Polly pulls rank for nightwatchman duties

December 1, 2000 by neil manthorp

Neil Man­thorp — 01/12/2000

Shaun Pol­lock­’s deci­sion to bat as night­watch­man at the end of the sec­ond day of the sec­ond Test against New Zealand was the result of a deal struck in Bloem­fontein before the series had even begun.

With Mark Bouch­er and Nicky Boje hav­ing proved out­stand­ing­ly suc­cess­ful in that posi­tion, Pol­lock — who makes no secret of his desire to score a Test cen­tu­ry — found him­self mov­ing fur­ther and fur­ther down the bat­ting order.

With Bouch­er pro­mot­ed to num­ber six and Boje bat­ting at num­ber eight behind Lance Klusen­er, Pol­lock found him­self lin­ger­ing in the base­ment at num­ber nine, with just Allan Don­ald and Makhaya Nti­ni behind him.

Chances of scor­ing a cen­tu­ry down there were not good so Pol­lock exer­cised his cap­tain’s pre­rog­a­tive and imme­di­ate­ly bal­anced the good news of Bouch­er and Boje’s pro­mo­tion with the news that they were both sacked, with imme­di­ate effect, from the posi­tion of night­watch­man — a posi­tion in which Bouch­er has scored two cen­turies and Boje 85.

South Africa may be in the unique posi­tion of hav­ing three men who love the oppor­tu­ni­ty to bat in the top order while most Test teams have a low­er order who try to avoid the duty at all costs.

Sto­ries have abound­ed through the years of cap­tains des­per­ate­ly try­ing to unearth hid­ing tailen­ders from the dark­est cor­ners of the dress­ing room when a night­watch­man is required but Pol­lock is there pure­ly on choice.

Don’t bet against him capitalising.

In fact, don’t bet on crick­et at all.