Proteas' ODI freefall continues

2008-08-29 22:14

Rob Houwing

Cape Town - How galling to have to say that South Africa "improved" against England at The Oval on Friday - yet were still walloped by the daylight margin of 126 runs and surrendered the one-day series with two matches to play.

That is how far the once strutting Proteas ODI machine appears to have fallen, and a particularly humiliating 0-5 outcome now looms unpalatably.

Certainly under the merciless taskmaster Kevin Pietersen it is difficult to see England simply going belly-up in the dead-rubber games. They seem to be enjoying all this late-summer counter-punching way too much for that!

Just as uncomfortable a thought is that if England do register a clean sweep, they will spectacularly leapfrog the Proteas into second spot on the world rankings; not very long ago they were a bit of a laughing stock in "abbreviated" cricket.

Overlook the five-day heroism

But the really sad thing is the extent to which the gloss is being scraped from South Africa's splendid Test series achievement - the public back home demand victories over the dastardly "Poms", regardless of the international format involved, and the less discerning will now overlook the five-day heroism as they line up their rotten eggs for the homecoming.

It is almost surreal to contemplate the extent to which this lean, sprightly and script-respecting England ODI side has improved since crashing to earlier tourists New Zealand only a few weeks back, while the Proteas have gone the pear-shaped way with virtually equal velocity.

Of course this was a South African performance "up" on the Trent Bridge horror, but how could it possibly have been anything but?

In truth, the match still had "England win" written all over it from early on, when the hosts blasted their way past 100 without setback in the first 15 overs and Dale Steyn and Makhaya Ntini were two-stepped down the track with amazing disdain by Ian Bell and Matt Prior.

What a worry it is that Steyn has been carted for 171 runs in 26 overs thus far in the series and Ntini - who went at seven-and-a-half to the over in this one - is also being made to look like a borderline has-been.

Batting problems multiply

There were some rays of mid-innings light because the Morkel brothers, neither of whom is properly fit but gritted their teeth anyway, slightly pulled things back and Jacques Kallis and Johan Botha were respectable with the ball too.

Unfortunately Andrew Flintoff's smoking, run-a-ball "finishing" effort of 78 not out still took England's total way beyond reach of the fragile South Africans and only Hashim Amla, with an acceptably aggressive and resourceful 46 up front, looked as if he might be up for the stiff chase.

Unlike in the Test series, however, general batting problems multiply in ODIs for South Africa.

Kallis is having a quite disastrous summer and, as Ian Botham noted, "looks all at sea with his game - late on every shot".

Meanwhile Herschelle Gibbs skates on increasingly thin ice; he failed again and should have been run out just before he got out for 12 anyway. He ambled through for an infuriatingly lackadaisical run and would probably have been given out by the television umpire had a key camera angle not been too blurry to make a conclusive call.

Showering pace bowlers with praise

Ditto for sheer lunacy AB de Villiers: he was out by a country mile going for a run that just wasn't on - the return of an old weakness for him.

Then the middle and lower order fiddled and diddled, only drawing out the agony and giving substance to Nasser Hussain's claim that South Africa are a batsman light with Mark Boucher employed at six.

The Proteas have Botha at No 8; England Stuart Broad at No 9. Enough said?

The final indignity was Pietersen showering his pace bowlers with praise at the presentation ceremony, saying rightly - how chuffed he was that they were all queuing up to "bowl at 90 miles an hour".

He also said his troops were all commitment at fielding drills and in the gym. It was hard not to detect definite digs at several noticeably chubby or lethargic Proteas, wasn't it?

The party certainly seems over for South Africa.

- Sport24