Johannesburg - There’s still more than two months to go until the Champions Trophy in England, but South Africa will face significant challenges in preparing for that event, most notably from the Indian Premier League.
The sixth edition of the much-hyped IPL starts next Wednesday, and because of the involvement of a large contingent of South African players - up to seven are likely to participate in the Champions Trophy - Gary Kirsten will have to box clever as he seeks to get the players in tune for the tournament.
The IPL final will be played on May 26, while South Africa will be involved in the opening match of the final ICC Champions Trophy tournament against India on June 6. Before then Kirsten wants to take the Proteas squad to the Netherlands for a trip which he described as being “very similar to what we did in Switzerland,” before the Test series in England last year.
Then the players rode, climbed and dived around the Alps, accompanied by adventurer Mike Horn. It certainly worked a treat, given the outcome of the three-match series against the English.
However, the Test side has become a very well-established unit in recent seasons, something which can’t be said of the ODI side. The series victory over Pakistan was crucial in that it will help to build confidence, but it certainly won’t make South Africa one of the favourites for the Champions Trophy.
“Unfortunately, we can only pick up all our IPL players right at the end of May. They will be playing a lot of cricket anyway. The six or seven players that aren’t playing, we might put a plan in place to make sure they are ready and prepared for that,” said Kirsten.
He said it was a difficult process to control the players’ activities while they were in India, and as a result, the preparation for a tournament would not be ideal. “They are fully involved in the IPL, they are fully contracted to that and have to commit to that time.
“Ideally, I’d love to have the squad together for a month before Champions Trophy so that we can begin our work and maybe have one or two camps, but it’s not the way cricket is these days, so you just have to prepare the way you can,” he added.
Besides the final outcome of the series against Pakistan, the most pleasing aspect for Kirsten was the performances of some of the “back-up” players. With the likes of Faf du Plessis missing - from the last two games, and Jacques Kallis and JP Duminy missing the whole series, Farhaan Behardien, David Miller and Ryan McLaren all indicated that there was plenty for the coaching staff to work with over the next few seasons.
“I think (McLaren’s) done a fantastic job. We’ve given him a bit of a run and he’s proved that he’s got the skills required, certainly on the bowling side - he hasn’t done much work on the batting side - but I’m confident he can do a job with the bat as well,” said Kirsten of the Knights all-rounder, who finished as South Africa’s leading wicket-taker in the series with 10.
“These guys arrive (at international level) and everyone expects them to make a play straight away, and if he doesn’t in two games, he’s not good enough. It’s important for us that we allow guys to settle a bit. He’s been able to settle. He feels comfortable in the environment, he’s now displaying his skills in a relaxed manner.”
Kirsten was optimistic that Kallis would be available for the Champions Trophy and that the coaching staff, selectors and the other players were comfortable that the veteran all-rounder was no longer a part of the plans for bilateral series, but would be available for tournaments. Kirsten said before the Pakistan series that he was “in negotiations” with Kallis about the Champions Trophy. “Negotiations are going well,” Kirsten joked. “What we’ve realised with Jacques is that he is not going to play one-day cricket for us anymore because we value him in Test matches too much, but we do reserve the right to use him as a wildcard in a big tournament.
“This is effectively the last big one-day tournament before the World Cup. I quietly sidled up to him in a good moment and said ‘would you be interested?’ and he said ‘yes,’ and I’m excited that he would make himself available for that.”
Kirsten stressed that as the side looked ahead to the Champions Trophy, and further down the road to the 2015 World Cup, that establishing a team culture similar to that fostered by the Test side was important.
“We don’t talk about the Test side or Test cricket at all. This is our one-day team, we’ve got a lot of one-day cricket this year and we want to make sure we build a good culture within our one-day unit.”
Cape Times