The national selectors must cast their conservative image aside and put their faith in their two nominated 22-year-olds for Friday's Test at the Wanderers.
There is not much point in the selectors including fast bowler Dale Steyn and middle-order batsman Hashim Amla - he turns 23 on the first day of the match - in their enlarged squad if they do not intend to play them.
The lack of decision is in any case disappointing. It would have been far better if the selectors had chosen a straight forward squad of 12, allowing an extra bowler to cover pitch variables.
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In that way everybody would have known exactly where they stood instead of having at least half the squad wondering whether they are in the line-up or not.
| A fresh breeze in the changing room will do the world of good |
The team managed to re-group for the recent one-day series after a short break but they are now looking as though they have gone 10 rounds with Muhammad Ali in his prime which is more or less what has happened in a cricket context. A fresh breeze in the changing room will do the world of good.
What is clearly needed is a new direction for South African test match cricket. The one-day squad, ranked second in the world and deservedly so on the strength of recent results against Australia, India and England, are well on course for a good World Cup performance.
But the Test side is only ranked No 6 in the world and what has happened over the past two weeks has shown that this is an accurate reflection of their position.
They have not won a Test series, either at home or away against anybody other than the West Indies, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh since they destroyed Pakistan at the start of 2003 when Shaun Pollock was still captain and Eric Simons the coach.
The main problem is not the captain nor the coach but the inability of the bowling attack to take 20 wickets - the prime requirement for winning a Test.
"What we need is a fast bowler who can blow away the opposition," lamented SA fast bowling great Allan Donald this week.
"There is some young talent around but it is not ready to play at this level yet," he added.
The telling statistic of the Kingsmead Test was that the last three Australian wickets added 100 runs in the first innings while their South African counterparts were blown away by Brett Lee for next to nothing.
Donald and Titans coach Richard Pybus both have reservations about committing Steyn now but frankly there is very little to be lost.
He will have the experience of Makhaya Ntini, Shaun Pollock and Andre Nel bowling around him and the selectors need to find out whether he is ready to take on New Zealand in what has become a "must win convincingly" series.
Three of South Africa's next four series are at home against New Zealand, Pakistan and India - the away exception being against Sri Lanka - so the timing is right if changes are to be made.
Statistics don't lie as far as cricket is concerned and they show that the XI that played against Australia at Kingsmead has an average innings total of 372 runs. This can obviously be further divided into 400+ runs in the first innings and something nearer 300 in the second.
There is also the factor that the team has scored 66 Test centuries - this is incidentally fewer than the Australian top three - and, with Jacques Kallis and Graeme Smith averaging a century every fourth match, that would boost the likely first innings total a bit further.
But the negative statistic is that the Kingsmead bowling attack is only averaging 16.19 wickets per Test match. This is well short of what is required.
There is also the further negative factor that three key players - Smith and Herschelle Gibbs with the bat and Shaun Pollock with the ball - have performed below their normal capabilities.
The former two have not made a Test century between them this summer while Pollock has taken only 10 wickets in four Tests against Australia.
The best way to strengthen the bowling without weakening the batting to any extent is to give Pollock the No 6 allrounder slot and work Steyn into the line-up lower down. Pollock has a Test batting average of 31.61 which compares with Jacques Rudolph (37.11), Ashwell Prince (33.83) and Boeta Dippenaar (31.47). He also averaged 60 in the Test series in Australia.
Personally, I wouldn't drop Prince because he has shown a refreshing willingness to take Shane Warne on and has seldom had the rub of the green.
But, seeing that the selectors have called up Amla, they are duty bound to play him.
There is only one way to find out whether he and Steyn have bridged the gap between domestic cricket and its highest test level.
The selectors need to look beyond Australia this weekend. South Africa's bigger picture would best be served by the following XI (depending on bowling conditions): Graeme Smith, AB de Villiers, Herschelle Gibbs, Jacques Kallis, Ashwell Prince, Hashim Amla, Shaun Pollock, Mark Boucher, Nicky Boje, Andre Nel, Makhaya Ntini, Dale Steyn.
- This article was originally published on page 16 of Cape Times on March 30, 2006
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