“I sat in a South Africa A changeroom telling everyone this is the next-best XI. There was an injury in the Test team not a week later and no-one got the call-up.” – Stephen Cook
Telford Vice | Cape Town
Cricket is famously big on numbers. Think of a novel way of crunching them and some accountant in pads probably has been there, done that and plugged the equation into the game’s grand statosphere. But here’s one that will no doubt dip below the radar. And it features a century, no less.
When South Africa A next take the field in a first-class match, they will do so for the 100th time. Of the flood of facts cricket sends our way, that is sure to wash past us unnoticed. Who could care that a team few beyond the players and their coaches and parents think about will bring up a century of games?
Jimmy Cook, for a start. Aged 40, he captained South Africa A in the first of those 99 matches, against England A at St George’s Park in January 1994. The home side included Mickey Arthur and Eric Simons, and they faced Darren Gough and Peter Such. Here’s how Cook recalled the occasion in conversation with Cricbuzz: “I played one game [for South Africa A]. It was against England … or perhaps England A, or something like that. Down in PE [Gqeberha]. It was later in my career, and they probably wanted one or two experienced guys to go with the youngsters.”
Many would forgive Cook his fuzzy memory. In 1994, no-one quite knew what to do with this strange new thing called A team cricket. Was it a reward for stalwart servants of the game who had never cracked it at the highest level? Was it a testing ground for the next generation of internationals that offered something they couldn’t experience in domestic competition? Why was it called A team cricket when, clearly, it was played by B teams?
Almost 28 years on, not a lot would seem to have changed. On Thursday the A teams of South Africa and India completed a series of three four-day matches in Bloemfontein. The games weren’t on television — they were streamed online — and garnered scant media coverage. Without trying to be nasty to Bloem, a small, sleepy city deep in the belly of South Africa’s inland plateau, not many people there would have noticed if something was or wasn’t happening at the local cricket ground.
It didn’t help that all of the matches were drawn, and not in interesting ways. The first, when rain prevented any play on the fourth day, never reached the third innings. The Indians chased targets in the last two games, but neither side challenged for victory. Pieter Malan, Tony de Zorzi, Zubayr Hamza and Abhimanyu Easwaran scored centuries, and Lutho Sipamla claimed the only five-wicket haul. What, exactly, was the point?
“You can bring in younger guys, and if you have a South Africa batsman who’s out of form he can play in those types of games,” Cook said. “It’s probably a slightly higher standard than you would have in a provincial game, especially when the international players are not involved in the domestic stuff. It’s a worthwhile thing to have.”
To make his point, Cook recalled his initial glimpse of Aiden Markram: “I remember going to watch Stephen [Cook, his son] play for South Africa A, and that’s where I saw Markram bat for the first time. I said to Stephen, ‘This oke [bloke] has got South Africa written all over him.’ That was a valuable introduction for him. He could play at a slightly higher level and get used to it, and then come into the Test team and play so well.”
Cook the younger might want to have a word with his father about that. He and Markram opened the batting for South Africa A in two matches against India A in Potchefstroom in August 2017. Cook made 98 and 70 in the first game, and 120 and 32 in the second. Markram outscored him only once in efforts of 74, 19, 22 and 79.
Stephen Cook, who retired with 11 Test caps, played nine first-class matches for South Africa A between August 2010 and August 2017. He captained them in four of them. What changed in the 16 years between his father turning out for ostensibly the country’s second XI near the end of a career laden with runs, and him following in those footsteps as a 27-year-old still making his way?
“In South Africa, we’ve used the A side in different ways,” Stephen Cook told Cricbuzz. “At certain stages it’s been very much a developmental team and at other times it’s been a next-best XI. At times it’s flip-flopped between the two, and that’s probably led to people asking how good is the standard. Are those the figures and the performances we should be looking at? Are those the guys next in line?
“From a player’s point of view, being clear on what type of side is being selected is very important. Arguably, at times it has led to more frustration than anything else. I remember sitting in a South Africa A changeroom telling everyone this is the next-best XI, that we were the next cab off the rank. Lo and behold, there was an injury in the Test team not even a week later and no-one from the A team got the call-up. In that era it lost a lot of credibility as a next-best scenario, but now it plays a bigger role. Maybe that’s because of the bigger squads due to Covid, and we need to know the depth of what we’ve got. So I think our A team structures have been better in recent years.”
He felt the increased frequency with which the A teams of South Africa, India and Australia have played each other in recent years during their shared off-season was important, as was going on tour with an A side: “It’s really positive when you go and play in different conditions. The away series hold double the weight. In [August] 2010 I had three weeks in Sri Lanka. Playing in hot, sticky conditions on those turning wickets was great for my career development. We had a series in Australia [in July and August 2016], mainly to play pink-ball cricket.”
His spell in Sri Lanka came almost six years before his Test debut in January 2016, but the Australian experience paid prompt dividends: he scored 40 and 104 in a day/night Test in Adelaide in November 2016.
Relevance, Stephen Cook said, was key: “If you set up a purpose and there’s a reason behind it, then it’s fantastic. When there’s a feeling that we’re obliged to play an A side in the winter, then it can lose its lustre. That’s the danger. You need to make sure there’s something behind that cap.” Happily, there was in the South Africa-India A series, what with the start of the Test series between those teams looming in Centurion on December 26.
India’s home Tests against New Zealand coincided with the A rubber in South Africa. Consequently, the only member of the A squad who will stay on for the Tests is Hanuma Vihari. He played the last of his dozen Tests in January, and made a decent case for a recall by scoring 227 runs at 75.66 in his five innings in Bloem.
South Africa have been idle since their ill-fated ODI home series against the Netherlands, which started and ended — for Covid reasons — on November 26. Their Test team last played in June, and their most recent match in the format at home was in January, when the captain was still Quinton de Kock. Division one sides have played four rounds of matches in this season’s domestic first-class competition, but it won’t hurt Dean Elgar’s and Mark Boucher’s chances of getting their heads around what it will take to beat India that Sarel Erwee, Beuran Hendricks, Marco Jansen, George Linde, Glenton Stuurman and Prenelan Subrayen — who were all busy in Bloem — are in the Test squad.
The more cricket, the better. Even if, sometimes, it can seem pointless. Maybe that’s what A teams are all about.
First published by Cricbuzz.
Bulletproof Truth 