Sydney – He may have been smashing the ball to all parts down in capital state of Canberra, but the tremors of Chris Gayle’s first double century would have been felt by the South African team all the way here in Sydney.
After the heavy defeat to India in Melbourne, the last thing the Proteas would have been looking forward to at the SCG on Friday, where they face the West Indies, was an in-form Gayle.
For a month back in South Africa prior to the World Cup Gayle limped through the five-match ODI series without a score against the Proteas. He had blitzed South Africa in the preceding Twenty20 series, but in the longer limited-overs format he had appeared a spent force.
The big Jamaican’s form has been so poor – his last ODI hundred came in June 2013 against Sri Lanka at home and in 19 matches prior to yesterday he had had scored 274 at an average of 14.42 with just one fifty – that West Indies Cricket Board president Dave Cameron retweeted on social media that the 34-year-old be given “a retirement package” last weekend.
But that is the type of criticism that has inspired Gayle throughout his career, and so like a ticking time bomb, he exploded in spectacular fashion yesterday at the Manuka Oval with 215 off just 147 balls (10x4, 16x6). To compound matters for the Proteas, it was not just Gayle that struck it rich against the Zimbabweans but Marlon Samuels too, as the pair added an ODI world-record 372 runs for the second wicket. Samuels’ contribution was 133 not out (156 balls, 11x4, 3x6).
“West Indies are always a dangerous team. We can never take them for granted. They have a lot of match-winners. We had them in South Africa not too long ago. They are an explosive team with their batting being particularly explosive,” said Proteas opener Hashim Amla. “On the day they can take the opposition apart, but on another day you can put them under pressure. A few of our batters are also due.”
Amla certainly is one of the South African batsmen that has had a quiet start to the World Cup thus far. It is not often that the World’s No2 ranked ODI batsman does not make an immediate impact, but with his track record, and especially against the Windies, it could be Amla that sets his sights on something remarkable at the SCG.
“I would love to score runs every game, but I don’t think it possible to score every game. It has certainly been a slow start but hopefully it gets better. Everybody goes through a few games where they don’t score a few runs but I’m hitting the ball nicely and hopefully it gets better soon.”
The performance of the senior players within the Proteas squad will certainly be in focus on Friday, especially as the brainstrust currently have a selection dilemma now that Vernon Philander has been ruled out of the Windies clash and possibly next week’s Ireland match in Canberra.
There is a great desire within the Proteas team to get Rilee Rossouw into the starting XI as the extra batsman, but the quandary facing Andrew Hudson – the selector on tour – coach Russell Domingo and captain AB de Villiers is how this will affect the overall balance of the team.
Philander’s replacement could also come from one of Kyle Abbott or the retention of Wayne Parnell to accommodate Rossouw’s inclusion at No7.
This would leave the fifth bowler’s allocation of overs to JP Duminy and South Africa would feel a bit uneasy heading into a game where Duminy was expected to perform the role of a specialist bowler. Faf du Plessis is bowling his leg-spin in the nets again, but it is not at the stage yet where it can be depended on in a pressure World Cup game.
There certainly is a lot to chew on over the next couple of days but at least South Africa have seemingly put the India disaster behind them. “We are obviously disappointed, we didn’t play good cricket,” Amla said. “The format of this tournament is such that you have to move on, that’s how we look at it. We made a few mistakes but the game is done and dusted and we certainly want to look ahead to the important match on Friday.” - The Star