Denny - pleae comment - Squad for SriLanka test

The organization of Cricket South Africa is pathetic.   In this regard there are two clear indications that they do not know Arthur from Martha when dealing with issues,   Lets go back a week or so,   There were two games played during which a player from the Lions and one from the Dolphins were tested positive for the Chinese Virus,

Under the circumstances one would assume that the first thing SAC should have done was to provisionally list the people they want to select and have them tested for the Virus before they announce the squad,  That would not have caused the resultant problem.  

Anyway after announcing the squad the 16 players in the squad were tested and two players were found to be positive when subsequent testing was done,   So they initially added Migael Pretorius to the squad as a bowler,  They then added three more players to the squad so now they have -

*   19 players in the squad on paper; of which

*   2 is going to be send home for isolation and treatment purposes.  

So here are the 19 man squad, with the additions highlighted:-

Quinton de Kock (capt), Temba Bavuma, Aiden Markram, Faf du Plessis, Beuran Hendricks, Dean Elgar, Keshav Maharaj, Lungi Ngidi, Rassie van der Dussen, Sarel Erwee, Anrich Nortje, Glenton Stuurman, Wiaan Mulder, Keegan Petersen, Kyle Verreynne, Migael Pretorius, Raynard van Tonder, Lutho Sipamla, Dwaine Pretorius

The fact is that one can assume that one of the positive tests was a batsman from either the Lions or Dolphins team and furthermore that it was not an opening batsman - but a batsman listed lower down in the batting order,   So who are the players who tested positive  could potentially be -

   Bavuma and Van der Dussen

In the case of the bowlers neither of the two bowler replacements are fast bowlers,  So who could be the positive players in that category:-

                  Stuurman an Hendriks - the others do not play for the two mentioned franchises,

That brings me to the players added to the squad.   It is evident that the player added to the batting component was a pure replacement,   In the case of the other three additions -

*    Migael Pretorius did play in the recent matches and Donald rates him very highly;

*    Sipamla was horribly poor in the recent England series and he was probably added to the squad because there are too many White faces in that squad.   His addition likely means that Bavuma was the positive test case,

*    Dwaine Pretorius just came back from injury and has not played any cricket at all in 2020,

The squad went into the bio-bubble facility where they will stay until the two tests have been completed,  There should be some clarity soon as to who are in fact in the "Bio-Bubble" Hotel and who are not,   In the meantime from the squad on has to think about the following as well:-

*   After the 2019 CWC - where SA was scandalously poor Du Plessis indicated that he would retire after the T20I WC in 2020.   As a result of the Chinese virus the tournament was delayed by a year,   If that is the position they should NOT play Du Plessis in further tests and start with training a new player to take over from him.   As he is in the squad he should be an advisor helping to develop a successor.

*   Elgar compared to for instance Erwee was substandard in the cricket played since the local cricket started in SA and he is definitely to my mind over-the-hill as a player.   

So here is the team I think should be selected for the first test:-

1   Sarel Erwee

2   Aidan Markram

3   Raynard van Tonder

4   Rassie van der Duss en

5   Karl Verreinne

6   Quinton de Kock

7   Wiaan Mulder

8   Migael Pretorius

9   Keshav Maharaj

10  Anrich Nortje 

11  Lungi Ngidi

They may decide to open the betting with De Kock and bring in Faf du Plessis into the team - but that would make De Kock functioning even more difficult than it already is,            

I did check - but there is still no word of which two players have been sent home - but I still think it is likely to be Bavuma and Hendriks.  

I'm not sure about the squad as a whole simply because I don't know the newbies but as for your team I notice six new test debutants in Sarel Erwee, Raynard van Tonder, Karl Verreinne, Migael Pretorius, Wiaam Mulder, Anrich Nortje which makes it a largely inexperienced side at test level. I'm not saying it's a poor side just saying it's inexperienced. From what I've read van Tonder, Migael Pretorius and Verrienne should get a start. I'm no big fan of Elgar but I can't see him being dropped. Also not keen on De Kock as captain of the test side he needs to focus on getting big scores. As a senior player it's time for Ngidi to stand up and be counted although I have my doubts he will. Markram, Ai, talented and skilled, now if only he dragged his domestic form into the test arena.

As a footnote, what happened to Janneman Malan? ...is he out of form?

Denny

You are indeed correct about the six new players - but then the fact is that the bottom fell out of the previous squad they used to have became totally unusable and the other question is  that -

*   that with the retirement of Du Plessis no to be not too far in the distant future; and

*   Elgar having rather questionable form  and also already 33 tears old  causing him to get poorer and poorer - is it worthwhile retaining him ub the team?

The other replacement is that of Rabada -which is the result of injury and  Hendriks - who should never have been in the team anyway,  ,   The question remains also what about the two coronavirus cases.

Not that Mulder and Verreynne are entirely new to international cricket either,   Both played in shorter version series before,   Mulder struggled initially -but he seems to be getting much better  on provincial level than he used to be and seemed to have matured,  Verreynne was good in the series against the Aussies last year and will be a key player in every future Protea team.

The other situation is that SriLanka - despite beating SA in the last series they played here - is not the strongest team in world cricket and if drastic changes is to be made  it would be better to start with those in tests against them than any other stronger team..

I think that the powers to be at this stage believe that  Janneman Malan is a shorter version player only - but that may change in future;

By the way - I keep checking to see which two players are not in the bio-bubble and found missing from the squad initially in News 24 and the names of Bavuma and Hendriks were missing from the squad,   I started writing a further response and then thought about half an hour later to quote the squad without their names - but when going back to the report found that there names were back in the report.   Somebody must haver edited the report afterwards since SAC has made no announcement on the situation,

I did add something in my remarks above - they may move De Kock to opener and that means that Du Plessis could temporarily be retained in the team,                                   

Faf opted out of the captaincy after the disastrous 2019 performances in which games his  personal performances were iffy most of the time.    A good captain he  no doubt is - but as a captain he must lead by example and perform well enough to remain as captain.

My problem is that if he still wants to play T20I cricket as stated in 2019 and wanted to keep playing in that version until the now postponed  T20I WC of 2020 after which he himself stated he intended to give up international cricket - then the sooner he is replaced in the tests side the better it would be,   

You may not have noted - but as far as I an remember he has not played in any ODI's since the WC - but did play in all T20I - so he must be keeping to his remarks of 2019.    As far as I could make out the T20I WC is within ten months from now and he can help his replacement a hell of a lot by being in the squad,    .