October 02 Wednesday 2002
Woolmer backs Pollock's captaincy

COLOMBO: Shaun Pollock deserves bouquets and not brickbats after South Africa's narrow defeat to India last week, says former South African coach Bob Woolmer.

He said the criticism against Pollock was unfounded and reflected a lack of insight into the causes of the defeat. India beat South Africa by 10 runs last Wednesday in A semifinal of the ICC Champions Trophy in Colombo after the South Africans needed only 70 runs from 13 overs with nine wickets in hand.

At that stage a one-sided South African victory looked inevitable, but when Herschelle Gibbs had to withdraw with dehydration and cramps, the South African innings crumbled. In the unforgiving postmortem, Pollock came in for some heavy criticism for allegedly being a stereotypical and predictable captain.

However, Woolmer said that in his view Pollock did a fantastic job. In Warwickshire, where Woolmer is the coach, the consensus was that Pollock had a good cricketing brain and that he was sharp on the field. "He was smothered in his development as South African captain. This cannot be blamed on the former coach, Graham Ford," Woolmer said.

According to him, Pollock's captaincy is likely to develop further with Omar Henry as convenor of selectors and Eric Simons as coach. South Africa lost to India as a result of making some judgment errors late in their run-chase to the Indian total of 261. One of these errors was not to send in a pinch-hitter when Gibbs left the field.

"Herschelle (116 from 116 balls) batted fantastically at a rate of a run a ball. Jacques (Kallis) batted at a rate of 60 runs off 100 balls. Together their scoring rate was at 80 runs off 100 balls.

"When they did not send in a pinch-hitter and the wickets started going down fast, Jacques was in two minds on whether to risk his wicket and up the tempo or whether to try and bat through. Make no mistake, India bowled well, but we should have sent in a pinch-hitter," Woolmer said.

He added that there was no need to talk about a crisis in one-day cricket. "It is not necessary to hit the panic button. Our fielding has improved a lot and fitness is at a high level."