The South Africans in England, 2003
A review of South Africa's tour of England in 2003
John Etheridge
15-Apr-2004
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Five unpredictable and action-laden Test matches, all squeezed into less than
seven weeks, gave South Africa's third series in England since readmission
an almost non-stop rush of excitement. The buzz started when South Africa
scorched to 398 for one on the opening day of the First Test, and finished
with England completing a staggering comeback in the Fifth. There was
scarcely time to pause for breath.
Although South Africa dominated large chunks of the series they will
ultimately judge their tour as one of frustration and lack of fulfilment, if
not exactly failure. Undoubtedly they played the more consistent cricket,
and the final result - a 2-2 draw - gave little clue as to how the matches
actually unfolded. More revealing was the number of runs each team
averaged per wicket: 44.30 for South Africa, but just 35.81 for England.
Graeme Smith, at the age of 22 and on his first major tour as captain, was
left to ponder how his side failed to win the rubber by a convincing margin.
Rain probably deprived them of a win in the First Test, although they
achieved a victory of sorts when the opposition captain, Nasser Hussain,
decided to resign immediately afterwards. They won the Second overwhelmingly,
but England drew level after winning a crucial toss in the Third.
In the Fourth, at Headingley, South Africa hauled themselves to an unlikely
victory after England surrendered at least three positions of superiority,
prompting Hussain's replacement, Michael Vaughan, to criticise his players
for a lack of ruthlessness. Going into the last match, South Africa could
easily have been leading 4-0 rather than 2-1.
Instead, Vaughan and England were somehow able to level the series in
an astonishing match at The Oval. At 345 for two shortly before the close
on the first day, South Africa's position seemed unassailable. But, perhaps
because of their own complacency and certainly because of English skill
and resolve, the balance of power in the game swung to such an extent that
England eventually won by nine wickets.
So South Africa's tour, like their previous two, ended without victory in
the Test series, though they were ahead every time. They were also thrashed
by England in the final of the one-day NatWest Series (a triangular
tournament, with Zimbabwe the makeweights). But despite failing in their
principal objective, the tourists made many friends. Their Test squad was
more demographically representative than any since their readmission, with
six non-whites among the 16 originally chosen. They also played more
adventurous cricket than much of that offered by recent South African teams,
and they certainly succeeded in their stated aim of embracing the public
and being more accessible. Smith and the coach Eric Simons wanted the
squad to have greater pride in representing their country, and to take on a
more ambassadorial role. Consequently, players were often to be seen
signing autographs half an hour after the end of play, none more frequently
than Smith himself.
Smith, who succeeded Shaun Pollock as captain in the wake of South
Africa's ignominious, mathematically challenged exit from the World Cup,
became the towering figure of the tour. Alec Stewart, who had been around
a bit and was old enough to be Smith's father, described him as "the most
impressive 22-year-old I have ever seen". Few would disagree.
His influence was felt even before the squad left home when, on his
personal recommendation, the popular all-rounder Lance Klusener was
omitted. Popular, that is, in most places except the South African dressing room.
Smith regarded Klusener as a divisive influence and had the confidence
to go public with his views. Among those to criticise the decision was the
former South African coach Bob Woolmer, and Klusener himself was so
incensed that he threatened legal action. But Smith remained firm.
Indeed his single-mindedness was awe-inspiring. Even as a young teenager,
Smith had made no secret of his ambition to captain his country, and while
most teenagers might pin up a picture of the latest pop princess, Smith stuck
a list of his watchwords to the family fridge in Johannesburg: "Brave. Strong.
Calm. Confident. Enjoy." This was a young man with a sense of destiny and
his thirst for knowledge was unquenchable. He read books about leadership
and newspaper clippings about his opposite number; he sought out Mike
Brearley and they had dinner together. However, their methods were
completely different: the cerebral Brearley brought to the job the mind of
the trained psychoanalyst; Smith was all about pounding handclaps,
meaningful stares and plenty of verbal intimidation.
Vaughan had not been thrown in at the deep end so much as tossed into the Pacific without a life-jacket. He discovered he was being given the job while chomping a bacon butty in a downcast Edgbaston dressing-room | |||
Smith also used a British sports psychologist, Michael Finnigan, and was
not afraid to admit his importance. While many teams are secretive about
such men, as though their presence suggests mental weakness, Smith asked
Finnigan to sit alongside him at two press conferences. This captain was
anything but mentally weak, publicly criticising England for "arrogance"
after their one-day victory. When Hussain referred to him during a media
conference before the Edgbaston Test as "wotsisname", he first expressed
irritation, then imposed an authority so crushing that no one on the field in
the first two Tests is likely to forget his name as long as they live. Smith
scored 277, 85 and 259.
At the time, only Don Bradman (three times), Walter Hammond (twice)
and Vinod Kambli of India had scored double-centuries in successive Tests.
On the eve of the series, Smith had taken his batsmen out for dinner and
came up with the maxim "Never Satisfied". Hundreds were not enough; he
wanted big ones. However, after treading on his stumps for 35 in the first
innings of the Third Test, he failed to reach 20 in the rest of the series.
Perhaps those who questioned his technique and said the face of his bat was
too closed for success in international cricket had a point after all.
But it would be wrong to portray South Africa's tour as a one-man show.
When available, their experienced major players all made telling
contributions. Gary Kirsten followed a century at Lord's with one at
Headingley which, on a malevolent pitch, was arguably more important than either of Smith's double-hundreds. When an arm injury kept him out of the
match at Trent Bridge (played on an even more awkward surface) South
Africa were beaten. Jacques Kallis also missed games - the first two Tests
- after he returned home to be with his dying father. Kallis had scored
prodigiously in the NatWest Series and although his batting never hit those
heights when he returned, he swerved and swung England towards defeat
at Headingley, ending with a second-innings six for 54, his best in Tests.
That performance was well timed because Pollock, who would surely have
been devastating in the conditions, had travelled home for the birth of his
first child. In the four Tests he played, Pollock was, as usual, the most
economical bowler on either side, as well as playing a couple of major
innings. Meanwhile, Makhaya Ntini added firepower, removing five of
England's top seven with the short ball during the victory at Lord's, and
taking ten in the match. But the various absences meant South Africa's
strongest team did not take the field until the decisive last Test when,
ironically, they produced their sloppiest performance.
Herschelle Gibbs, who also fielded brilliantly, completed an intimidating
top three and book-ended his series with dazzling centuries in the first and
last Tests. And wicket-keeper Mark Boucher averaged nearly 39 at No. 6
or 7 (his keeping was untidy and he often fumbled the ball - except
when a batsman had actually edged it). But in between they struggled: South Africa's middle order was an area of distinct vulnerability throughout.
Jacques Rudolph, for instance, played in all five Tests but endured a wretched
time.
But the lower order regularly made up the deficit, most notably at
Headingley, where Monde Zondeki scored 59 on his debut and, in the second
innings, Andrew Hall, the closest to a like-for-like replacement for Klusener,
plundered 99 not out from No. 8. Hall had a curious summer, constantly
nipping off to help Worcestershire reach the C&G Final (he had signed for
the county after initially being left out of the Test squad), and sandwiching
his one telling innings between four disasters. But his Headingley rampage
knocked the spirit out of England and helped put South Africa 2-1 up.
England's bowling that Sunday morning was nothing short of disgraceful
and their morale visibly disintegrated. Their eventual defeat at Leeds
prompted the usual cries for the restructuring of domestic cricket and plenty
of self-analysis. Marcus Trescothick and Mark Butcher were widely
condemned for going off for bad light on the Friday evening when they had
been pummelling the bowling. Typical of the cautious, old pro, don't-risk-what-
you've-got mentality, echoed the critics. Then, after the match, Vaughan
was attacked by several officials from the shires for suggesting the county
game was the reason English Test players lacked ruthlessness and mental
toughness. England were in a mess and there was much talk of how the
momentum (a watchword of the series) was with South Africa as they
approached the decisive Oval Test.
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At 345 for two, that momentum seemed unstoppable. But Vaughan's side,
in common with many recent England teams, rallied when at their lowest ebb. He was the latest captain to discover England's infuriating capacity for
lurching from ineptitude to brilliance on an almost daily basis. He was not
the only one flummoxed: the Cricket Reform Group - an assortment led by
Bob Willis, Mike Atherton and Michael Parkinson - were left launching
their manifesto for dismantling the current format of county cricket at the
very moment England were heading towards a historic win. Plenty of
journalists, whose pens had been dripping with vitriol four days earlier, were
forced into some serious back-tracking. The England team do that to people.
Vaughan had not been thrown in at the deep end so much as tossed into
the Pacific without a life-jacket. He discovered he was being given the job
while chomping a bacon butty in a downcast Edgbaston dressing-room and,
in these days of back-to-back Tests, had little more than 48 hours to prepare
to lift his side at Lord's. He failed. Although he had proved a popular and
effective leader in the one-day series, at times he looked overawed by the
demands of Test captaincy and allowed the game to drift without sufficient
intervention or animation. His relaxed, unflustered demeanour certainly
contrasted with Hussain's Mr Angry, heart-on-the-sleeve style. But Vaughan
insisted he would not change, and rejected all suggestions that he was too
soft for a job the Prime Minister described as harder than his.
After making 156 in the First Test, when Hussain was still in charge,
Vaughan's form with the bat dipped alarmingly. Others did their best to
make up: five more England batsmen hit centuries. Hussain, who kept his
place despite suggestions that his wallow in self-pity at Lord's disrupted the
rest of the team, scored a redeeming and warmly received hundred in the
next match, at Trent Bridge; Butcher was England's most consistent batsman
(but dropped five catches); and Trescothick was chiefly responsible for the
heart-lifting win at The Oval. In the same match, Thorpe made a hundred
in his first Test for 14 months. Andrew Flintoff, with a strong-arm century
in a lost cause at Lord's, a brace of fifties at Headingley and, most
importantly, a pulverising and wholly demoralising 95 at The Oval, showed
he is at least the batting half of becoming the new Ian Botham.
Flintoff also bowled most overs for England, but his wickets cost 59
apiece. And he was not the only one who lacked a cutting edge. Eight fast
bowlers who were or could have been chosen were injured for all or part
of the series. A debutant, James Kirtley, and a stopgap, Martin Bicknell,
took advantage of helpful pitches but otherwise England's best bowling
average was 39.86 from James Anderson, who took just 15 wickets in five
Tests. At times, as Smith and Gibbs marched on, a run-out looked the best
hope of a breakthrough. And Darren Gough, who had bust a gut (not to
mention a knee) to grab wickets on flat pitches in the past, through force
of personality as much as anything else, retired from Test cricket after two
ineffectual matches.
Alec Stewart also said goodbye, having announced before the First Test
that he would retire from international cricket at the end of the summer. He
kept his place despite averaging just 22 with the bat and was therefore granted
his wish of a valedictory tour of the English Test grounds. He finally departed, aged 40 years and five months, collar up and bearing jaunty, on his home patch at The Oval, at the end of a match that provided a mind-boggling
conclusion to a series full of wild fluctuations and engrossing cricket.