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I wasted no time as I woke up from my sleep at 7:30 a.m Indian time, and quickly browsed the internet for the live update of the South African encounter against Australia.
I was hoping South Africa would have at least made a couple of inroads into the Australian batting, but lo and behold!
I was stunned. I saw two recent results of South Africa versus Australia encounters – one listed above showing ‘SA won by 177 runs’ and just below ‘SA won by an innings and 80 runs’, if that was not the end of my dream, it also showed on the left-hand side, Venue: Hobart.
I immediately scrolled down and goodness me, what a capitulation!
Having seen so many major disappointments as an Indian-born South African fan (very supportive of both the nations though), it was everything I wanted to see.
Just because most of the videos of cricket.com.au, are geographically restricted, I had to look for some other uploads. And finally, I got one.
It was bang on, inch-perfect performance from the young duo of Kagiso Rabada and Kyle Abbott. The dismissals of Callum Ferguson and Adam Voges just went to show how they were caught in two minds, by some ruthless aggression, especially by Rabada. It seemed Ferguson had one eye on retaining his place for Adelaide, which would never be a probability again. If tried, it would again be in vain.
You can’t blame Joe Mennie for his dismissal. After those hostile bouncers, he got a straight one down to his foot and he was plumbed.
You can see all the while, through the highlights (I mean it was all highlights or lowlights from an Australian perspective), the painful agony writhing Steve Smith. He stood at the non-striker’s end, watching haplessly the action replay of the first innings. Yet he is facing such staunch criticism for being a poor captain.
What can he do from a non-striker’s end?
I am pretty sure his partners cannot shadowbox him while facing up to Rabada and Abbott.
But coming to the South African pace battery, they gave me the surprise of November. I barely expected the game to roll over before I could even take to the television set. Nevertheless, hats of to the South Africans, and again I would single out Francois Du Plessis for this series victory.
Before the start of this tour, one of The Roar’s most popular columnist, Ronan O’Connell wrote a piece titled, ‘De Villiers’ absence makes Proteas outsiders in Tests in Australia‘ and I left a comment below that with Du Plessis at the helm, South Africa would fancy their chances of securing a victory in this series.
It might have sounded preposterous at that time as many listed Mitchell Starc would blow apart the South African top order, in the absence of De Villiers.
However, nothing of that sort happened and the captain has to be given his credit.
I can still foresee South Africa going down in the first Test at Perth if De Villiers or even Hashim Amla were the captain. Neither of them, during their spells as skipper, showed any cricketing brains whatsoever. I firmly stand on this point.
Under De Villiers, it was all about passion and endeavour, always fighting hard for the country. Though the morality of the argument is good, yet cricket games are decided through cricketing brains.
De Villiers’ captaincy in the Australian ODI series in 2014 was abysmal. In the fourth game, when Australia was on the ropes at 98/5, chasing 267, he let that game go courtesy of a brilliant hundred by Steve Smith.
A similar instance was seen in the first game when from 156/5, Australia went on to score nearly three hundred or more, I guess with the fifties from George Bailey and Mitchell Marsh. His rotation of bowlers was one of the worst I have ever seen. As a captain, he was nowhere near as good as he is a player.
Amla’s captaincy barely had a taste, apart from one grinding series win in Sri Lanka.
However, I do not want anyone to mistake my criticism of Amla or De Villiers with my sympathy for Steve Smith, as the Australian skipper. Steve Smith is way younger than those two, who made their debut way back in 2004. Steve Smith can be groomed into one of the successful skippers in Australian history.
You cannot have any other alternative when the team and even the youngsters coming up are so young and some aged-cricketers, like Adam Voges are failing to set an example.
Du Plessis showed excellent rotation of his bowlers. I even wrote a piece highlighting his captaincy credentials at Perth: ‘A critical review of Faf du Plessis’ captaincy in Perth‘.
Du Plessis might come out as laid-back captain, yet his captaincy credentials are way better than that of De Villiers. Even as a player, he is consistent across all three formats, with averages over 40 and a top number three batsman in the modern game.
Lastly, I would definitely say it was an incredible team performance, well led by their skipper and now they are truly on the verge of a 3-0 whitewash.
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