The selectors’ job is to pick on form AND reputation
Everybody knows that history repeats itself, but the cycle is shorter and quicker in sport than in most other walks of life. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
There is always something to hit or kick and the requirements for speed and strength do not change. Neither does the debate about the value of experience.
When selection convenor Peter van der Merwe announced a list of 20 names in a preliminary squad for the 1992 World Cup, and it didn’t include Clive Rice, 42, Jimmy Cook, 38, and Peter Kirsten, 36, people were up in arms. There were petitions and even threats.
Kepler Wessels, who was appointed as captain, was painted as the villain of the piece even though he was, in fact, in favour of the trio being included. Or at least of Kirsten’s inclusion.
Van der Merwe tried to be as diplomatic as possible in the face of the hue and cry, describing the trio as “great
players” whom their country “would always be grateful to”.
However, less than two months earlier the team, under Rice’s captaincy, had been beaten 2-1 by India in the first post-isolation fixtures and some had noted their lack of sharpness in the field.
Van der Merwe attempted to pour oil on troubled waters but instead added fuel to the fire when he said: “We decided to opt for players a little more fleet of foot.”
One of them, of course, was a little-known kid from Pietermaritzburg who turned out to be extremely fleet of foot. Ironically, Kirsten had enjoyed a similar reputation for much of his career.
Van der Merwe’s six-man panel was deeply divided, with Graeme Pollock and Lee Irvine not hiding their disdain for the convenor’s casting vote: “If Jonty Rhodes is a better cricketer than any of Rice, Cook and Kirsten, then I know nothing about the game,” muttered Pollock.
Irvine convinced Kirsten to remain silent but Cook spoke out on his behalf rather than for himself or Rice: “I can’t believe that Peter Kirsten can win the man-of-the-match award in India just six weeks ago and now he’s not good enough to make a squad of 20.
“I believe you should always pick your best available team and if a couple of them are a little old, so what? But the selectors have picked a squad of athletes here … doesn’t batting and bowling count anymore? The squad is supposed to be going to a cricket tournament, not a track and field meeting,” said Cook.
As fascinating as history is, it is more important that its lessons are learned. Now, 28 years later, the selection convenor is Linda Zondi and he has just two fellow selectors on his panel, although captain Faf du Plessis and coach Ottis Gibson provide robust input. It is almost always counterproductive to impose a player on the men making the most important decisions before and during a game.
If Du Plessis and Gibson had lost faith in Hashim Amla, they would have asked for his exclusion and it would have been Zondi’s unenviable task to take public responsibility for it.
Sometimes statistics mislead and tell half truths, but in the case of Amla they provide an uncomfortable clarity. He is a considerable distance past his best and has been heading in that direction for 18 months.
Yet he is Hashim Amla, one of the greatest ODI batsman in the history of the 50-over game and one of the most positive influences and defining role models of the last 25 years.
It is easy to say “pick on form not reputation” because it sounds like the right thing to say. But it is equally silly.
It is impossible to say that any player’s current form will have a bearing on his form in June or July. The tournament is more than six weeks long and it is the selectors’ job to include reputation and personality in their discussions and debates. It is their duty to measure the advantages of having a 70% Amla in the squad against the disadvantages and unease caused by his omission. So of course he was chosen on reputation.
Back in ‘92, Van der Merwe finally bowed to public pressure — and the request of the captain — and included Kirsten in the final squad of 14. He adapted to a wide variety of conditions better than any other player and he “found a way” to score runs when others were struggling.
He was by far and away SA’s leading run-scorer with 410, just behind Martin Crowe (456) and Pakistan’s Javed Miandad.
Amla is as good as they were. Or at least, he was. But would you be the man to say he won’t come good again?
Du Plessis and Zondi aren’t.