Getting on top of the T20-format

Richard Levi was verbally taunted by Tim Southee after his failure in the first T20 cricket international for South Africa against New Zealand in Wellington. He responded in spectacular fashion by bludgeoning an undefeated 117 and thereby shattered two world records as he hit the fastest T20 international century ever. He slammed the most sixes ever in a single game on his way to that ton.

His 117 came off 51 balls and his century off only 45. The previous fastest century was by Chris Gayle, who completed his ton off 50 deliveries, while his thirteen sixes easily surpassed the eleven smashed by Chris Gayle.

Levi catapulted South Africa to an emphatic 8-wicket win in the second T20 international at Seddon Park in Hamilton. The Kiwi’s easily won the first match in Wellington by six wickets.

The way in which South Africa secured the victory indicated a more cerebral approach to T20 international cricket in preparing for the second game. It was as if South Africa put a conservative One-Day International hat on in the first T20 match in Wellington.

They fielded six specialist batsmen but also erred by thinking that you can win in this shortest format with a run-a-ball tactic. You need as many artillery specialists possible for T20-cricket, not infantry soldiers who run well between the wickets.

In overs five to fifteenth in Wellington, South Africa failed to score a boundary, before Justin Ontong broke the shackles with four consecutive sixes.

Historically, South Africa was way too conservative in the first six overs with an approach that you needed wickets in the bank to launch a spectacular onslaught in the last five overs. That is a one-day mind-set.

In T20 you need at least two batsmen in the top-six who are kamikaze thinkers – prepared to go big or go home, intent on hitting 40 off 15 balls and consider it a spectacular success.

This fearless approach was evident in the performance by the 24-year old Levi. One New Zealand radio-commentator said Levi reminded him of a bouncer at a Bloemfontein bar. He is muscular and uses more power than timing in scoring runs.

Perhaps that is not entirely true. Levi as a child-prodigy, representing Wynberg Boys High, scored more centuries during grade eight to twelve than the legendary Jacques Kallis.

A former South African under-19 player, he has the ability to make a spectacular impact at first-class level with superb timing. His word record setting performance significantly came against, the number-2 ranked T20-team in the world.

“It was good fun, every shot we seemed to play came off, AB kept me calm,” commented Levi.  “The leg side boundary was quite short, so I targeted that. I have no idea about the records, the time just went unbelievably quickly.”

Captain De Villiers commented after the game that “… there's a few things we can learn, but overall I was very happy with keeping them to 170 with the short boundaries. I was trying to tell Richard to get off strike once we were at 10 an over but he just kept sending them flying. He has done this before so it's not a one-off.”

South Africa needs more fearless players in the top-six in T20-internationals, especially with Hashim Amla and AB de Villiers there. These two players are able to guide the Proteas with a mixture of attack and defense and can play an anchor-role if it is needed.

The South Africans looked vulnerable with the ball in the first T20-international in Wellington, and Lonwabo Tsotsobe suffered at the hands of Martin Guptil who deposited him for an almighty 127 metre six.

But in the second game in Hamilton, the South Africans used a five-pronged pace attack and also utilised the slow bowling of Johan Botha and JP Duminy very well, limiting  the damage to 72 runs in the final eight overs.

South Africa is not a finished product yet, but hopefully they will use more T20 international specialists and fine tune their bowling for final T20 match in Auckland.

With only eight months to go before the T20 Cricket World Cup in Sri Lanka, South Africa has limited time to find the perfect fifteen players.

Perhaps the decision by Cricket South Africa to field a seventh franchise, the New Age Impis, would add lustre to the domestic Miway T20 Challenge, with some  international flavour and expertise.

It can only be beneficial to the national selectors who will see a number of candidates in this spiced-up tournament before the T20 Cricket World Cup starts in November.

The decision to field a seventh franchise offer exposure to some highly talented players who just miss out on selection for the six franchises. But the idea being mooted to possibly enlarge the number of franchises to twelve, is however over the top. South African first-class cricket was amongst the strongest in the world the past two seasons, and why change a winning formula?

A couple of years ago, two international players, Ken Rutherford and Daryll Cullinan, said they were alarmed by the poor quality of domestic first-class cricket. It has steadily improved and the past two seasons the specialist batsmen in the franchises were of the highest quality.

There were at least half a dozen top-class fast bowlers in Marchant de Lange, Vernon Philander, Ryan McLaren, Wayne Parnell, Friedel de Wet, Lonwabo Tsotsobe and Rowan Richards in the franchises, while Dale Steyn and Morné Morkel regularly played international cricket and seldom featured in the domestic competitions.

Hopefully Cricket South Africa would not be lured into an unwise overhaul of an excellent first-class system.

Fanie Heyns