A trip down memory lane for Rassie van der Dussen
December 23 2019 by Telford Vice
"I've gone fairly well in the other two formats, and my next big challenge is to become a three-format player" - van der Dussen
Everything about Rassie van der Dussen in his interaction with the press in Centurion on Friday said he was ready to make his Test debut against England on Thursday. He didn't so much answer questions as cover drive them with the same crisp clarity he employs at the crease, and he splashed colour into the conversation with a deft reverse sweep of a story.
"It's something I've worked towards for long, especially over the last few years. In franchise cricket I really tried to be consistent and play big innings to remind the selectors that I can play the red-ball format as well. So when I got the call-up it was quite significant."
So far so standard cricketer talk. But then: "It was the 16th [of December], and you get memories on your phone from Facebook from previous years about what happened. And it showed that 10 years ago I was here helping out in the changeroom as a, sort of, 14th man. And that's where I met [Mark] Boucher, [Jacques] Kallis, [Graeme] Smith... all these guys. And I had the whites on and I think I fielded for two or three overs.
"That memory came up from 10 years ago. South Africa were playing England right here. It made me reflect on the journey. I'm really happy."
None of the South Africans who played in the first match of that drawn series will be in Thursday's XI, but four of them are now the most prominent members of the team's radically restructured support staff. Smith is the acting director of cricket with Boucher the coach, Kallis the batting consultant, and Harris serving - for several months now, team sources say - as a mentor to Keshav Maharaj.
To find South Africans who know how to beat England at home you have to go back to Boucher and Kallis. They played in the 1999-00 rubber, the last time that happened. Despite his impressive record as a captain, and his reputation for ending his England counterparts' careers, Smith couldn't engineer victory over them in two series in his own backyard. After another traumatic World Cup and an abjectly poor performance in a Test series in India, South Africa would seem badly positioned to try and end their dry run against the English. The same script was followed in 2015: following a dramatic World Cup exit they were beaten in India and returned home to lose to England.
Van der Dussen represents hope that the turnaround is imminent, not least because his World Cup wasn't as disappointing as several of his peers'. Among the South Africans, only Faf du Plessis scored more runs than his 311 in six innings, with three half-centuries. Van der Dussen came home after the drawn T20 series in India in September to score two half-centuries and an undefeated 154 in five innings for the Lions in first-class matches. He faced 552 balls and batted for more than 14 hours for those runs: if he isn't ready to step up into the Test arena, at 30 and with 189 innings of experience to draw from, no-one is.
"In the other formats you can hide some of your weaknesses and get away with it, whereas in Test cricket there's nowhere to hide," he said. "I'm really looking forward to that challenge. I've gone fairly well in the other two formats, and my next big challenge is to become a three-format player. Every level you go up there's different challenges, but the fundamentals stay the same. I'm going to have to be at my very best every moment and every ball that I'm out there; challenge myself every ball that I'm out there to be there for the next ball.
"Having spent a lot of my career opening the batting in red-ball cricket has allowed me to play any role - batting at four, coming in when there's two wickets down in the first two overs. So I'm used to facing the new ball.
"But batting four or five in the middle order in the last two or three years has allowed me to open up my game, to be more attacking, and to transfer more pressure onto the bowlers, with the ball older and not doing as much. And maybe coming in and facing spin. I'd like to think that I'm adaptable. That's what I try to do."
Van der Dussen averages 60.12 as an opener at first-class level - significantly higher than his career mark of 44.39 - but he is likely to replace Temba Bavuma, who has a hip injury, at No. 5 on Thursday.
"It sounds so simple, but when you go out to bat the only things you need to deal with is the next ball. That takes mental energy; to cut everything out and realise all that you must do is face the next ball and succeed."
Sometimes it's not what you say, it's how you say it. And if Van der Dussen cover drives with the intent he showed talking to the press on Friday, Centurion will be blessed to see him.