- Anrich Nortje leans toward expensive in run-concession terms in his early Tests, but many great quickies have been the same.
- Highveld grounds are difficult places for outright thunderbolts to keep run rates thoroughly in check.
- SA strike legends like Dale Steyn, Makhaya Ntini and Allan Donald were also “leaky” at first and gradually improved.
Should
Anrich Nortje be encouraged to rein in his run leakage a little?
Already renowned as a thinking bowler, the Proteas thunderbolt – undoubtedly the speediest element to their seam arsenal in the Centurion Test against Sri Lanka – will be aware that he “travelled” a bit despite the innings victory.
On the whole, he didn’t exactly blow the house down on a personal statistical basis at SuperSport Park, with respective innings analyses of 22-3-88-1 and 10.1-1-47-2.
After seven Tests, eye-catching excellence on a numbers basis remains elusive, too: 22 scalps at 36.45 (hardly helped by debuting on unforgiving Indian “flatties”) and an economy rate that is undesirably close to four runs an over at 3.88.
Yet in that respect, he is really no different to scores of outright shock bowlers, both in a South African and more global context, many of whom have gone on to muscle themselves into the Test hall of fame.
The very nature of the intimidatory trade means a greater likelihood that bowlers in this category – especially in their earliest exposure at the highest level – will prove expensive in the run-concession column from time to time.
Don’t the sages always remind that the swifter you are, the greater the likelihood that the nicks, or even the slightly mistimed drives and pulls, will fly to (or sail right over) the ropes?
While highveld pitches – there’s another one in prospect as the second and final contest against the ‘Lankans is staged at the Wanderers from Sunday – are renowned for the carry and bounce they provide to speedsters, the thin air and often fast outfields also mean that risk can bring good reward for attack-minded batsmen.
The first time I ever did a lengthy interview with a then-raw but already rapidly emerging Dale Steyn, he made a point of taking me out onto the pitch table at SuperSport Park (his home venue at the time with the Titans).
He made me lie down to appreciate how profoundly, for the most part, the outfield “drops down” from the middle, making it extremely hard for fielders to haul in the ball when it is rocketing toward the boundary, whether off a full-blooded or mistimed stroke.
It was a key reminder that it is no scandal in such landscapes for a paceman to pick up, for example, “four for plenty” … without the player deserving much of a rocket for giving up runs relatively easily along the way.
Nortje may not have hugely wowed the wickets column in the first Test, or kept a significant lid on the scoring rate, but he also went just past the edge of the blade or glove on plentiful occasions, and his sheer speed and aggression – several of the tourists’ batsmen got out of line and adopted a high-risk approach against him – almost certainly helped seam colleagues at the other end to pick up scalps in more conventional ways.
In some respects it was a reminder of the Transvaal “Mean Machine” days on the highveld when burly, revered Barbadian Sylvester Clarke (on rare occasions when he wasn’t striking repeatedly himself) would do much of the softening-up and then allow the likes of Neal Radford and Hugh Page to prosper noticeably in dismissals terms.
There are currently few reasons to suggest that Nortje getting a better lid of things from a concession perspective won’t occur naturally, the more Test cricket he plays.
Great, modern-era South African “bruisers” like Allan Donald (eventually 330 Test wickets at 22.25, economy 2.83), Makhaya Ntini (390 at 28.82, economy 3.23) and Steyn (439 at 22.95, economy 3.24) also tended to be a touch expensive in earliest Test outings.
Just by way of example, Ntini went for 57 runs off 10 overs in his first bowling innings at Test level, as a callow 20-year-old against Sri Lanka at Newlands, while Steyn, on Port Elizabeth debut against England and then again two matches later in Johannesburg, leaked runs at an average of around four and a half to the over in each tussle.
Donald was an unusual case as he had made his first-class debut in the thick of South Africa’s isolation (1985/86), and in his initial Currie Cup days was seriously quick while a little “all over the place”.
By the time he made his own Test debut at Bridgetown in 1992, he already had the benefit of several years of tough provincial-level cricket beneath his belt – plus several educative seasons abroad with Warwickshire where he was such a lethal predator.
I wouldn’t be too consciously imploring Nortje, the Proteas’ often 150km/h-plus guy, to throttle down on pace at the Bullring over the next few days in the interests of tightening up on run sacrifice.
More of the same from him will do just fine, don’t you think?
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