NEIL MANTHORP: Stubbs’ glorious knock gives a peep into possible Proteas future

In the old world of Test cricket SA’s efforts to force a win in the rain-ruined first match against the West Indies at the Queen’s Park Oval in Trinidad on Sunday was more than commendable. They did all that could reasonably have been asked of them but, with a cumulative total of almost two days lost to the seasonal rain, they were thwarted.

If you enjoy short stories, that is the end of it.

But this is the new world of Test cricket in which SA play fewer Test matches than ever before and need to win them more than ever before — if they want to continue having any fixtures at all.

They need to hit the ground running, to play every contest as if they had just spent the previous three weeks playing red ball cricket. It may be an impossible task, but that is what is required. You will always be able to ride a bike once you’ve cracked it, but you’ll take it slowly if you haven’t been in the saddle for six months.

That was the impression one had watching the Proteas score 357 from 117 overs in their first innings on a slow pitch against a modest bowling attack. Run-scoring wasn’t easy but it wasn’t that difficult. Three runs per over, like playing a dozen Tests in a year, is old world.

Tristan Stubbs scored a brilliant 68 from 50 balls in the second innings in a total of 173/3 from 29 overs to set up the declaration with SA doubling their scoring rate to six runs per over in the process.    

Professional athletes who have just completed five days of competition, even if two of them were spent inactive, will be understandably peeved at “criticism”, but a “critique” is merely an observation of a performance and events, it’s not intrinsically negative. Or shouldn’t be. 

Dictate pace

Asking post-match questions in a team meeting should be a positive exercise. Bob Woolmer always said that players, and teams, learnt the most useful lessons by questioning their performances after victories rather than defeats. “What could we have done better?” is more likely to prompt thought among happy players than despondent ones.

Could the Proteas have batted more positively? It is a perfectly legitimate question. They packed their batting line-up to the detriment of a fifth bowler and then allowed “conditions” to dictate the pace of play. Slow pitch, slow scoring. You can’t run fast on a beach. That’s the way it is.

One sure way to irritate every Test cricketer outside England is to mention their new “Bazball” approach to Test cricket. The facts, figures and stats about the Bazball era are one thing. History may record that, more significant than the numbers was the refusal of the new England team to be bound and guided by history.

Test openers, for example, leave about 15% of deliveries — have done for a century. Ben Duckett plays at all but 1.2% of the deliveries he receives, and scores off them. For more than half-a-century scoring rates in Pakistan were less than three runs per over. When England toured there in 2023 they scored at six runs per over.

SA’s players will say that conditions dictated the pace of play. It might be temerous to suggest that history played just as much a part, but there it is. History played as much a part.

I haven’t played a single Test match and will happily acquiesce to the view of any player who has, but I’ve reported or commentated on almost 400 of these games and would humbly submit that the conditions in Trinidad were not three-an-over, especially against that bowling attack.

Cashing in

Making things even more difficult is the reality that most of the SA players are in the infancy of their careers and have insufficient credit in the bank for “brave failures”. No-one is playing Test cricket for SA reluctantly, or flippantly. They all want to be there, which counter-intuitively inhibits their most instinctive play. Stubbs provided a door-crack peep into a possible future with his glorious knock in the second innings.

Most SA professional cricketers still aspire to play Test cricket, as well as cashing in on the T20 circuit. They want the best of both worlds. Don’t we all?

The thing is, regarding Test cricket with a suitable, appropriate reverence is terrific, but playing it in that fashion might just lead to its extinction. Not in England, Australia and India, of course, but certainly in SA. The Proteas need to believe they can win, and then win, a lot, to keep their place at the top table. Or any table.