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Taking stock of test rivalry

NOT OUT: Hashim Amla feels that SA has the depth to cope with the retirement of Graeme Smith and Jaques Kallis Photo: Manus van Dyk/Gallo Images
NOT OUT: Hashim Amla feels that SA has the depth to cope with the retirement of Graeme Smith and Jaques Kallis Photo: Manus van Dyk/Gallo Images

Twenty-two years of isolation from the Test arena ended for South Africa when they faced West Indies in Bridgetown, Barbados, in April 1992.

This is how long SA have been back among cricket's Test-playing countries.

Their opponents in the Test series starting at Centurion today are also West Indies.

But the symmetry does not end there, although it becomes inverted.

Including and since that one-off match in 1992, SA have won 104 and lost 52 of their 215 Tests. In the same period, the Windies have played 210 Tests, won 52 and lost 98.

So, in the past 22 years, SA have won exactly twice as many Tests as West Indies - who have won the same number that SA have lost.

And to think that in the 22 years before SA returned to the fold, the Windies won 68 and lost 27 of the 154 Tests they played. That's a winning percentage of 44.16 and just 17.53% written off to defeat - or up there with SA's 48.37% and 24.19% since readmission.

Call it slings and arrows, swings and roundabouts, or a reversal of fortune.

The harsh but fair truth is that the Windies have wobbled while SA have soared.

Some will regard the retirements of Graeme Smith and Jacques Kallis as the start of SA's slide.

Hashim Amla is not among them.

"Fortunately, when they retired quite a few of us had been playing international cricket for quite a long time and we could hold the fort and keep the core of the team pretty much the same - the culture of the team could continue," Amla said.

Not long after Amla spoke, Dale Steyn and Kagiso Rabada ambled along a corridor at the SA team's hotel, clearly in deep conversation.

Twenty-two years from now they will still be talking.

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