Cricket: Putting the wind up South Africa

By RICHARD BOOCK

South Africa's ambivalence towards Wellington's notorious gales may yet prove costly when the third and final test begins at the Basin Reserve this morning.

Whereas New Zealand skipper Stephen Fleming understands only too well the influence of either the rasping northerlies or southerlies, his South African counterpart, Graeme Smith, sounded dangerously apathetic when questioned on the matter yesterday.

"The wind does blow here. It'll take a few kilometres an hour off someone's bowling, but I don't see it playing a part in selection.

"We've played in windy cities before such as Port Elizabeth and it's just another thing to deal with."

New Zealand seem likely to use Michael Mason, Scott Styris and possibly Jacob Oram upwind, but South Africa's attack looks poorly equipped for the wind.

The side's fastest bowler, Makhaya Ntini, will almost certainly have to work into the wind, while players such as David Terbrugge or Andre Nel, and senior statesman Shaun Pollock, run in downhill.

The dilemma could hamstring the tourists, who are already 1-0 down and need to win the match to prevent New Zealand from completing their first test series win over South Africa since the rivalry began in 1931-32.

Central to their difficulties on this tour has been the ineffectiveness of the bowling attack, and the idea of using Ntini into the wind while Pollock operates downwind is unlikely to provide the edge they so urgently need.

Pollock, already South Africa's leading wicket-taker with 334 scalps, needs only 102 more runs to become the fifth member of the 3000-runs 300-wickets club, not the fourth, as suggested yesterday.

The other members are Ian Botham, Kapil Dev, Imran Khan and New Zealand's Richard Hadlee, who was the last player to achieve the double, in 1990.

Fleming said yesterday that Wellington's wind gave him a rare home-ground advantage.

New Zealand teams had plans to cope with the challenge, and knew how to lessen its effect.

"Just understanding how taxing it is on the bowlers and what it means to game-plans is important, and that's maybe where we get some home-ground advantage."

New Zealand have some delicate decisions to make during the test. A draw is all they need to usher in a historic first series win, and end the home international programme on the highest possible note.

But Fleming said he was determined to keep attacking.

"The temptation is to try to protect the series lead, but that can provide more problems than solutions," he said. Nothing's really changed for us. We're winning test matches by a playing a certain style and to go and change that at this late stage would be far too dangerous, so it's the status quo for us."

Basin Reserve turf manager Trevor Jackson revealed a similar pitch to the excellent surface used for the Boxing Day test against Pakistan. It should provide early life, but flatten out to a top batting surface.