ZA Cricket

There have been many opinions about South Africa’s decision to send a makeshift team to New Zealand. Many of them have been bad. Some of them have basically compared our decision to put the SA20 ahead of Test cricket to a war crime. But as I watched the West Indies push Australia, I had a thought: Why can’t the Proteas “A” team push, or even New Zealand? At the time of writing, Australia needs 256 runs to win the second Test with eight wickets in hand. I anticipate that Australia will win, although the West Indies have repeatedly shown the ability to take wickets in bunches on this tour.

But the Australians haven’t had it all their own way. The men from the Caribbean had the Australians at 54/5, and could have quickly taken a sixth wicket, had Alex Carey’s off-stump bail not decided that it doesn’t believe in being dislodged. More than just challenging, they even took the lead on first innings in the second Test, a vanishingly rare feat for the opposition in Australia. South Africa certainly came nowhere near competing to that end when they were in Australia, with what was ostensibly our first team The Windies will likely lose this series 2-0, and on paper, it will look like a reasonably straightforward series win, but I think it’s a series where they’ve shown pluck, and maybe even discovered a few potential future pieces. Kirk McKenzie’s half-century in the first Test showed signs of life, while Shamar Joseph’s Test debut five-wicket haul made Test cricket look suspiciously easy.

But that’s the thing. There are four debutants in the Windies playing XI in this Test. The playing XI has 726 First-class matches, with Kemar Roach and Kraigg Brathwaite contributing half of these matches. If you take them out of the equation, the other nine players averaging 40 first-class matches a player. It’s a team shorn of experience. Comparatively speaking, the South African squad headed to New Zealand averages 96 first-class games a player. That’s almost two-and-a-half times the experience of this Windies side. Duanne Olivier, Dane Paterson and Dane Piedt are all capped bowlers, with Olivier and Piedt having five-wicket hauls at Test level. Zubayr Hamza, Khaya Zondo, David Bedingham and Keegan Petersen are all capped batters at Test level, although none of them have quite shown the application to show lasting success in the format. Obviously. Because if they did, they’d probably be in the SA20.

Regardless, while this is not a team replete with Test cricket experience, or excellence, the West Indies have shown that with a little bit of planning, some gusto and self-belief, you can go a long way. South Africa are facing a worse team, have players with more experience in a higher quality first-class league. There’s no reason why they shouldn’t have designs on, at the very least maintaining South Africa’s undefeated record against New Zealand.