Instability looms as South Africa revel in false Centurion dawn

When Kagiso Rabada cleaned up Stuart Broad with the visitors still 108 runs short of the target, the entirety of the SuperSport Park in Centurion went into a frenzy; it was not the kind of reaction you usually see from South Africa, not especially after winning a Test at home, that too the first match of a series, but you could understand why - it was their first Test win after 350 days. A side that was once mauling teams for fun was deprived of the taste of victory for eleven long months, so it was unsurprising that they shot into cloud nine as soon as they did. 

We’re talking problems right up top to way down the bottom that need fixing. Aiden Markram fracturing a part of his hand (again) means that the Proteas are now left to choose between Pieter Malan and Keegan Petersen, but let’s not pretend that it’s a huge blow for them. Markram, in his last 10 Tests has averaged 22.31 and the duo of Markram and Dean Elgar, of late, opening the batting, have been a trainwreck; Their last 5 opening stands read 2, 0, 0, 2, 4 and in the last 18 months, in 19 innings, they’ve averaged 12.00. 

For a batsman who takes so much pride in grinding it out the hard way, Elgar’s efforts, of late, have been uninspiring and worse, have left the fragile middle-order exposed. Him nicking a delivery on either side of his body to the wicket-keeper in the first Test was not the prettiest of sights and it makes you wonder if it’s time to slowly remove the blanket of safety that he’s been veiled with.

And if their opening stand has been a trainwreck, their middle-order has been a circus featuring several clowns, with no one exactly knowing what they’re there for or what they’re supposed to do; Du Plessis doesn’t know if he should bat at #3, #4 or #5, the management are too reluctant to trust Zubayr Hamza after having seen what’s happened with Markram and de Bruyn and no one really knows what Temba Bavuma really is.

But then again, you can argue that in the form of Faf, RVD and Temba, they have enough experience in the middle, and a shuffle here and a shuffle there can always be done to make a messy clay sculpture. That is not the case, however, with their pace bowling stocks. In three Tests time, they will be bidding goodbye to Vernon Philander, the man who’s been the nucleus of their bowling attack over the last 9 years.

And yet, your guess is as good as mine and our guess is as good as theirs when it comes to who will fill in Vernon’s shoes; no pacer has been groomed nor has anyone been lined-up, with the only candidate being an injury-prone Lungi Ngidi. With both Rabada and Nortje being primarily aggressive bowlers - designed to sacrifice runs in search of wickets - you’d think they’d want a bowler who can compliment the two by doing a holding job; Ngidi isn’t that bowler. 

In Centurion, South Africa fielded only four players of colour, falling short of the country’s racial selection policy’s count of six by two players. The injuries to Ngidi and Bavuma haven’t made things any easier, but one wonders if a situation would arise in the future where compromises would need to be made in terms of personnel to fulfill the racial selection policy, the last thing that the team would need going forward. 

In exactly a month’s time, South Africa will be in danger of being left with a hopeless top-order, an inconsistent, perplexed middle-order and a potential dearth of pacers, all whilst trying to fulfil the racial selection policy. Months and years of mismanagement and short-sightedness have led to this situation and if anything, the team is being held together by the tiniest of threads.