SA selectors and coach Mark Boucher find themselves between a rock and a hard place trying to balance the team and negotiating around race imperatives for the first Test against England at Lord’s on Wednesday.
Temba Bavuma is unavailable with an elbow injury and, if doubtful Kagiso Rabada is ruled out, the Proteas will be thin when it comes to the number of black players in the team.
If Rabada, who is being treated for a knee injury, joins Bavuma on the sidelines, this will leave Lungi Ngidi and Khaya Zondo as the only black players for starting spots.
Other non-white players almost guaranteed to play are top order batter Keegan Petersen and spinner Keshav Maharaj.
To balance the team and satisfy transformation imperatives the selectors may have to look to middle-order batter Zondo.
SA lost by an innings and 56 runs to England Lions during their warm-up match this week but Zondo was one of the few Proteas who came out smelling of roses. He threw a spanner in the works with 95 runs, including a highest score of 86 during the first innings, to make a strong case for a starting spot at Lord’s.
The 32-year-old Dolphins batter was not the only player in the running for SA as Rassie van der Dussen and Aiden Markram also made notable contributions.
Van der Dussen scored 88 runs in his two innings and Markram — who struggled recently in red ball cricket with only 213 runs in his last seven Tests at 16.38 and with one half century — scored 98 against the England Lions.
Looking at the team, it is fair to suggest that Dean Elgar, Sarel Erwee, Petersen, Ryan Rickelton and Kyle Verreynne are guaranteed places in the top and middle order. This means Zondo, Markram and Van der Dussen are battling for one or two spots depending on whether the selectors will go with a 7-4 or 6-5 split balance.
On the strength of his good showing against England Lions, there are those who feel Zondo deserves a chance to earn his first full debut in a selection move that will increase the number of black players in the team.
Zondo has one Test appearance for the Proteas but he came on as a Covid-19 substitute for Erwee on day four of the second Test against Bangladesh in Gqeberha earlier in the year and did not get a chance to bat.
Zondo’s best chance of playing is if the selectors go for an extra batsman in a 7-4 split as he will bat at number seven after Elgar, Erwee, Petersen, Markam or Van der Dussen, Rickelton and Verreynne.
The other consideration for the selectors, which may eliminate Zondo, is a 6-5 split where Van der Dussen and Markram will jostle for one spot on either side of Elgar, Erwee, Petersen, Rickelton and Verreynne.
There are tough choices to be made among the bowlers as they must decide if they are going with the two spinners in Maharaj and Simon Harmer.
The last time Maharaj and Harmer played together in the two-match series against Bangladesh, they claimed a combined 29 wickets earlier in the year in Durban and Gqeberha.
If they go with Maharaj and Harmer, Rabada (if fit), Marco Jansen, Ngidi, Anrich Nortje and to a lesser extent Glenton Stuurman, Duanne Olivier and Lutho Sipamla will be competing for the remaining bowling spots.
It is a serious conundrum that the selectors and Boucher will have to navigate and whatever the final team they come up with there is no doubt that cricket lovers are going to have opinions.
After their loss to the England Lions, wicketkeeper/batter Verreynne admitted the warm-up match did not go according to plan, but he is happy that players got time in the middle. “Trying to look at the game as a whole, today [Friday] didn’t go according to plan and yesterday (Thursday) was a tough day but the first two days we got a few positives out of it,” he said.
“When you play you want to be on the right side of the result but I think being a warm-up game there are lots of positives that we can take out of it and that’s what we are going to try and focus on.
“We have been playing a lot of white ball cricket, so time in the legs in a four-day is important going into a Test series. In the first innings a lot of batters had a good time out in the middle and that’s a real positive.
"Even today, Aiden did really nicely and he will take a lot of confidence going into the series. Being a warm-up game, you want to give yourself the best chance to have time out in the middle and that’s what I tried to do.”
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