The Shorter Wisden 2013 (71 page)

S
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South Africa
were indisputably the team of the year. Unbeaten in every bilateral series across all three formats, they were the only team not to lose a single
Test. It was testimony to their talent, tenacity and organisation, and only another poor performance at a major tournament – they lost all their Super Eight games at the World Twenty20 in Sri
Lanka – removed any gloss.

The South Africans found most satisfaction in the Test arena, under the leadership of the evergreen Graeme Smith, winning five and drawing five. It was the more impressive for playing only one
game at home, beating Sri Lanka in January to clinch a series that had begun in late 2011. On the road for much of the time thereafter, they claimed victories in New Zealand (1–0), England
(2–0) and Australia (1–0). By winning in England, they displaced their opponents as the No. 1 Test team, finally regaining a position they had held for four months in 2009; by winning
in Australia, they avoided the defeat that would have ceded the top ranking to their hosts. In short, Smith’s team had won two away series which doubled up as showdowns for the world Test
title.

To succeed in England and Australia within the space of a few months was a rare feat. The South Africans themselves had managed it four years earlier, and so had the great West Indies sides of
1984 and 1988. Yet their deeds could be placed in a more immediate context, too: the only other teams to win Test series away from home in 2012 were Australia, in the West Indies; West Indies
themselves, in Bangladesh; and – unexpectedly – England in India, a result that ended a 28-year drought. Few doubted that South Africa merited the No. 1 position: by the end of 2012,
they had extended their record to one series defeat out of 21, dating back to 2006. To crown a memorable year, Smith recorded two notable personal milestones, scoring a century in his 100th Test,
and beating Allan Border’s record of 93 Tests as captain.

South Africa did have to dig themselves out of a couple of holes. At Brisbane in November, they allowed Australia to recover from 40 for three to make 565 for five. Then, at Adelaide, the
Australians tore their bowling to shreds to reach a stratospheric 482 for five at stumps on the first day. Left more than four sessions to score 430, or bat out time, South Africa looked beaten at
77 for four going into the final day, but the debutant Faf du Plessis played one of the great match-saving innings, finishing unbeaten on 110 after almost eight hours. Well supported by A. B. de
Villiers (33 in four hours) and Jacques Kallis (46 in two and a half), du Plessis was instrumental in his side losing only three wickets on the final day. (This was one of only two Tests in 2012
which were drawn without interference from the weather; the other came at Nagpur between India and England, on a pitch more devoid of life than the average corpse.) South Africa took the deciding
Test in Perth by 309 runs to clinch the series, although even there the final margin masked the trouble they had been in on the first day, at 75 for six.

South Africa’s series with England also produced some dramatic cricket, though there was no doubt which was the stronger team. It was just a shame that neither series was longer than three
matches. Even so, both served as excellent adverts for Test cricket.

The key to South Africa’s on-field success was the settled nature of the team (off it, however, Gerald Majola, the chief executive of Cricket South Africa, was sacked after being found
guilty of misconduct). They called on only 17 players in Tests, of whom six played in all ten matches, and another three missed only one. Smith, Kallis and – either side of the England tour
– de Villiers all scored heavily, while Hashim Amla, already acknowledged as a batsman of class and culture, took his game to another level, making almost 2,000 runs in all formats, including
a national Test record 311 not out at The Oval. Of these, a record 1,712 came away from home.

The pace attack – led by Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and Vernon Philander – was the most potent in the world, and leg-spinner Imran Tahir had his moments, before failing spectacularly
in Australia and losing his place. A measure of their bowling was that South Africa dismissed Sri Lanka for 43 in a one-day international at Paarl and, in the New Year Test at Cape Town in 2013,
bundled New Zealand out for 45.

The only disruptive blow was the loss of veteran wicketkeeper-batsman Mark Boucher to a freak injury at the start of the England tour. De Villiers was pressed into service as a replacement and,
although he performed capably, his batting suffered. To lessen the strain, he handed the Twenty20 captaincy to du Plessis for a series against New Zealand in December; de Villiers later withdrew as
a player, citing exhaustion.

Managing the workloads of the top players became something of a fad.
Australia
’s anxiety over the inability of their seamers to stay fit led them to pull Mitchell Starc
out of the Melbourne Test, only days after he had bowled them to victory over Sri Lanka at Hobart. This ultra-cautious approach – itself a function, perhaps, of a well-stocked fast-bowling
cupboard – did not extend to batsmen: Michael Clarke, the captain, played at Melbourne with a hamstring strain, and scored another century to crown a sublime 12 months during which he, like
Amla, had never played better.

Clarke became the first to score four Test double-centuries in a year, the first of which he had converted into an unbeaten 329, against India on his home ground at Sydney. And, at Melbourne, he
claimed an Australian record for runs in a calendar year (the previous holder, Ricky Ponting, had retired three weeks earlier). Of Clarke’s tally of 1,595, he made 1,407 in Australia, a
record for one country in one year. Despite the juggling of bowling personnel, Australia won seven Tests in 2012, more than any other side.

The most radical response to the fixture list was adopted by
England
, who in November announced they were embarking on a “step-change” in the schedules of players
and coaches. Andy Flower was to remain overall team director, but the day-to-day running of the 50-over and Twenty20 teams would be handled by Ashley Giles, who had coached Warwickshire to the 2012
Championship and was already an England selector. The move, mainly aimed at keeping Flower fresh, motivated, and in the job, was also a response to a troubled year, in which England had failed to
build on their rise to the top of the Test rankings in 2011, and followed the retirement of Andrew Strauss, one of England’s most successful Test captains, after the defeat by South Africa.
Sport can be unsentimental, and there was no time – and little need – to mourn Strauss’s departure, as the team rallied under Alastair Cook to record their first series win in
India since 1984-85. Soon after, South Africa announced they were also dividing up the coaching duties, with Russell Domingo, Gary Kirsten’s assistant, taking over the Twenty20 side.

England’s bowling attack remained strong, but the batting, which had touched rare heights in 2011, was often unconvincing. Strauss’s decline was one issue; another was the turmoil
generated by Kevin Pietersen, whose gripes with the management included scheduling and time off to play in the IPL. His temporary exile hurt England’s defence of the World Twenty20 title but,
even though he didn’t appear in the one-day side after February, they won 12 of their 14 completed matches, and remained No. 1 in the rankings until the end of the year. Pietersen was less
consistent than Amla or Clarke, but scored three breathtaking Test hundreds, in Colombo, Leeds and Mumbai.

Others also suffered disruption from internal disputes, none more so than
New Zealand
. Ross Taylor quit as captain after being invited to stay on only as head of the Test side;
Mike Hesson, appointed coach in succession to John Wright – who himself had resigned, citing differences with director of cricket John Buchanan – had proposed the one-day and Twenty20
teams be passed over to Brendon McCullum. Results had been poor for much of the year, but the timing of the suggested change was odd: Taylor had just masterminded a series-squaring Test victory
over Sri Lanka in Colombo, where his double of 142 and 74 was among the finest by a New Zealand captain. The board later apologised to Taylor for his treatment, but he opted out of the end-of-year
tour of South Africa. To make matters worse, Jesse Ryder didn’t play at all after February, for personal and disciplinary reasons.

Mahela Jayawardene ended his second spell as
Sri Lanka
’s captain after his country’s tour of Australia in January 2013, keeping a promise that he would stay only for
12 months. Then, within days, he said he had lost all confidence in Sri Lanka Cricket, after a confidential request – that the players’ guarantee fee from the World Twenty20 staged in
Sri Lanka be shared with the support staff and groundsmen – was made public. SLC, whose financial husbandry has often infuriated their players, would not accede to the proposal.

India
also experienced turbulence in the wake of whitewashes in England and Australia. Mohinder Amarnath revealed that the selection panel of which he had formerly been a member
had recommended the removal of M. S. Dhoni as captain during the tour of Australia, only for the proposal to be blocked by the Indian board president, N. Srinivasan – who is also owner of the
Chennai IPL franchise, which is captained by Dhoni. Amarnath renewed calls for Dhoni to step down during the home defeat by England. There was no halting the transition in the ranks, though: Rahul
Dravid and V. V. S. Laxman both retired, and Sachin Tendulkar quit one-day internationals. Virat Kohli carried the flag for the next generation, scoring eight international centuries, more than
anyone.

In the
West Indies
, Ramnaresh Sarwan successfully sued the board over comments about his fitness, and was awarded $US161,000 in damages, though he was picked for the one-day
tour of Australia early in 2013. There was a more conciliatory resolution to Chris Gayle’s long-running dispute. Gayle, who had earned fortunes playing in the IPL and other domestic Twenty20
tournaments, returned to West Indies colours for the first time in more than a year after a peace brokered at prime-ministerial level. Crowds flocked to witness his first international appearances
in the Caribbean for two years and, on his Test return, he scored 150 and 64 not out against New Zealand in the first Test played at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua since the
embarrassing 2008-09 abandonment against England.