Betway’s Global Cricket Ambassador gives his thoughts on the future of Test cricket, Jimmy Anderson’s England retirement and what’s next for Betway SA20.
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Another positive story for South Africa
The highlight of South Africa’s Test series win over the West Indies was seeing two experienced campaigners perform well in Kagiso Rabada and Keshav Maharaj. I think those two are key pillars for this team. The batting is currently the nervous point for South Africa, and it wasn’t flashy but there were enough positives in there to see progression from the batters. South Africa aren’t playing a lot of Test cricket, but it’s important that they keep building on the positive story after a really successful T20 World Cup.
There’s so much cricket that’s being played now, so I think it was a good decision for South Africa to rest a couple of players. With the amount of cricket being played, the players don’t have periods where they work on their body, their mind and their techniques. South African cricket took a decision over players like Marco Jansen where they decided he needed a block to get fitter, stronger, and to work on a few technical things in a bit of a training period.
It’s a huge lesson learned from the Springboks. They’ve developed a huge talent base, and obviously they’ve got quality coming through. Rassie Erasmus’ unique ability is that he doesn’t always play the best team every week – he’s developed incredible squad depth where anyone can come in and produce at a certain level. That’s where Betway SA20 comes in, as well. We said from the start, if we can put 60 to 70 players on the global stage instead of only 12 to 15, you suddenly start to have a talent pool that challenges every week.
From a coach’s perspective, they will have learned valuable lessons about the next tier of players and for the bigger series coming up, it’s important to have that knowledge. Although the West Indies aren’t seen as the strongest Test team in the world, any time you travel to someone else’s environment, it’s about adapting to a different style of cricket and winning away from home. That comes with elements of resilience, planning and ability to perform in someone else’s backyard. It was exciting to get another positive story and win.
The future of Test cricket
Test cricket is crucially important to me and my past career, having captained over 100 Tests and been No. 1 in the world. The legacy of seeing player going on to do well in Tests for South Africa is hugely important to me.
It’s not only South Africa. For all countries outside of England, India and Australia, Test cricket is going to get harder and harder to facilitate with schedules, expenses and the way the money flows. The governing bodies need to think about how they protect six or seven nations in the Test group, because if it’s competitive, people will always want to watch. It’s an incredible format that keeps you enthralled for a number of days.
You have got to think about what you can control. We aren’t involved in the decision making on Test cricket, but we can keep South African cricket strong by making sure there are 50 or 60 great cricketers that they can select from to keep the national team competitive in white ball and Test cricket.
I think free agency in the West Indies is way ahead of everybody else. With the nature of cricket in that country, a lot of players have been free agents, been attracted by the T20 opportunities, and outside of England, India and Australia it potentially highlights what your future may look like. What you get is you get a lot of young, energetic players playing Test cricket but the quality and the experience is not there to compete.
Test cricket is the ultimate test of your mental and physical skills. There’s nowhere to hide. If you can’t play the short ball, you’re going to get exposed. It’s less entertainment, more a test of all your capabilities. Ultimately the challenge for the world game is to establish what that future looks like.
Jimmy Anderson still has the skills
England have finally moved on from Jimmy Anderson, and what a career he’s had. The amount of times I’ve played against Jimmy, I actually can’t believe he’s still so fit. It’s insane, and he’s still talking about playing more!
The challenge is always deciding when to move forward and build for the future, and I think English cricket is fortunate that they are producing a lot of talent and have ability coming through. There’s no doubt in my mind that Jimmy would have had a good summer in England with the Dukes ball, but the big challenges in the next two years are the tour of India and the Ashes in Australia, and they probably felt that Jimmy wouldn’t be as effective in those conditions.
If those are the key series they want to be successful in, then it probably is the right decision. If you’re going to blood people in and grow the next phase of leaders in your bowling, it’s a lot easier to start that process in your own conditions.
Jimmy is considering playing white ball cricket, and you know he’s fit and he’s still got the skills. He’s played a very limited amount of white ball cricket in the recent past, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have the ability to perform well. With Betway SA20, we are over the moon with how our squads are looking for Season 3. Each team has got proper squads together with big game performers in all six teams. Someone like Jimmy has always got to fit into the balance of the of the squad and what the team is trying to do.
Jimmy is a great name, you would love to have him, but at this stage of his career it’s a big call. It’s such a fine line between bringing in a massive name at the back end of his career or picking an up-and-coming youngster with so much promise that you can build with them for three years.
Chemistry is key for England’s attack
For England, it’s now about trying to build a squad of bowlers that can work well together. People often don’t think about how you put your bowlers together to contribute to a successful attack. You have your pace, someone that has control, your spin option, your all-rounder, and so on.
The question is how fast England’s next generation of bowlers can progress. We know that the Ashes is the next big series, so how do they get this attack to a level where they can compete when they arrive in Australia, which is a very different place to bowl.
They will probably target certain series – such as the Ashes – for Jofra Archer. Unless he becomes like Pat Cummins and suddenly finds a way to build longevity in his career, you would think that they would take Jofra to Australia and then he might miss the next three or four Test series to focus on white ball cricket and lengthen his career.
The Hundred is a great platform
I enjoyed The Hundred final, and think it’s always a colourful, exciting tournament. It is going to be a very interesting space to watch, with the all the news around privatising and investors coming in.
From the start, they’ve had a purpose to why they’re doing The Hundred. It was a commercial opportunity to grow the game. They seem to have a great fanbase, the women and the men attract good crowds, and their digital numbers are really good. The unfortunate thing about The Hundred as a format is that it really does seem to be a Test cricket versus T20 cricket conversation in the UK. It attracts positive and negative comments from the start, but no one can disagree that the Hundred has been successful for English cricket. It’s been a real positive.
There’s all this legacy stuff within cricket, with the counties and domestic franchises, and it’s about how you commercialise and franchise the game moving into the future while managing all those other those other issues. It’s still going to be complicated, but I think there’s such a great platform to go forward if they get the model right.
For us at the Betway SA20, we’ve had big ambitions to be second biggest league, outside of India. The Hundred is a huge competitor but I wish English cricket well. We work with the guys closely so hopefully they’ll find the right path forward.
Betway SA20 attracting outstanding cricketers
I’m delighted with the influx of really strong, outstanding cricketers coming to Betway SA20 for Season 3.
You want to see the South African players go from strength to strength, like the Indian players do in the IPL, and then you want to see proper cricketers coming to Betway SA20 from overseas. You’re starting to see that with the likes of Ben Stokes, Kane Williamson, Devon Conway, Jonny Bairstow, Trent Boult, Rashid Khan, Marcus Stoinis, Zach Crawley, just to name a few.
You’re starting to get a great mix of outstanding cricketers on the international front, and when you start looking at the squads and the best XIs, it’s starting to look like a really exciting 34 games ahead. It’s something the IPL has done well, making sure the league phase is competitive and goes down to the last weekend, and that’s something we’ve managed to get right in the first two season and remains our goal every year.