It's not often that the Australians comprise the warm-up act in an English summer but surely the current one-day series is secondary to the three-Test rubber involving the South Africans. The tourists announced their 15-man squad today and it's certainly a formidable one. Like England's, there's a lot of experience there, especially in the batting.
I'll return to the history between the two nations in a future blog, but what about the impending visitors, who open their tour at Taunton next week? South Africa currently stand second in the ICC rankings in all three formats and have been almost perennial runners-up since returning to international cricket twenty years ago. Australia, India and England have persisted in holding off their challenge but the three Tests coming up could finally yield them the number one status and shrug off that hurtful 'choker' tag which I don't think is deserved.
Much has been written about the golden era of India batting coming to an end yet the Saffers' squad is probably as mature as any in recent years. Only Mark Boucher and Jacques Kallis are 35 or over, but at the other end of the scale, 21 year-old Marchant de Lange is the sole member under the age of 27. Overall, the average age is 30! The fifteen boast 720 Test appearances between them, yet more than half of that total is provided by just three men: Kallis, Boucher and Graeme Smith. Fitness permitting, the latter will play his 100th Test in a few weeks' time and has been captain seemingly forever. I mentioned the formidable batting line-up. AB De Villiers is vice-captain and deputy wicket-keeper, too, boasting 74 caps. Hashim Amla is now racing towards 30 years and 60 Test appearances. The top four occupy places in the ICC top ten and each claims a career average above 45, headed by the obscenely high 56.78 of Kallis.
However, what happens if one or more of these are injured? Alviro Petersen is a decent player but has represented hos country only 13 times in Tests. Jacques Rudolph has returned to the fold but he failed as an opener earlier this year. JP Duminy's star has waxed and waned but he has yet to truly shine in the five-day format. Boucher is not the batsman he once was, and Matt Prior is well ahead of him in the rankings.
On the bowling front, Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and Vernon Philander are rightly held up as a superb seam attack, backed by Kallis and the inexperienced (at this level) spinners Robin Peterson and Imran Tahir. Marchant de Lange is very promising but Lonwabo Tsotsobe's regard is not supported by his Test figures of nine wickets in five matches at almost 50 apiece! Compared with England's solid all-round team, South Africa suddenly don't look quite so scary.
