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skipper needed PETER ROBINSON - The Mail&Guardian, January 26, 2002 Neil McKenzie is the ideal replacement for Shaun Pollock, whose leadership has been cruelly exposed o one swallow — even a pair of them — quite obviously doesn't make a summer. Come to think of it, those victories over New Zealand and Australia at the start of the one-day series hardly seem swallows any longer. More like gulps, you might say. Just on three and a half weeks since South Africa staggered out of the Test series, the one-day campaign has taken on the appearance of an action replay. Against Australia on Tuesday all the signs of mental, physical and emotional exhaustion that were evident during the Test matches seemed to flood back into the one-day side. Not even Jonty Rhodes has been able to sustain the lift he gave to the team when he joined them. Of course there were some mitigating factors on Tuesday. Three seam bowlers were out injured and a fourth, Steve Elworthy, was unable to bowl. Elworthy, one of the game's good blokes, hardly deserved Steve Waugh's snide asides. The Australian captain prides himself on upholding the traditions of the game, but he has clearly forgotten the one about respecting your opponents, especially those injured in the course of battle. None of this, though, can explain a pitiful batting display. Yes, the pitch had more in it than anyone expected and, yes, a brief shower during the South African innings juiced it up a little more, but too many of the South Africans seemed to have lost the stomach for a fight. Whatever happens in Adelaide this weekend — and South Africa almost certainly have to beat New Zealand on Sunday to have any hope of making it through to the finals — any number of questions will have to be answered when the team gets home. At almost every level — from the administration through to the management of the side (which includes a public relations disaster that started at the beginning of the tour and lasted until the Test series was over) and on to the coaching, the playing and the captaincy — South Africa have been found wanting. It is all very well to point to some bad luck and the fact that both Australia and now New Zealand are very good sides. There seems to have been a lack of genuine leadership, both on and off the field. It may be true that Shaun Pollock has rediscovered some of his old zip as a bowler during the one-dayers, but his all-round game has been muted. He looks very much like a man carrying an enormous burden and for the first time since he took over at very short notice from Hansie Cronje he does not appear to be particularly enjoying his cricket. It is one of cricket's truisms that fast bowlers should not captain teams, but during the early stages of his tenure he coasted by, relying on talent and instinct, displaying a far lighter touch than his predecessors. But, as Kepler Wessels once noted, Australia makes or breaks cricketers, and unless South Africa somehow turn everything in the next two weeks, this tour could mark the end of Pollock's reign. Unless there is a remarkable turnaround in both the spirit and the results over the next two months, South Africa would seem to have no choice other than to seek a new leader ahead of next year's World Cup. Few would question vice-captain Mark Boucher's fighting spirit and his commitment to the cause. But he has had a difficult time by his own standards, since hacking into a finger in Melbourne, and though he has no real reason to worry about his place in the side at this stage, his own game is still not quite where he would surely want it to be. In any case, wicketkeepers are usually the de facto vice-captains of their teams. They are the sergeant majors around whom the team's fielding revolves. And never underestimate the value of a good sergeant major. Which probably leaves only Neil McKenzie as a real, but not, by any means, a bad option. McKenzie has captained teams since his schooldays. He had barely set foot inside Centurion Park when Northerns made him their captain and in this respect he has better credentials than Pollock, who had barely led a team in his life when he took charge of South Africa. McKenzie's great talent has been the ability to harness his own natural gifts to the circumstances with which he finds himself faced. He has scored runs in South Africa, the West Indies and now Australia during the past year, despite the prevailing view that Shane Warne would wrap him up inAustralia. He has, in other words, an appreciation of both the game generally and his own game specifically. He's easygoing, mildly eccentric and well-liked by both his team-mates and his opponents. Which is not to say that he doesn't think deeply and work hard at his own batting, nor that he is an easy opponent. McKenzie is still growing as a person and a cricketer. But the past two years have shown that he is a quick learner. We might need someone like that if the dream of winning a home World Cup is not to become a nightmare. The Mail & Guardian is the official publications supplier to the United Cricket Board of South Africa for the International Cricket Council 2003 World Cup. Peter Robinson is the editor of CricInfo South Africa |