Ashley Mallett: Forget the ‘phony’ Ashes battle, the real challenge for Australia will be in South Africa
IT’S time to stop beating our chests after our Ashes victory, writes Ashley Mallett, for the real battle of the summer is about to begin.
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AMID the hurly burly of the ODIs and frenetic T20s the nation realises that the weak England outfit presented Australia with a no-contest Ashes series.
The “phony war” is over.
In a few weeks Australia heads to South Africa. It’s time to stop beating our chests for the real battle of the summer is about to begin. The Proteas are a match-hardened mob who pride themselves in their competitiveness and strength. They will take no prisoners.
In Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel, Kagisco Rabada and Vernon Philander they have a four-pronged pace attack to be admired and are as good as any throughout the world, including Australia. Unlike the feeble England pace attack, Faf du Plessis’ speed quartet is fit and strong: individually and collectively as mean as a junk yard dog.
There’s guile in the manner Steyn and Philander attack their prey: sheer pace is one thing, deft cut and late swing are other tools of their trade upon which they corner an opponent before dealing the death blow. Morkel is quick too, but less subtle than the first two mentioned, however, this giant is at your throat ball after ball.
There is nothing like Michael Holding, who crept up on you … silently. In those halcyon days of West Indian dominance, Holding was known as Whispering Death. After pushing off from the boundary rope, Holding glided in, taking giant strides in perfect rhythm, until he finally reached the crease. “You could be in top form when he began his approach and by the time he got to the crease you were hopelessly out of touch,” so says Rodney Marsh.
Morkel bounds in like a freight train, his feet thump the ground like a dozen pile drivers hammering in unison, a sound to match the batsman’s pounding heart beat. And Rabada, since he visited Australia a couple of years back, is now bigger, stronger, faster than ever.
The South Africans will have watched Australia’s Ashes domination very closely. Certainly they will have realised how off-spinner Nathan Lyon has become the linchpin of the Australian attack. His consistent, high-quality off-breaks, delivered with lots of over spin had the England batsmen in constant turmoil.
The key to spin bowling is not where the ball lands, but how it arrives. And Lyon’s deliveries are hard-spun and arrive in a acutely dipping flight. In contrast England’s off-spinner Moeen Ali undercuts the ball. From the instant he releases the ball in this manner the batsman knows exactly where the ball will land and deals with it accordingly. A top Test batsman could play Moeen’s offerings in the middle of the night. The hard-spun dipping flight path gives the bowler a huge area of danger.
Lyon enjoys an area the size of an average dining room table: Moeen’s area is the size of a dinner plate. He has to be super accurate and even excellent accuracy doesn’t do it for him. That Lyon managed to shackle the England batsmen completely was brilliant for his captain Steve Smith because he could rely on his spinner to shore up an end and rotate his talented pace trio – Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood – in short, blistering spells at the other.
So the South Africans will set out to defeat the Australian strategy.
AB de Villiers and Company will hunt Lyon. Unlike the Englishmen they have a strong array of batting strength: du Plessis, Deal Elgar, Hasham Amla, the brilliant de Villiers, a batsman equal to any other in the world, including Smith and Indian champion Virat Kohli, and the hard-hitting left-hander Quinton de Kok.
Lyon’s bowling in 2017-18 reminds one of how Shane Warne shored up an end for hours while the likes of Glenn McGrath, Jason Gillespie and Brett Lee went about their business at the other end. Opponents then had no respite; England found none this summer during the Ashes series.
Australia will again rely heavily on Smith and David Warner to blunt the tearaway skills of the South African fast men. With spinner Keshav Maharaj at one end the Proteas may have a similar strategy to Smith in rotation of the fast men.
Originally published as Ashley Mallett: Forget the ‘phony’ Ashes battle, the real challenge for Australia will be in South Africa