Sri Lanka vs South Africa 2013: South Africa Preview

South Africa begin a new phase in international cricket with the tour to Sri Lanka as Gary Kirsten steps aside to allow Russell Domingo to take over the position of the team’s head coach.

Gary Kirsten was appointed as the head coach in August 2011 after he tasted World Cup success with the Indian side. His priority was to build a strong Test team and claim the top position, an expectation that he fulfilled by defeating England 2-0 last year. He has also mediated the transfer of power from Graeme Smith to AB De Villiers.

Kirsten’s successful stint meant that the South African Cricket board was keen on extending his contract by another two years, but Kirsten chose to give priority to his family.

However, Kirsten was unable to replicate the success he achieved with South Africa in the Test arena in the shorter format of the game. South Africa were rather fortunate to make the semifinals of the Champions Trophy after winning only one of their three group games (lost 1, tied 1) where they eventually bowed out to runners-up England. The manner in which their batting line-up capitulated against the English pace battery would have left a lot of Proteas fans red-faced.

Kirsten admitted to the failures of the side at the end of the campaign even though the team was unfortunate to lose two of its bowling spearheads in the course of the tournament.

He said, “It has happened again, if we are honest with ourselves. I think we did choke again. At the end of the day, it’s a word that we’ve become comfortable with. It’s an uncomfortable word, that we’ve become comfortable with, and you have to accept that that’s what it is.”

Kirsten’s up-front acceptance indicated that both the honesty with which he carried out his work and also the fact that South Africa acknowledge the failure, and that’s the first step in correcting it.

The team was also without their two dependable experienced stalwarts: Graeme Smith and Jacques Kallis. They will be absent once again when Russell Domingo starts his campaign with five ODIs and 3 T20 matches in Sri Lanka.

Domingo has been the head coach of South Africa’s T20 outfit since December and now he has been given the responsibility of building a competent team fro the 2014 T20 World Cup as well as for the 2015 World Cup while keeping up the standards set by Kirsten in the Test match arena.