NEIL MANTHORP: Top cricketers nudge coaches to prioritise Tests

Concurrent success across all three of cricket’s formats is now almost impossible. Even consistent excellence is proving elusive, or just being consistently competitive — and it applies to teams as well as individuals.

When England’s genius all-rounder Ben Stokes decided that his passion and priorities lay with Test cricket and the England Cricket Board diverted funds and attention to rebuilding the national red-ball team after the most recent Ashes flogging in Australia three years ago, their white-ball teams were escorted to the top of the cliff from which they recently fell.

SA, too, made Test cricket the priority whenever there was a schedule clash and have triumphantly reached the final of the World Test Championship to be played at Lord’s in June. And guess what? They have won only four of their last 12 ODIs and lost their last six ODIs before their opening Champions Trophy game against Afghanistan on Friday.

It is tempting to give all the credit to the national coaches, Shukri Conrad and Rob Walter, for sharing a laudable goal and working so effectively in tandem for the good of the greatest format. One of the many uncomfortable truths is that they were “helped” in that direction by the wishes of many of the country’s best cricketers.

It is churlish and unfair to suggest that “player power” was responsible for the absence of, say, Kagiso Rabada, Heinrich Klaasen and David Miller from the ODI series in the UAE against Afghanistan and Ireland in the middle of 2024. But it is equally obvious that such assignments are a waste of their time, commitment and physical resources. Among the many uncomfortable truths rarely spoken of that all international matchers are not equal. Some are inconsequential and barely deserving of the status. 

Whenever Rabada has played for the Proteas in the past two years he has been fully fit, refreshed, motivated and, most importantly, highly effective and close to his best in every game. Likewise in the SA20, which his team, MI Cape Town, won after collecting a pair of wooden spoons in the first two years of the tournament.

Whereas Conrad has been able to select from the best players available (since the abysmal circumstances in which his tenure started with a “C” team travelling to New Zealand a year ago) Walter has presided over the debuts of 23 players in ODI and T20I cricket. He has spoken often about the importance for the national teams of widening their player base and has, magnanimously but impractically, shouldered the “blame” for failing to win at the same time.

Yet another uncomfortable truth is that Conrad’s Test teams failed to meet the racial composition target in any fixture leaving the white-ball teams to “catch up” to meet the annual average requirement. And yet that is the reddest of herrings, convenient as some critics find it as a reason for the poor results. Unlike in years and decades past, not a single player of colour has been promoted prematurely or undeservingly.

So many debutants over two years would destabilise any team, whatever their skin tone happened to be. On one, single occasion Walter mentioned the parameters within which his starting XI needed to be selected when asked why Ottneil Baartman had not played against Pakistan. He replied, honestly, that Nqaba Peter was chosen ahead of him to address the perennial shortage of black African players.

Peter is SA’s most exciting young spinner and has been included in national squads because he was the standout bowler in the Cricket SA T20 Challenge last season. It is neither his nor Walter’s doing that an exciting leg-spinner was included in a team ahead of a talented seamer to satisfy a criterion evolved over decades to satisfy administrators and politicians rather than coaches or cricketers.    

There is “talk” now that Walter’s job is on the line despite reaching the semifinals and final of the past two ICC World Cups, a record far better than any other national coach. The man enjoys as much if not more respect from the national players as any of his predecessors stretching back over 25 years. He is meticulous, honest and forthright. Every current and aspirant national player knows exactly where they stand with Walter.

There are only two criteria by which the current white-ball coach can be reasonably measured. The first is by performances in ICC events and the second by how successful his transition-planning is during the build-up to the 2027 World Cup in SA and immediately thereafter when half the team will be 35 or older and their replacements, with a valuable taste of international cricket, will have to step up. By which time Walter may be gone. He wouldn’t be the first coach whose best work is appreciated in his wake.