SA, WI seek one last Test high before switching focus to ODI World Cup

The Big picture

ForSouth Africa and the West Indies, the current World Test Championship will come to an end at the Wanderers with neither side competing for a place in the final, but both aiming for a better finish than they managed in their previous run.

South Africa ended the 2019-2021 cycle in fifth, West Indies ended in eighth; now they’re eyeing third and sixth places respectively. If nothing else, that represents progress at a time when Test cricket in both places is suffering a dearth of fixtures and relevance.

After this match, unless there are fixtures added to an already jam-packed calendar, South Africa will not play in whites for the next nine months - before hosting India in December - and opening their next World Test Championship cycle.

West Indies’ next Tests are also against India, but a little sooner, in July-August. Between now and then, both South Africa and West Indies will concentrate on securing their spots in the 2023 50-Over World Cup, with at least one of them set to appear in the qualifying tournament in Zimbabwe.

For countries who were the third and fourth to play Test cricket respectively, the shift in priorities is too stark to ignore, but their desire to reassert themselves as important players in this format will be on full display this week.

You can expect both of them to make a strong case.

Although both teams have batting line-ups that are fragile under pressure, they boast strong seam at- tacks, and, in theory, there’s no better place for them to put on a show than the Wanderers.

In practice, the Bullring has been unusually spinner-friendly this summer, and Simon Harmer and Bjorn Fortuin have been among the beneficiaries. To that end, South Africa have included two specialist spinners in their XI, and are hopeful the match will go beyond three days, to bring them into play.

West Indies won’t be too unhappy with that. A tamer surface will be more like home for them, and give them an opportunity to end on a positive note an away run that started in Australia and then travelled through Zimbabwe. While there won’t actually be any prize for West Indies if they win the match, it will be the first time they have not lost a series in South Africa. For the hosts, letting that record slip won’t be an option, especially as they seek to end the Test summer on a high.

In the spotlight

After bagging a pair on his captaincy debut, and being dropped from the T20 side for what white-ball coach Rob Walter said were “performance-based” reasons, Temba Bavuma’s fortnight can only get better. Test cricket is his best format, and he is South Africa’s most consistent batter and has scored a half-century in all but one of their last six series.

With South Africa’s #3 and #5 spots still up for debate in the batting line-up, Bavuma’s role in holding together the lineup at #4 is even more important, especially after the middle-order were blown away at SuperSport Park.

In the first Test, Raymon Reifer and Jermaine Blackwood showed the temperament required to bat on South African surfaces, and Tagenarine Chanderpaul will want to follow suit. He has had an impressive start to his career with a half-century in Australia and a dou- ble-century in Zimbabwe, and will want to show that his ability to score runs in unfamiliar conditions extends to South Africa.

Chanderpaul’s partnership with Kraigg Braithwaite will also be under scrutiny, especially after they managed just 22 runs for the first-wicket in the first Test.

Team news

South Africa named their XI on the eve of the match, and have emptied their bench, with four changes from the team that played at SuperSport Park. Keegan Petersen drops out of the batting lineup, and Ryan Rickelton has been includedreward for a summer in which he scored three first-class hundreds in as many matches, and averages 121.66.

With Anrich Nortje out with a groin niggle, surprisingly, South Arica have included two spinners - Simon Harmer and Keshav Maharaj - as well as allrounder Wiaan Mulder.

Marco Jansen has been rested, and Senuran