Cricket: Charge of the lightweight brigade

BLOEMFONTEIN - New Zealand cricket coach David Trist must sometimes feel like one of those commanders in the Anglo-Boer War who, although heavily out-gunned and out-numbered, fix their bayonets and rush headlong into the enemy fire.

There are monuments all over this place for courage under fire, but few assignments would be more difficult than the one his troops face tonight when they square off against South Africa in the first test at Goodyear Park.

It is hard to imagine a more calamitous situation in which a touring team could prepare for a test match.

Already they have lost the entire first-string attack and most of the second, and the news that Scott Styris and Paul Wiseman are about to be added to that list leaves Trist with the barest essentials for tonight's opening stanzas.

You half expect him to arrange the team into a laager.

Styris is to return home with an injured knee, which requires surgery, and Wiseman's tour prospects are also looking doubtful, although a decision on his future will be made nearer the end of the test.

New Zealand have now lost eight frontline bowlers in the past season, not to mention opening batsman Matt Horne, and there have been so many scans and x-rays undertaken that the easiest way to find the side is by turning on a geiger counter.

While they head into tonight's test match with a relatively stable batting line-up, they will field a completely untried bowling combination, boasting a total of 15 test caps and 44 wickets against the Proteas' 188 and 636 respectively.

"It's semi-catastrophic," Trist said after practice yesterday. "What can I say? We've just got to hope no one else goes down, because we're running out of players."

Even South African opening batsman Boeta Dippenaar was unhappy about the developments, complaining yesterday that it was difficult to prepare for a test match when he had no idea of who was running in to bowl.

Dippenaar, recalled to the South African side after two previous tests, conceded after practice that the New Zealand attack was something of a walk into the unknown.

"I can remember from my schooldays that it was never nice to face a bowler you hadn't seen before, because you never knew what to expect," he said.

"I was preparing for, and expecting, Chris Cairns, Geoff Allott and Shayne O'Connor, and look at it now - only one remains."

He should have known better.

New Zealand cricket tours to South Africa have always had some measure of drama, and it was only a matter of time until this one threw us a curve ball.

The 1953-54 tour is legendary for the events surrounding the second test at the Wanderers, in Johannesburg, when a badly injured Bert Sutcliffe and a bereaved Bob Blair (his fiancee died in the Tangiwai disaster) added 33 for the final wicket in front of a sympathetic crowd in the first innings.

John Reid's tourists scored two famous wins on the 1961-62 visit.

And the 1994-95 New Zealanders' "sex, drugs and rock'n'roll" tour hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Trist is adamant that he has had quite enough drama for one tour "thank you very much," but still sees a possible opportunity against the powerful home side.

"We're going in as the outsiders," he said.

"We have to play particularly well in all three areas.

"We have to bat above ourselves, we have to generate chances with our bowling, and we have to take our catches."

Teams (test appearances in brackets). -

New Zealand: Stephen Fleming (capt, 53), Mark Richardson (2), Craig Spearman (17), Mathew Sinclair (6), Nathan Astle (39), Craig McMillan (24), Adam Parore (63), Brooke Walker (0), Daryl Tuffey (1), Shayne O'Connor (14), Chris Martin (0).

South Africa: Shaun Pollock (capt, 45), Gary Kirsten (63), Boeta Dippenaar (2), Jacques Kallis (39), Daryll Cullinan (59), Neil McKenzie (3), Lance Klusener (32), Mark Boucher (31), Nicky Boje (5), Makhaya Ntini (5), Allan Donald (62).

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