Stuurman’s week that was ends with SA selection

“It’s been a long winter and it’s really pleasing that we finally have an imminent international tour on our shores to look forward to.” – Graeme Smith

TELFORD VICE | Cape Town

GLENTON Stuurman has had an interesting week. On Monday he was named among six Warriors players who had been withdrawn from the opening round of the first-class competition because they had either tested positive for Covid-19 or been in contact with someone who had. On Friday the uncapped medium pacer was included in South Africa’s squad to play six white-ball games against England from the last week of this month.

Stuurman has been too close for comfort to someone who has contracted the virus. So he is isolating but, at this stage, has nothing to recover from ahead of the matches, three in each format, which will be played in a bio-secure bubble at Newlands and in Paarl from November 27 to December 9.

At 28 and almost seven years into his first-class career, Stuurman is a bona fide late bloomer. That and the fact that he is able to move the ball both ways off the seam has earned impressive but unhelpful comparisons with Vernon Philander, who laboured for more than seven years before he made his Test debut.

The only other player in the squad of 24 who did not turn out for South Africa last summer is Junior Dala, who played the most recent of his 11 white-ball internationals in March 2019 and has since struggled with a knee injury. 

Kagiso Rabada is back after missing the ODI series against Australia and the aborted rubber in the same format in India, both in March, with a groin problem.

Dale Steyn, who featured in the T20 series against Australia in February, Chris Morris, whose most recent white-ball international was in the World Cup in England in July last year, and Aiden Markram, who also last played at this level in the shorter formats at the World Cup, were the major absentees. Team management said Steyn was “unavailable for selection” while Morris is battling a hamstring injury at the IPL. Steyn has played in only three of Royal Challengers Bangalore’s 14 games at this year’s tournament, and taken 1/133. 

South Africans will be excited by what they have seen in the IPL from Quinton de Kock, Faf du Plessis, Rabada and Anrich Nortjé, who are all among the top 10 runscorers or wicket-takers at the tournament — and all in the squad. De Kock and De Plessis are enjoying a more successful IPL even than AB de Villiers, who has retired from international cricket. Rabada has rediscovered the pace and aggression that deserted him at the World Cup and Nortjé sent down efforts of 155 and 156 kilometres an hour last month, the fastest deliveries in IPL history.

Unusually for a South Africa squad picked to play at home, the group includes four spinners in Bjorn Fortuin, George Linde, Keshav Maharaj and Tabraiz Shamsi — who is probably the first-choice slow bowler.

The squad is the first signed off by Victor Mpitsang, who was named convenor of selectors on October 21, the first announced since Graeme Smith became director of cricket in December, and South Africa’s first since the start of the pandemic.

“It’s been a long winter and it’s really pleasing that we finally have an imminent international tour on our shores to look forward to,” a release quoted Smith as saying. He also hinted that there would be “more good news to announce” soon involving South Africa’s women’s team.

South Africa men’s squad: Quinton de Kock (captain), Temba Bavuma, Junior Dala, Faf du Plessis, Bjorn Fortuin, Beuran Hendricks, Reeza Hendricks, Heinrich Klaasen, George Linde, Keshav Maharaj, Janneman Malan, David Miller, Lungi Ngidi, Anrich Nortjé, Andile Phehlukwayo, Dwaine Pretorius, Kagiso Rabada, Tabraiz Shamsi, Lutho Sipamla, Jon-Jon Smuts, Glenton Stuurman, Pite van Biljon, Rassie van der Dussen, Kyle Verreynne.

First published by Cricbuzz.