Allan Donald doesn’t believe New Zealand will have the guts to leave much grass on the surfaces at any of the venues hosting the three Tests against South Africa.
The first of those matches starts on Wednesday (midnight on Tuesday, SA time) at the University Oval in Dunedin, and if the surface for the opening game of the series is anything like it was when South Africa last played there in 2012, Donald expects the bowlers to work hard for their wickets.
“Oooh, that’s a graveyard,” Donald, who was the Proteas’ bowling coach on that tour five years ago, puffed about the surface in Dunedin.
The pitch back in 2012 did seem to start with a bit of life in it, with both sides bowled out for under 300 in their respective first innings, but when it settled it became a “graveyard” for the bowlers, with South Africa 435/5 in their second innings with three batsmen scoring centuries.
Donald expects New Zealand to prepare something similar this week, as they seek to nullify one of South Africa’s main strengths - the fast bowling. That may seem to be a negative approach, though, because New Zealand have a high-quality bowling line-up themselves, led by Trent Boult and Tim Southee, and with Neil Wagner apparently back to full fitness after breaking his hand in domestic cricket, the Kiwis don’t lack ability or aggression with the ball.
Between them Boult and Southee have claimed 386 Test wickets and have been among the foremost new-ball pairs of the modern era. However, if Donald is to be believed, then that duo won’t be bowling to South Africa on the kind of green wickets Bangladesh and Pakistan got when they toured New Zealand earlier this season.
“Under (Brendon) McCullum we saw a real attitude change from New Zealand. They were happy to take on opposing teams on pitches that did a bit.
“They didn’t want to take us on on pitches like that in 2012, but they’d be silly to take us on on those, I suppose,” said Donald.
The reason is simple. “We’ve got Vernon Philander.”
“You speak to anyone in Australia, England, and they’ll tell you there is no one better on a pitch that goes sideways than Vernon Philander,” Donald explained.
To underscore that point, there’s no better place to look than Philander’s statistics from the 2012 series - 21 wickets at an average of 15.47 with his 10-for in the second Test the primary reason for South Africa’s 1-0 series win.
Also, in Kagiso Rabada and hopefully a fit-again Morné Morkel, South Africa have two seamers with much greater pace than any New Zealand are likely to field, which will probably motivate the home team even further to prepare pitches without much pace or bounce in them.
Donald doesn’t share the concerns over Morkel’s fitness that others do. “I chatted to him recently and he seemed very excited about playing international cricket again,” Donald said.
Morkel has played just six matches since July 2016, three of those warm-up games in Australia on South Africa’s tour there earlier this season.
He has bowled 16.5 overs for the Titans in the Momentum Cup recently and will surely get through more work as part of the group that went over to New Zealand early to prepare for the Test series.
And while Wayne Parnell and Duanne Olivier performed very well in South Africa’s last Test in which both played against Sri Lanka - Parnell taking six wickets and Olivier five on his debut - Donald would still back Morkel to start in Dunedin on Wednesday.
“It doesn’t matter the pitch, whether it’s low and slow, he’ll get bounce out of it. He provides the attack with an extra dimension.”
One vital component for both teams’ bowling units will be the respective left-arm spinners. Mitchell Santner and Keshav Maharaj are still very new to the Test match scene - and their roles are very
similar, to provide control while the quick bowlers look to strike.
In this series, though, theirs could take on a more prominent role if the opposing batsmen are looking to attack them, thus opening up wicket-taking opportunities.
“It will be a tight series; there are two world-class bowling line-ups going up against each other,” said Donald.
The two batting line-ups match up well, too, although given the success they’ve had this season - against a very good Australian attack and then on very green pitches on home ground - you’d have to give the South Africans a slight advantage.
Six of the top seven have scored hundreds this season, the only exception being Temba Bavuma, who struggled against Sri Lanka, averaging just 4.2 in that series.
Happily for the diminutive right-hander, he seems to have found some form domestically for the Highveld Lions, making 74 for them in the One-Day competition the night before he left for New Zealand.
The Black Caps will rely heavily on their skipper Kane Williamson and former captain Ross Taylor to nullify the threat from South Africa’s potent attack. It will be crucial for the home team that opener Tom Latham gets over his crisis in confidence which saw him dropped from the ODI side in the middle of the series.
Latham and Jeet Raval have performed solidly for New Zealand this season, which has given Williamson and Taylor greater freedom to be more attacking.
Although some of the gamesmanship that so infamously caught South Africa off-guard in the quarter-final of the 2011 World Cup is no longer utilised by New Zealand, Donald said he still felt they’d try to get under the skin of the Proteas players.
“It will be niggly. New Zealand are like that."
Test Schedule:
First Test - March 8-12, Dunedin
Second Test - March 16-20, Wellington
Third Test - March 25-29, Hamilton