Puzzling opening gambit

What are the national cricket selectors doing?

A first Test series defeat in almost three years, following nine successive series without defeat and the selectors go and pick a brand new opening pair and jettison an important member of the team's brains-trust for the final Test against Australia.

The third Test starting in Cape Town next Thursday may be a dead rubber, but South Africa don't play Test cricket again for another nine months, so the selection of Imraan Khan and Ashwell Prince as make-shift openers makes no sense.

Yes, South Africa needed an opening batsman to replace Graeme Smith, but does filling that vacancy justify a whole new opening combination?

By his own admission Neil McKenzie would have liked to have scored more runs in Australia earlier this summer, but he had a magnificent 2008 with the bat overall, making three centuries, and he scored more than 1,000 runs in the calendar year (one of just four South African batsmen to do so), with an aggregate ahead of players like Sachin Tendulkar and Michael Clarke.

McKenzie's tactical input was also greatly valued by the team's leadership - underlined by the decision to keep him in Australia for the one-day series when Smith was forced to come home - while the role he played in helping to mentor the younger players like JP Duminy and Lonwabo Tsotsobe was also crucial.

Shafting him, as appeared to be the case on Tuesday, is greatly unfair, while the justification for doing it was flimsy.

In fact in trying to explain the rationale behind McKenzie's axing Procter sounded almost apologetic.

"The first thing I'd like to say is just to Graeme, Mickey and the management that it is sad that Neil McKenzie and Morne (have been dropped)... they have done so well for South Africa over the 12-16 month period, they've all been part of the team

"Neil Mac has done a wonderful job and did a fantastic job as a make-shift opening bat. But there does come a time when decisions have to be made and sometimes it is very tough.

"At this stage the selectors feel for Graeme and Mickey because those guys have been together for a long time," Procter said as part of a short statement before taking questions at Tuesday's press conference.

Khan may be the leading run-scorer in the SuperSport Series, but this is the first season he has shown any hint of consistency at the top of the order for the Dolphins.

In his previous two seasons he has averaged 34.68 and 29.50.

Procter on Tuesday seemed to place a lot of stock in the century he made in the warm-up game as part of a hastily assembled President's XI against the Australians in Potchefstroom.

Upon closer inspection, that hundred came on a flat pitch, against an attack operating some way off the level they've achieved in the two Tests. Besides, in the second innings Khan made just six - but that score didn't appear to fall under the selectors' scrutiny.

And then there's Prince, who will carry the burden of the captaincy while batting in a position he's never played in before. According to Procter, making Prince an opener, was the least disruptive way in which to accommodate him in the starting line-up.

Never mind that it takes Prince away from the position in which he has added the most value to the team.

In the Boxing Day Test at Kingsmead in 2006 his first innings century - the only hundred of the match - laid the foundation for a South African win. He was also the only South African batsmen to score a century in the disastrous first innings at Lord's last year and his 149 helped to turn the Headingley Test, in the same series, South Africa's way, setting up a 1-0 series lead.

Prince's treatment by the national selectors has been despicable and now they ask him to come back in an unfamiliar role against an attack that will be well-rested and confident. Why was he not asked where he would be most comfortable in the batting order - after-all, he is the captain isn't he?

It smacks of the bizarre and is in total contrast to the steadiness and consistency that was the hallmark of the South African teams selected in the last 18 months in which they've had the successful unbeaten run in Test series.

If the selectors had wanted to keep changes to a minimum, there was another batting-order they could have gone for with the same personnel. Prince could have been slotted in at No 5, with AB de Villiers being asked to open with Khan.

De Villiers wants to establish himself as the next No 4 (post-Jacques Kallis), but he has opened before, and the change would only have to be for one game.