ODI warfare on the cards

The T20 series was as one-sided as the test series. So South Africans will hope to see a contest when Proteas and West Indies clash in the one-day series starting at Kingsmead today.

South Africa are seven places above the Windies in the test rankings. The home side’s 2-0 win in that rubber thus left eyebrows firmly unraised.

With Chris Gayle, Kieron Pollard, Dwayne Bravo and Darren Sammy joining the circus for the T20s, there was much kneejerk punditry about how the visitors had been transformed into a team of “world beaters”.

Not even close: they are sixth on that ladder. But they were good enough – at least, Gayle was good enough – to snatch the series from a SA squad that were without AB de Villiers, Hashim Amla, Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel: big reasons they are ranked a place above the West Indians in the format.

In one-day internationals (ODI) terms, SA are third with West Indies fifth – the makings, surely, of a decent tussle.

But while SA have De Villiers, Amla, Steyn and Morkel back on board, the Windies no longer have Pollard and Bravo.

As he showed in the T20s, Gayle is capable of winning matches on his own, and now he has the chance to thrash SA’s attack for 30 more overs per innings.

Sammy, too, is a seasoned leader who showed in the second T20 at the Wanderers – where he drilled his unbeaten 20 off seven balls – that he knows a jugular for the seizing when he sees one.

But seven of the remaining 13 in the West Indian ODI squad were in the group of players who were outclassed by SA in the Test series.

Nine of the South Africans who shared that success are in the ODI mix.

For AB de Villiers, the ODIs would help South Africa “make sure of the combinations we have, to gel them” ahead of next month’s World Cup.

All good, or at least more logical than his answer when he was asked about the likely competitiveness of the series.

“There’s not one game that I’ve played for SA that has not been competitive,” De Villiers said.

“So it will be competitive.”

Then, questioned about his assertion that SA were the better team in their one-day series in Australia in November, when the Aussies won 4-1, De Villiers promptly contradicted himself.

“We’ve competed in games in the last two years, which we haven’t always done in the past,” he said.

“We’d win two games and then be completely out of the next one.

“I felt we competed in five games; we could have won the series 4-1.

“I still feel we were the better team and I still feel we’re going to be the best team at the World Cup.”

With that, Jason Holder, who will captain West Indies for the first time today on the scant experience of having led teams four times – twice in under-19 matches and in a couple of miscellaneous games – had a good example of how his new job could make him look silly.