash, perhaps more credit should be given to the South Africans for being so clinical in dispatching the home side.

Most critics would probably have backed Sri Lanka to win the series on their home pitches, which were typically sub-continental and designed to favour their strengths and expose the supposed Proteas weaknesses.

Playing in the subcontinent means dealing with spin and South Africa were brilliant in both the progress their batsmen have made on turning pitches and also the sheer quality of their own spin attack, which was relied upon to an extent never seen before in a Proteas team.

The T20 World Cup will be played in what is expected to be similar conditions in the United Arab Emirates.

“It was very pleasing to win the series in the manner we did. We trusted in our process: Sri Lanka have some world-class spinners but our batsmen found a way to handle them and our spinners showed what they can do when they are backed. It’s good that the hierarchy is backing spin more.

“I obviously have my game-plans before the match, but you need to adapt on the field and read the conditions as soon as possible. I try to identify periods when we can go for the kill, and I must give credit to my bowlers for the number of times they came on and took wickets, or even an economical couple of overs. We wanted to really make an impact after the bitter pill of losing the ODI series,” stand-in captain Keshav Maharaj said.

Quinton de Kock may no longer have alpha-male status as the captain, but the wicketkeeper/batsman continued to mark himself out as the Proteas’ key batsman, a real matchwinner in T2 cricket. He was the leading run-scorer in the series with 153 runs, being dismissed just once as he claimed the man of the series award and a career-high eighth place in the ICC T20 rankings.

“Quinny has been in great form after obviously having a tough time in Pakistan. He’s been fantastic in the team environment and you can’t keep a player like that down for too long. He’s obviously in a happy space after a bit of rest, the break was good for him and it rewarded us too.

“He’s going to be a really big player for us at the World Cup and it was good to see him carry his bat through a couple of times, when it would be easy to just score thirty and get out. He’s showing a lot of responsibility and he will be a big name for as at the World Cup,” coach Mark Boucher said.

Loose forward Kwagga Smith was bemoaning the Springbok team’s failure to control the momentum of the first Rugby Championship Test against Australia and prop Trevor Nyakane was agreeing with his colleague that momentum is where it all starts, so there is no doubt the South Africans will be looking to hit the Wallabies with a much more ferocious forward effort when they meet again in Brisbane on Saturday morning (SA time).

There has been much talk about the penalties the Springboks conceded or their feelings that they were obstructed in the aerial contests, but those are just symptoms of the underlying cause – their failure to really boss the gainline battles and seize control of the momentum of the game. Coach Jacques Nienaber mentioned this week that “the first-time tackling was not as good as it should have been”.

So the Springbok forwards need to be in Smash mode and Trevor Nyakane, who returns as the starting loosehead prop, said it needs to all start at scrum-time, where they conceded two vital penalties last weekend.

“It starts with momentum and the set-piece is exactly that. We always want to be dominant, even at a scrum on the halfway line, and it hurts us as a pack to see penalties being conceded. Australia have got their way of scrumming that they want to impose on us, and we have to try and figure out a way to counter that. They present a different type of challenge.

“But we don’t train to do anything weird like walking around or scrumming to a specific side. We believe our plan will always allow us to find a way to deal with anything a team can bring. It’s tough when you feel certain things are happening, but if you take it into your own hands then you are going away from the system and that’s when the scrum as a whole gets smashed,” Nyakane said.

For Smith, who is one of three impact loose forwards (Marco van Staden and Jasper Wiese are the others) poised to come off the bench, it is about lifting the tempo and intensity of the game.

“When us three loose forwards get on, we need to bring energy. The players who have started have worked really hard and we need to give them energy. People are looking at what Australia do off the ball to minimise our efforts, but we didn’t stop their momentum. We gave them a lot of front-foot ball and we definitely need to work on getting momentum and stopping their momentum.

“We know that most of the points at the Suncorp Stadium are scored towards the end of the game, so we need to bring energy to the pack, make sure we’re going in hard. We need to work hard in defence and get off the line. We have ball-hunters on the bench so we are set up to make an impact and get possession we can attack from, but also give our defence those extra couple of seconds to set,” Smith said.

Smith knows he is going to be in for a tough head-to-head battle with Wallabies skipper Michael Hooper, a top-class flank who will captain Australia for a record 60^th time on Saturday, surpassing the previous milestone of scrumhalf George Gregan.

“I love playing against Michael, he’s a really good player who has a lot of Test caps [112]. He gives 80 minutes every game and there was one SuperRugby season when he played every minute of every game. So you’ve got to be at your best against him, it’s never going to be easy, but our focus is not on individuals but our system,” Smith said.

“My emotions come out sometimes,” ace Proteas spinner Tabraiz Shamsi admitted at the weekend and he was not just talking about his reaction to the on-field battle but also the way the South African team has been criticised of late.

Shamsi produced yet another man-of-the-match display, taking three for 20 in four overs as the Proteas bundled Sri Lanka out for just 103 in the second T20 International in Colombo, setting up a thumping nine-wicket win with 35 balls to spare that clinched a third successive series win for South Africa.

The left-arm wrist-spinner was only hit for one boundary, a massive blow into the sightscreen by Dasun Shanaka. But the next delivery Shamsi ripped through the gate to bowl the Sri Lanka captain, leading to a pumped-up celebration. It was one of many on the night by the Proteas and Shamsi admitted that the team has been extra-motivated by all the negativity over the them back at home.

“My emotions come out sometimes and it’s partly because I waited a long time for a place in the team. And then when someone smokes you like that, I can’t use the words here that are in my head, but then to get the batsman out after a moment like that leads to great satisfaction.

“I realise now that getting hit for six is part-and-parcel of T20. There’s no embarrassment, all the great spinners have been hit for six, and my mindset has changed a lot. But if you hit me for six, you must know that I’m coming back for you with the next ball I bowl,” Shamsi said.

“There’s a lot of perceptions about us, people looking negatively at the team and the way we are playing. But we are not rubbish, my opinion is that we are actually quite good, on par with the great South African teams, we just need to play more international cricket. We’re on a run at the moment, winning three series in a row, we’re playing for the country and trying to make the country proud,” Shamsi said.

While the 31-year-old continues to justify his ranking as the world’s No.1 T20 bowler, Shamsi praised the help he has been getting from his friends in the rest of the spin attack.

“Sri Lanka have prepared spinning pitches thinking it was our weakness, but we are capable of fighting fire with fire. The majority of our overs are now spin because we have so many quality spinners, whereas there may have been a reluctance in the past to play them and we would only have four-to-eight overs of spin before.

“It’s a refreshing change that we are picking the team for the conditions. And it’s nice for me to have all that back-up because it means I can be utilised in different ways,” Shamsi said.

The third and final T20 will be played tomorrow at the same Premadasa Stadium.