Davis axed in Northerns shakeup (9 November 1998)

9 November 1998

Davis axed in Northerns shakeup

Trevor Chesterfield

CENTURION - Mark Davis shaky tenure as Northerns captain of the four-day side has come to an abrupt halt as the coach, Peter Kirsten, attempts to beef up the batting for the weekend's A Section outing against Border.

In the wake of the defeat in three-days by Eastern Province at St George's Park, Davis has been replaced by the tall, elegant middle-order batsman Gerald Dros for the four-day game starting at SuperSport Centurion on Friday. A lack of batting form has been cited as the reason behind yesterday's decision to "relieve him of the captaincy for the foreseeable future".

Whether the appointment of Dros can be viewed as being that of caretaker depends largely on long-term developments.

Although Davis is still looked on as the Titans skipper for the limited-overs series, Kirsten confirmed the decision to leave Davis out of the SuperSport Series game against Border would give the 27-year-old all-rounder a chance to find batting form "without the shackles of captaincy". Which means he now has a chance to at either league level or for Northerns B.

As the B teams' next game is against North West in a UCB Bowl Division 1 three-day outing at Centurion the same time as the seniors play Boland in Paarl, it at least gives Davis a chance to win his place back in the side for the match against Gauteng later in the month.

As part of Kirsten's "beefing up programme" Mike Rindel and Steve Elworthy have been included along with all-rounder Pierre de Bruyn and Grant Morgan; out go Davis, Dennis Smith, Pierre Joubert and Quentin Still from the side which went down to Port Elizabeth. At this stage it is uncertain whether Elworthy will be available for the game as he also has a hectic schedule of benefit season engagements after arriving back from Bangladesh this morning.

It was also confirmed by Kirsten that Davis lack of batting form become an issue when the side was in Port Elizabeth and it was suggested he bat higher in the order than seven; possibly open.

Speaking from experience Kirsten agreed that ''leaving out a captain is not an easy decision to take" but in the long-term interests of the side it was more important now to find the right balance for the rest of the season.

Kirsten admitted the Titans had been out-played by Eastern Province, despite the unfavourable conditions. And as a man with intimate experience of the St George's Park conditions his comment, "As well as batting poorly we also bowled a lot of rubbish" is not out of place.

He felt the side for the Border game gave Dros extra options. "Places are going to be at a premium and we need to get back some momentum we had before the last game," he said.

"If we want to win trophies we need to have a winning side. We need an all-rounder who can play a match-winning role and Northerns, at present, don't have a Jacques Kallis, Piet Botha, Lance Klusener or Kossie Venter. It's as simple as that."

Davis has overseen the side's dramatic rise in the quagmire of indecision in the rocky era of the early 1990s to a powerful limited-overs unit which has won 24 of the last 27 Standard Bank League games.

From a high when his individual brilliance earned him a place in the South Africa under/24 side which toured Sri Lanka in August 1995, his batting form has slipped into decline. Since the 1995/96 season when he took over the captaincy his batting average has slipped to below 20: 537 runs in 36 innings with an average of 14.91 is well below a player of his class and ability.

Source :: Trevor Chesterfield, Pretoria News