Two coaching styles under examination

Forget the current media hype of how this Test series with South Africa is all about status and ranking. That is such an asinine metaphor: like a roll of the drums and a trumpet call as a hard TV sell to attract a wary public.

Far more important is to examine the cutting edge involved. If you take a close look at the behind the scenes management teams you will discover that it is one South African coaching style against another. India applying the calculating Gary Kirsten theory against the firm new wave strategies engendered by Graeme Smith along with the new guys Corrie van Zyl and Kepler Wessels. Not that the current Indian conditions are new to Wessels. He has after all, in recent years, coached the Chennai Super Kings in the first Indian Premier League edition.

There is a lot of professionalism on both sides; Wessels is a strong believer in the battle-front style of combat that comes from his Australian experiences as an opening batsman in an era when the Aussies were often short of quality yet competitive drive was need to win a Test cap in a tough, often media hostile environment. It made him a thoroughly streetwise competitor and is why he continues with a tough fitness regimen that demands a lot of sacrifice for a just cause.

Coming second doesn’t win laurels; barely even sympathy, but not match-winning hero worship as the public love a winner. Left behind are the unseemly political polemic issues over the Mickey Arthur’s style of management and his forced resignation. Had South Africa won the Basil D’Oliveira Trophy 3-1 instead of a tied 1-1 result, the fools who run Cricket South Africa would have been quite satisfied. Smiles, handshakes and backslapping all around: so typical of the political cricket types who haven’t even stepped on a first-class arena let alone a Test venue to face a fast bowler of say Allan Donald’s pace.

Why ask them and they wouldn’t know that in India, Tests and the slogs are played with a locally manufactured ball, the Sanspareils Greenland (SG) and not the Australian Kookaburra.