da betsul： Bloemfontein: It was a typical response from the South Africancaptain, Hansie Cronje, which neatly tied up the post-match conferenceand highlighted Paul Adams
Trevor Chesterfield02-Nov-1999Bloemfontein: It was a typical response from the South Africancaptain, Hansie Cronje, which neatly tied up the post-match conferenceand highlighted Paul Adams? value as South Africa brushed asideZimbabwe yesterday.Victory by an innings and 13 runs is crushing enough but the way SouthAfrica bowled in what turned out to be the final day of the first Testof the two-match series, supported Cronje?s comment that the manwho was launched with the nickname “Gogga” four summers ago hasimproved his strike rate as well as his average.No longer does his action cause mirth or an attitude problem in thecrowd at South Africa venues and staid Bloemfontein and a sparselyinhabited Goodyear Park saw Adams? wrap up the Zimbabwe innings forfour for 31. It may be short of his best, but as Cronje suggested“Adams has a habit in wrapping up the end of an innings”.The way Cronje looked at it was the way it happened: Adams came onafter the fast men had done the work and the ball had gone soft andwrapped up the tail in the second innings. Not as much as amatch-winning performance as say that of man of the match JacquesKallis who picked up seven wickets in the match for 132 runs andsoftened up a few Zimbabwe batsmen as well.But the Adams factor was always going to prove a handful on a turningsurface and his 10.1 overs yesterday unravelled the lower order asthey battled to get after the Western Province wrist spinner.South Africa required a session and 4.1 overs of the afternoon sessionto wrap up the second Test played between the two nations before astunning catch by Jonty Rhodes at mid-off off Adams? bowlingcurtailed what lingering hopes the visitors had of forcing SouthAfrica to bat a second time.Neil Johnson had, on Sunday night, suggested South Africa would battleto get Zimbabwe out in their second innings and predicted he would batfor six hours if need be to help save the match. But he went secondball of the day when padding up to a ball from Shaun Pollock and afterthat it was a matter of survival.Guy Whittall, as he had in the first innings, top-scored for Zimbabwewith a performance which was more circumspect with a half century, butSouth Africa had the match won and it was a matter of time. You getthe feeling that Cronje would have preferred to have a more leisurelylunch. Kallis, however, can be partly blamed for the extension of theday?s play when he dropped Whittall at mid-wicket off Adams when hewas 32 and the Zimbabwe total 169 for eight.It was the sort of professional performance which you would expectfrom a professional side and which Alistair Campbell, the Zimbabwecaptain, admitted was, with Australia, the top two sides at Test level“and one-dayers as well”.While the comprehensive victory with more than a day to spare showedthe gap between the two sides Campbell?s admission South Africa hadthree world-class all-rounders who made a major difference to theside. Kallis was in a class of his own while Pollock and LanceKlusener were the sort of all-rounders which made a difference betweena good and an average side.Rushdie Majiet and the rest of the national panel seemed quite happyas well as they named an unchanged side for the second Test in Hararestarting on November 11 with Nicky Boje as 12th man.