Kirsten outshines Hooper

Paul Martin

South Africa's Gary Kirsten does not have half the skill of the West Indies' Carl Hooper - yet if your life depended on a batting performance, you would inevitably choose the less talented of the two.

Today in front of his adoring fans in his home city Georgetown, Hooper was last man out playing a lame swing, while an unbeaten Kirsten then showed that application is a greater quality than raw talent.

On Day Two of this opening Test in the series South Africa, on 130 for one, trail by 174 runs with 9 wickets in hand.

Earlier, Hooper had made a fluent and important 69 to bring the Windies the respectability of reaching 304 (having been 232 for 7 overnight). But it was Kirsten who patiently built South Africa's response into a potentially match-winning platform. The unstylish left-handed opener nudged and cut, as usual, but close to the end of the day's play blazoned only his second six in Test cricket -a beautifully-timed swing down the ground. He ended on 80 not out, with Jacques Kallis ominously unbeaten on 39.

They had both had difficulty coping in particular with the pace of the rapidly improving Mervyn Dillon, who had earlier shattered the stumps of the luckless Herschelle Gibbs (8) with a low shooter.

It was, though, only the precursor to an unbeaten century partnership for the second wicket.

Hooper, aged 34, was back -- controversially leading the bruised and battered side -- after a self-enforced two year absence from the Test scene. He'd "retired" to lick his wounds after spectacular failures in South Africa a couple of years back, when the Windies were whitewashed in both the Test- and one-day series. Hooper has returned to Test cricket though off the back of a superb domestic season.

Yet he still nurses a disappointing Test batting average of little more than 33 runs per innings. In contrast the 33-year-old Kirsten;'s average at the at the start of this year was 41.79.

Now to some details of the day's play. The home side scored 68 runs in the morning session - losing only the wicket of the leg-spinner Ramnarine, needlessly run out by an in-galloping Gibbs. They moved from 232-7 to 300-8 at lunch, but they lost their final two wickets within twenty minutes after the break.

Dillon's batted gamely for nearly two hours for just nine runs before Daryll Cullinan juggled a slip catch to his chest as he tumbled backwards. Hooper then rashly swept spinner Nicky Boje to deep square leg in the next over and Lance Klusener held an easy catch.

It had been Klusener's deliberately slower off-cutters that had contained the West Indies on Day One, and no doubt his batting will have a much less defensive character, when (or if) he gets his turn to flail the willow.

The South Africans may be pleased now that they lost the toss. They have a chance to build a big lead on Day Three and declare or be dismissed half-way through Day Four. That would leave them to push for victory on a deteriorating wicket.

It's only the second time South Africa have ever confronted the West Indies on Caribbean soil. The first encounter - South africa's debut return to Test cricket after the apartheid ere of isolation - was a thriller, when South Africa needed around 70 on the last day with eight wickets in hand, yet were destroyed by the Windies pacemen on a ridiculously uneven wicket.

The track record of the Windies at home is remarkably different from their dismal away performances of late - a fact the South African keep repeating like some form of mantra.

"As a team we are realising how hard this tour is going to be," said Gibbs in a comment on official United Cricket Board website. "It is not as easy as some people seem to think. The fact that we beat the West Indies 5-0 in South Africa two years ago and that they lost 5-0 to Australia recently has almost no bearing on how they will perform in this series."

Gibbs added: "Everyone knows that they are a different team at home compared to when they travel these days. This is precisely the reason we are not underestimating them and we are preparing as well as we can and know we are in for a tough tour.'

As Shakespeare's Hamlet said: "Words, words, words". The truth is the South Africans recognise privately that the West Indians should be easy meat for them -- a tasty hors d'oeuvre as they prepare for the real main course, which is the clash with Australia at the end of the year.

And on the evidence of two days' play, I think by the end of the series the South Africans will hardly be suffering from indigestion.

Scorecard
West Indies 1st innings
WW Hinds c Boje b Pollock 13(37)
CH Gayle c Boucher b Kallis 81 (159)
MN Samuels b Boje 40 (87)
BC Lara c Donald b Klusener 47 (106)
RR Sarwan b Donald 7 (83)
*CL Hooper c Klusener b Boje 69 (156)
+RD Jacobs lbw b Donald 0 (1)
NAM McLean b Klusener 6 (15)
D Ramnarine run out (Gibbs) 5 (13)
M Dillon c Cullinan b Ntini 9 (88)
CA Walsh not out 2 (9)
Extras (b 2, lb 12, w 2, nb 9) 25
Total (all out, 124.1 overs, 499 mins) 304
FoW: 1-43 (Hinds, 11.6 ov), 2-131 (Samuels, 39.4 ov), 3-165 (Gayle, 52.2 ov), 4-206 (Lara, 73.5 ov), 5-221 (Sarwan, 80.4 ov), 6-221 (Jacobs, 80.5 ov), 7-228 (McLean, 87.3 ov), 8-238 (Ramnarine, 91.6 ov), 9-300 (Dillon, 121.1 ov), 10-304 (Hooper, 124.1 ov).

Bowling
Donald 23 9 43 2 (1w)
Pollock 18 2 54 1 (4nb)
Ntini 12 2 48 1 (1nb)
Kallis 17 2 33 1 (2nb, 1w)
Klusener 35 13 56 2 (2nb)
Boje 19.1 6 56 2

South Africa 1st innings
G Kirsten not out 80(177)
HH Gibbs b Dillon 8 (24)
JH Kallis not out 39(125)
Extras (lb 1, nb 2) 3
Total (1 wicket, 54 overs) 130

To Bat: DJ Cullinan, ND McKenzie, +MV Boucher, L Klusener, N Boje, *SM Pollock, AA Donald, M Ntini.

FoW: 1-25 (Gibbs, 11.1 ov).
Bowling Walsh 11 3 19 0 (1nb)
Dillon 12 3 19 1 (1nb)
McLean 7 0 27 0
Ramnarine 18 3 46 0
Hooper 5 0 16 0
Samuels 1 0 2 0

Mail your comments