Cape Town – Get the captain and sink the ship. That will part of Dale Steyn’s mantra with the red ball in his hand when the Proteas take aim at Australia in Thursday’s first Test at the Waca in Perth.
The Proteas arrived in Western Australia on Saturday, and held their first training session at the famous ground on Sunday following two warm-up games in Adelaide.
Now that the preliminaries are out of the way, it’s time for the serious stuff, and Steyn didn’t waste any chance to put some heat on the Australians and in particular captain Steve Smith, who is under pressure following a 3-0 Test series defeat in Sri Lanka and their first ever 5-0 ODI whitewash in South Africa.
“Aussie captains kind of lead the attack. From my history of looking at Aussie cricket, the great players like Steve Waugh, you can remember Ricky Ponting, and Michael Clark. And Steve Smith kind of falls into that bracket,” the Proteas spearhead said in Perth on Sunday when asked about the importance of getting Smith out early.
“The moment you can kind of get hold of the captain, the rest of the players, in my opinion, rely heavily on him. He kinds of leads the ship, so when you pull the plug on that kind of ship, you can sink it. Not fairly easy, but there is a way to sink it.”
Proteas coach Russell Domingo and his fellow selectors are weighing up whether to go in with an all-pace attack of Steyn, Vernon Philander, Kagiso Rabada and one of Morné Morkel and Kyle Abbott, or include a spinner in Keshav Maharaj or Tabraiz Shamsi for a bit of variation.
Maharaj took a step closer to selection with an impressive 3/59 in 17.2 overs against a South Australian XI last Friday, but Morkel showed that he is raring to go by bowling with real pace in claiming 2/67 in the same game.
Whichever way the selectors go, Steyn is confident that the Proteas have all the tools to get the Australian batting line-up out cheaply at the Waca after their struggles in Sri Lanka. “Sri Lanka is the kind of place when if you do get a team five or six down, the tail is going to struggle as it stays low and the ball turns. But it’s different conditions now, with the average score in Perth is like 350 in the first innings, maybe even up to 400. We saw in the last Test, it was 600,” the 33-year-old said.
“We will have our plans and ideas of how to bowl to the tail, middle-order and top-order. We’ve got probably one of the world’s best bowling line-ups. So if we can do what we’ve done in the past – and there’s no reason why we can’t knock over the top-order, middle-order and the (tail)…”
Steyn is just five wickets away from equalling Shaun Pollock’s South African Test record of 421, and would hope to pass that mark at the Waca, even though the pitch in Perth isn’t as fast and bouncy as in the past.
The Proteas have never lost a Test at the Waca, drawing their first one in 2005 and winning by six wickets in 2008 and 309 runs in 2012, memories Steyn said his team will definitely draw on.
“Eight years ago we won here, a couple of years ago we won again. So it’s nice to come here and have that feeling that you’ve done well here before – regardless of the pitch, whether it’s going to be flying through or hit you on the ankles, it doesn’t really matter,” he said.
“To walk into a venue where you feel comfortable is always exciting. It’s our first practice this afternoon, and the nets always seem to do a little bit more than the middle, so hopefully we’ll be making some of the batters jump around, which is quite exciting!
“The guys are comfortable and we’ve been here for almost two weeks now, and everyone had a bat and did nicely. Everyone had a bowl and they feel comfortable. For the guys who have never played cricket in Australia, they are coming here with a sense of good feeling because the other guys who have been here have done well.
“So, it’s not that feeling in the past where we came here and felt like we’ve been ‘donnered’ and have our tails between our legs. We are actually coming here with some good history, so the boys are comfortable and ready to go. We’re just looking forward to the training now and for this excitement to wear off and let the game to start. We’ve been here for two weeks already, so we just want to get at it now.”
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