Elworthy snubbed and SABC finally admit summer has arrived
Johannesburg: So, who did the South Africa selectors turn to in their hour of need
Trevor Chesterfield
28-Oct-1999
Johannesburg: So, who did the South Africa selectors turn to in their
hour of need? Why not Steve Elworthy but David Terbrugge. Which sort
of suggests that should either Shaun Pollock (nursing a hamstring
strain) or Allan Donald (wonky ankle) breakdown, the 22-year-old
Terbrugge is their preferred candidate and that means there is no
place for Elworthy in their Test team plans.
There was a scare yesterday when Pollock's hamstring injury caused
enough alarm to for management to have the jovial fast-medium bowler
placed on stand by for the Test against Zimbabwe and starting in
Bloemfontein tomorrow.
Terbrugge is to only join the side should Pollock's injury create
further problems and will fly down to the Free State capital later
today if need be.
South Africa's coach, Graham Ford, was at first non-committal about
the injury but was far happier after the afternoon's preparation
session when Pollock came through unscathed.
As it is Zimbabwe's difficulty of being without Heath Streak, their
one international strike bowler, has been further exacerbated with the
injury to their leg-spinner Paul Strang. With Adam Huckle going into
retirement in a huff after the Zimbabwe selectors preferred Strang,
Zimbabwe's bowling resources are a touch thinner than they would care
to admit.
Australia made the most of Zimbabwe's fielding lapses to score 422 in
their one-off Test in Harare two weeks ago and with confidence at
breaking point the tourists have more problems than do South Africa.
England, meanwhile, are to have their first pre-tour practice on
Thursday in Centurion, now regarded as one of the world's top two Test
centres (the other is Adelaide in Australia) with outdoor and indoor
net facilities recently described as ``far superior'' to anything
available in South Africa.
It is a bit of a snub for the Wanderers, but touring teams now prefer
to travel down the M1from their Sandton hotel to the renamed
SuperSport Park to training at the Wanderers about 15 minutes for
their Johannesburg headquarters.
What was interesting about England's arrival was how initially low key
it was. The national broadcaster, SABC and their SAFM programme with
the presenter of the 7.30 am sports news slot failed to tell the
programme's listeners that Nasser Hussain and the rest of the England
side were about to arrive. Which is not surprising at all as they have
so far flatly ignored anything which has a domestic flavour at all and
news of some under/23 side playing in an obscure Olympic Games
qualifying event booted out even World Cup rugby into the background.
Some reference was made to the tour on the Afrikaans service, but it
was as fleeting as a blink of an eye.
While independent radio began to tell South Africa what the print
media had been writing about for more than a week the national
broadcaster slowly jerked awake and first we had a sports programme
from London, which usually has a largely rugby/soccer/tennis flavour
suddenly admitting a Test was about to be played in Bloemfontein . . .
and, wow England have arrived. Just which England side and what they
were planning to do was, as usual, another of those SABC mystery lucky
dip shows.
When the late afternoon sports show was presented the so-called sports
reporter put together a programme which gave the appearance it had
been done by a team of primary school children asked to present a
project which included the team's arrival.
It was a clumsy, amateur effort and gave the impression the guy is
unable to differentiate between the pace of Donald and Pollock and the
spin of Paul Adams. The listeners, by now, if they rely on the
national broadcaster for their information must have been totally
confused.
As if to make up for this poor presentation we had Jane Whitton giving
us a five minute run down on the side and trying to piece together an
analysis as well as telling the listeners that South Africa, apart
from playing Zimbabwe in a Test this weekend, were to play five
against a team from England led by Nasser Hussain with Duncan Fletcher
as their coach.
More than a month after the season started, SABC suddenly woke up that
summer had long arrived and perhaps they should tell the listeners
about it.