Sobering season for South African cricket

The 2001-02 season is over and must rate as one of the most disappointing seasons in South African cricketing history. Lessons have been learnt and time will tell if these will be put into practice to avoid any further embarrassment to the national team, cricket in South Africa and especially the national selectors.

Coming off successful Test series in Zimbabwe, and at home against India, the national team continued in their winning ways by taking the Standard Bank Tri-Nations played between South Africa, India and Kenya before departing for a "World Championship" in Australia.

Apart from winning the VB one-day series in Australia, two Test series drubbings (home and away) by the Australians and a 5-1 loss to Australia in the one-day series back at home asked a number of questions of South African cricket.

The retirement of Alan Donald from Test cricket left a gaping hole in the South African attack. Various players were used to fill "White Lightning's" boots, but to date no one has proved to be up to it. The improved form of Makhaya Ntini towards the end of the season was one redeeming feature.

On the domestic front KwaZulu-Natal walked away with all the trophies on offer - the Standard Bank Cup, beating Western Province in the final; The Discovery Challenge, beating Gauteng in the final after the scores were tied; and the SuperSport Trophy, drawing with Northerns as they set a new South Africa record score in the final.

Graeme Smith with a total of 738 runs at an average of 67.09, putting him third behind Mike Rindel's 785 and 766 all time runs in any season, emerged from the Standard Bank Series as the highest scorer and went on to establish himself in the South African team.

Garnett Kruger with the most wickets in the Standard Bank Series - 21 - never once received an international call-up even though the national team always seemed to be short of a bowler. His tally of wickets, however, did not place in the top 15 of the all-time season wicket-takers. Graeme Smith was third with 19 wickets and got a bowl in the sixth international against Australia (4-0-24-1).

National selection policy, a major controversy all season long, once again made no sense when Jon Kent was called up for the South African one-day team after taking 10 wickets at an average of 32.30 and scoring 246 runs at an average of 30.66 during the Standard Bank Cup series.

The selection blunders were highlighted during the season when a national squad was made public during a press conference from the wrong piece of paper. This error had to be rectified 20 minutes later when the correct team was handed to the Press. It is no wonder that the UCBSA Executive have terminated the current selection panel, reducing their term from two to one year.

Martin van Jaarsveld took the run-scoring honours in the SuperSport series with 934 runs 84.9. This included four hundreds and three fifties. Van Jaarsveld was also not picked for any senior national squad. He scored 67 against Kenya, 69 against India, 11 and 29 against Australia and 128, 94, 57 and 15 against India 'A' playing for South Africa 'A'.

The first-class bowling honours belonged to Steve Elworthy with 52 wickets in the season, 8 ahead of Nixon McLean, at an average of 18.11. He should have been an obvious choice for the national squad. The only bowler in the country who consistently swings the ball away from the right-hander was in and out of the national squad like a yo-yo. Once again, however, when South Africa needed a bowler of international standard he was left out. His age, 37, appears to have counted against him.

While most players are resting, Shaun Pollock, Lance Klusener, Nicky Boje and Graeme Smith are off for a stint of cricket in England, and it is time for administrators to sit down and come up with the correct answers before heading towards the World Cup in 2003.