Cunning pitch plan

There is little point in completely denying the truth. Sometimes it can be fudged, and occasionally there is even place for half-truths, but there are some issues in South African cricket which are too important to deny, despite the sensitivity around them.

Nobody comes right out and says what they mean. Everybody seems afraid of offending someone else and so there is an uncomfortable air of uncertainty and mistrust. Now is the time to break that down and start talking about the truth, whomever doesn't like it.

So here it is: Most of the pitches in South Africa this summer have been deliberately 'doctored' and under-prepared. Forget most of the stories and excuses you may have heard. Several senior groundsmen may have resigned their positions in recent seasons but their deputies have belied their inexperience to conjur up some terrible playing surfaces, exactly according to instructions.

Hearing the most senior players in the country, national captain Graeme Smith and his vice-captain, Jacques Kallis, bemoaning the pitches they have had to play on against India and Pakistan only serves to confirm that they knew nothing about the instructions that came from a secret World Cup think-tank comprising senior CSA administrators, fortune tellers and Sangomas.

How could they have been told? They would never, ever have agreed to such an innovative plan and their dissatisfaction would have leaked quickly to the media. It would have been a PR disaster.

The theory was simple. If Smith and his men could learn to win on slow, deteriorating pitches in South Africa, they might well arrive in the Caribbean with a significant advantage over most other sides. The risks attached to this strategy were enormous. Imagine if the team had lost both series! Their collective confidence would have been shattered and the World Cup could well have been a disaster.

But, thanks to the bloody-minded determination of Kallis, Ashwell Prince, Makhaya Ntini and Shaun Pollock, and match-winning contributions from Smith and Hashim Amla in one test apiece, the strategy to play on deliberately ruined pitches has proved to be a master-stroke of genius.

Congratulations are in order for Cricket South Africa.

However, perhaps as a result of their far-sightedness and determination to see the 'big picture', the national selectors, think-tank members and other senior administrators have taken their eyes off the ball in another rather important regard. The selection of the World Cup squad.

Instead of embracing the number 'seven', many tried to insist that it wasn't set in stone, that it wasn't a quota but a target. Seven black players in a squad of 15. A noble target, they said, in the full knowledge that it was non-negotiable. In fact, it was virtually law.

The result is that the quota is now more obvious than ever before. The last two places in the 15 have to be filled by black players and yet the understandable obsession with sending players with experience to the Caribbean mean that players like Alfonso Thomas, Thandi Tshabalala and Alviro Peterson won't be selected because they haven't played enough, or at all. Other players will go despite modest records.

I feel particulalrly sorry for Alfonso Thomas. He should have earned at least a dozen one-day caps by now and, at the very least, be regarded as a fringe national player.

Every country has its obsessions, and one of South Africa's is with pace. "He lacks pace," people always said of Thomas. "You can't be an international bowler at his pace."

I still hope Thomas sneaks a seat on the plane to Barbados because he has the heart and, I believe, the necessary skills to play for South Africa. And incidentally, his lack of pace may well prove to be his best asset on West Indian pitches.

But most unfortunately of all, because of the belated action in implementing the quota, Thomas would most likely be regarded by all and sundry as "the 15th man", a man given the trip of a lifetime because of his colour.

Well, if he makes it - and I doubt he will now - try comparing his domestic record to those of other players in the squad. He deserves national recognition.

But then again, so do Johan van der Wath and Boeta Dippenaar. And they are definitely staying at home.