Cricket South Africa and the England and Wales Cricket Board each announced significant attempts to increase crowds around their respective countries recently.
CSA have taken the traditional Boxing Day Test away from Durban’s Kingsmead and Port Elizabeth’s St George’s Park, instead handing it to Centurion’s SuperSport Park for Pakistan’s visit later this year. Cape Town’s Newlands, though, has rightly retained the famous New Year Test.
The ECB, meanwhile, have revealed plans to host an ‘H100’ tournament, with anyone in their employ – from Andrew Strauss and Joe Root to Eoin Morgan and Sam Billings – tasked to verbally promote its promise.
The potential of a format shorter than T20, souped up even further by a solitary 10-ball over, has largely been met with disdain – and is all too contrived. The venue news coming out of South Africa, though, is spot on.
Watching the Australians play in front of paltry crowd numbers at Kingsmead and St George’s Park in March was sad. The grounds are fortunate to have since been afforded mid-series Tests for 2018’s Pakistan arrival and 2019’s Sri Lanka tour. Buffalo Park in East London or the Manguang Oval in Bloemfontein could’ve argued their cases.
Pakistan’s last trip to South Africa, in 2013, yielded a three-nil Test series drubbing, while the Sri Lankans suffered the same in 2016-17. Neither have improved much – and there’s little reason to suggest the Proteas won’t gather the same results this time. Pakistan and Sri Lanka sport solid talent, but not enough to outdo Faf du Plessis and company, particularly away from the gulf and sub-continent.
The hosts will have a relatively new-look seam attack by then, after the retirement of Morne Morkel and evident fall from favour of Chris Morris. One wonders if Vernon Philander will still be playing Test match cricket in six months’ time – and where Duanne Olivier will stand in the pecking order. Dale Steyn, one surmises, will either be back at full tilt or lost to international cricket for good. Kagiso Rabada, indeed, will well and truly be the attack leader – and Andile Phehlukwayo’s pretence should still be losing to Lungi Ngidi’s advances.
Before all of this, though, the South Africans have July’s tough Test series in Sri Lanka to successfully negotiate – and talk will soon turn to the need (or not) for a second specialist spinner. Keshav Maharaj will probably require more than the part-time resources of Dean Elgar or Aiden Markram, but who his full-time support will be remains in the balance. Simon Harmer would be a shoo-in, had he not signed a Kolpak deal.
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