ACS Overseas First-Class Annual 2016

South Africa in 2015/16 In 2014 this Annual, noting that South Africa then led the ICC rankings by the barest whisker above Australia, predicted that the coming year ‘may well see the leadership change hands’. In 2015, however, having seen South Africa maintain its position at the top and, indeed, establish a comfortable lead, we recanted: ‘Contrary to the view expressed on these pages a year ago, it now looks as though South Africa will retain the number one ranking for some while yet’. In the event, and very much ‘contrary to the view expressed on these pages a year ago’, South Africa’s Test side endured a disastrous season in 2015/16. It began with a four-Test rubber in India: a tough assignment, to be sure, but exactly the sort of examination that sifts the outstanding sides from the merely very good. The long and the short of it is that South Africa’s batting line-up, full of players with substantial experience and excellent credentials at the highest level of the game, failed utterly to come to terms with the challenge of top-class spin on receptive pitches. And it is only fair that responsibility is laid so squarely at the door of the batsmen. South Africa’s bowlers adapted well to Asian conditions, and time and again disposed of India’s formidable batting strength for reasonable totals: until the last Test in Delhi, by which time the rubber was lost, India’s highest total was 215. But it is South Africa’s scores that tell the story: leaving aside the rain-ruined Test at Bangalore, they recorded 184 and 109 at Mohali; 79 and 185 at Nagpur; and 121 and 143 at Delhi. In the four Tests, only A.B.de Villiers (twice) recorded even a fifty; and his average of 36.85 was the only one to exceed 20. The captain, Hashim Amla, who went into the rubber with 84 Tests behind him and an average of 52.48, averaged 16.85 with a best of 43. But even this record might have been envied by Faf du Plessis, whose 22 previous Tests had brought him an average of 51.55; a walking wicket against India, he averaged 8.57, 39 runs of his total of 60 coming in a single innings. By the final innings of the rubber, South Africa’s batsmen were reduced to demonstrating the completeness of their own demoralization as they blocked their way to a paltry total of 143 off an astonishing 143.1 overs. This outcome was all the more remarkable in that South Africa had previously shown a much greater capacity than most modern Tests sides to cope with the rigours of alien conditions away from home. The side had not lost a rubber outside South Africa since a 2-0 defeat in Sri Lanka as long ago as 2006; the question now was whether the trauma of humiliation in India would stay with them as they prepared to face England at home. On the evidence the short answer is yes. The rubber began on Boxing Day in cold, dank, overcast conditions more redolent of Manchester in May than of Durban in December. This is when teams find themselves put in to bat, which is exactly what happened to England. Any side, against the South African pace attack in such conditions (even with Dale Steyn restricted by injury), might easily have folded for 120 or 150. In all the circumstances, to reach a score of 179-4 at the end of a rain-interrupted day was little short of a triumph. As conditions eased somewhat the next day, England took their total past 300 and proceeded to overcome an innings of superb defiance by Dean Elgar to secure a lead of 79 and, eventually, a well-earned win. But it is the second Test, at Cape Town against the magnificent backdrop of Table Mountain, that will stay longest in the memory. For this was the match in which Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow, coming together with England interestingly poised at 233-5, proceeded to smash a world record 399 runs for the sixth wicket. South Africa responded with character and matched England’s mammoth score, with captain Amla, having been unable to buy a Test run for months, compiling a wonderful 201. (But maybe he knew, what the rest of the world did not, that he was about to relinquish the burden of captaincy.) 329