On Friday, South Africa announced Quinton de Kock as their Test skipper for the 2020/21 season starting with the two-match series against Sri Lanka at home. De Kock is their limited-overs captain and it makes sense to continue with him in the longest format of the game. The announcement of a captain, with Faf du Plessis resigning the post at the start of the year, was long overdue as well.
But, here’s where the narrative goes awry. In April this year, Graeme Smith, the Director of cricket at CSA, said that they wouldn’t be looking at Quinton de Kock as the captain in the longest format to keep him fresh. It made sense. Donning the role of opener, keeper and captain in limited-overs cricket and then captaining the Test side and keeping wickets is no easy task. Hardly anyone in world cricket has pulled it off successfully, or even be tried long enough in all of these roles together.
“The one thing I can confirm is that Quinton will be our white-ball captain and he won’t be the Test captain going forward,” Smith had said. “We want to keep Quinton fresh and playing well. I’ve always believed, having been in the job myself, that captaining all three formats is challenging. We’ve seen a number of nations trying to figure out what’s best and I think across three formats, it probably doesn’t work.”
“From a workload and mental capacity, we felt that to burden him with all three formats wouldn’t be beneficial for us. And with the style of personality and player that he is, we want to keep him as expressive as possible,” Smith said.
It’s eight months since the time he spoke this, and CSA have gone through hell in the meanwhile. But they sure had to name a Test captain at one point of time and it’s inconceivable that it wasn’t discussed at any point of time in the interim.
(Source: Nathan Stirk/Getty Images Europe)
Did South Africa really have several choice? No. But was going back on their initial thought of not giving de Kock the leadership in Test cricket wise? No. The wicket-keeper batsman is easily the most valuable asset in the Test side, if not international cricket altogether, at the moment and to overburden him is surely shooting themselves in the foot.
Add in the possibility of the new transformation rules coming in and the impending confusion regarding places in the team and the likely political interference, and there’s definitely going to be tons of stuff for the captain to sit through in the coming months.
De Kock, at this stage of his career, should just be batting in Test cricket. When they had eight months to sort out a leader, it makes no sense to announce de Kock as the skipper for a shirt duration in the hope that someone would come through in these few months.
Aiden Markram is battling his own form as is Temba Bavuma. Faf du Plessis seems done with the format itself and is possibly dragging himself through at this point. Vernon Philander has retired. Rassie van der Dussen is still dipping his feet in international waters. All in all, it’s well accepted that the pickings are slim.
But if there’s a time to pick a leader and stick by him, it’s right now when the transformation rules haven’t come through yet. By the time de Kock hands over captaincy to the new leader, CSA would likely be pushing for transformation and the new leader would naturally be put under immense pressure – forget the team’s performance issues and identifying roles within, the external issues are likely to be more pertinent – right from the word go.
The timing was now, and South Africa have missed the chance to announce an Aiden Markram or Temba Bavuma as their next leader in this format. Graeme Smith, of all people, should have known that it was his turn to groom someone for the future without overburdening him.