Pundits predict big battle of batters

JOHANNESBURG: South Africa’s cricket coach Eric Simons brushed aside criticism yesterday that the South African bowling attack would struggle to dismiss the West Indies twice in a Test match.

South Africa meet the Windies in the first of four Tests at the Wanderers tomorrow in a series that most pundits believe will be a battle between the respective batting line-ups. “No, I don’t believe that’s true,” responded Simons after a net session at the ground. “Their (the Windies’) batting is probably their strength but I’m not particularly perturbed about our bowling. “We have an attack that can foil their batting line up.” To this end, the national selectors may include left arm spinner Robin Peterson at the expense of Andre Nel, who played in Pakistan. “One of the main reasons why we might play a spinner is that they battled in Zimbabwe against the slow bowlers,” he said. While Nel and Peterson will have to wait until today to find out who will play and who will carry the drinks, top order batsman Martin van Jaarsveld is at least certain of resuming his stop-start Test career. As was the case when Van Jaarsveld last played a Test for his country, the Titan was again on standby when he was called up for this encounter, this time for Gary Kirsten.

Last summer, Van Jaarsveld was about to leave for Kimberley to play a limited overs match against Griquas when Herschelle Gibbs injured his back during the warm up. “The preparation is totally different,” said van Jaarsveld, who is likely to slot in at Number five or six with Jacques Rudolph batting at three. Despite only knowing officially on Monday that he would play, Van Jaarsveld is adamant that he has prepared well for the encounter. “I wasn’t actually anxious because I saw Gary on Thursday down in Cape Town for the camp and he told me that he probably wasn’t going to play. Since then I’ve being getting into that frame of mind. “Actually, I wouldn’t mind if more players had babies,” he joked.

Like his team-mates, Van Jaarsveld has not had much experience at the longer version of the game as the domestic competition has been dominated by the limited overs competition. Van Jaarsveld though is not at all troubled. “All it should take is one net in moving from limited overs to Test cricket,” he explained. “You just have to get into a different mind set. The one version is putting runs on the board as quickly as possible while the other is occupying the crease for as long as possible and hopefully the runs will follow. The Windies opted for a closed practice at Centurion Park yesterday.