T Chesterfield: Why South African development cannot be rushed (18 Mar 1998)

March 18 1998

Why South African development cannot be rushed

Trevor Chesterfield

Centurion (South Africa) - In Pakistan, if we are to believe a particular theory, they almost scour the nurseries to find such burgeoning talent as Hasan Raza. Although it was claimed he was 14 years and 227 days old when he played his first test, it was later established he was about a year older. Or even 16 if the views of Waqar Younis are taken seriously.

West Indian selectors, on the other hand, spurn such methods in their quest for talent: rather raid the home for the playing aged. Thus they managed to revive, at the age of 36 years and some 280 days of one Clayton Lambert. And some seven years after his first, and until now, only test appearance, against England at The Oval.

He was the left-handed batsman whose ungainly stance bemused most South African captains when they played Northerns in the mid-1990s. But his record was a creditable one: more than 1200 first-class runs in his three seasons was not so bad. And his planned retirement it seems was a short one.

His replacement at Northerns was Richie Richardson, Lambert's former test vice-captain. Yet Lambert managed almost as many runs in one innings, at the Wanderers against Transvaal, than poor Richie was able to in his summer of woe for the side the Northerns marketing machine now refer to as the Titans.

South Africa's selectors, however, have neither the luxury of a nursery nor home for veterans. They have to tread carefully through a well-laid political mine-field worrying not whether the player has the talent to play at such a high level as a test but whether it will please the politicians.

Needless to say after a season in which another series was lost to Australia and most administrators pointed fingers at the system to find the right answers, agreement was reached on a radical approach to selection policy. Get rid of the veteran, acknowleged as a world-class act by a touring captain (Rashid Latif's views of Fanie de Villiers) and replace him with an unknown quantity.

Unknown . .? Well now . . . didn't Makhaya Ntini tour Australia with the South Africans earlier this season and play a one-day international with some success? Sure he did. And the argument is that he should have gone on to play in the next match as well - against the Australians.

Today or tomorrow the politicians who have put the likeable Ntini's head of their sacrifical block will know whether the young man can fufill the prophecy of the late Charles Fortune. The long reverred radio commentator was a shrewed judge of talent and class.

About eight years ago, diving back from a development programme day at Nasrec he felt he had seen what he considered the "West Indianisation of South African cricket". While perhaps "africanisation" would have been more politically correct, Fortune admitted he had seen "some exciting talent". (Ntnini was not among the group).

But the programme needed to grow and expand at its own pace; not be rushed by the politicians who could cause untold damage the image development was trying to create. Fortunately Ntini is from an area where there has been 100 years of development . . . the rest are still trying to catch up.

Trevor Chesterfield Cricket writer Pretoria News tche@ptn.independent.co.za