Erwee or Rickelton: Who should replace Keegan Petersen?

Petersen was forced out of South Africa's squad after contracting Covid-19 © Getty
Situation vacant: top order batter in a resurgent Test XI. The successful applicant will be resourceful, unflappable and as equipped to take guard when runs are on the board as when they are not. Must be goal-orientated and able to work under extreme pressure and without supervision. Those not nearly as good as Keegan Petersen need not apply.

Happily, South Africa have potential candidates on hand. Sarel Erwee and Ryan Rickelton are uncapped internationally, but they have built the kind of curriculum vitae at domestic level that make them viable options. Zubayr Hamza, who averaged 18.10 in 10 Test innings in 2019 and 2020 but is undoubtedly a high quality player, is a late inclusion in the squad to play two Tests against New Zealand in Christchurch this month. Which of them will crack the nod? Thereby hangs a tale.

It starts with the fact that the opening was created when Petersen was forced out of South Africa's squad after contracting Covid-19. He is asymptomatic, but his absence is sure to cause withdrawal symptoms in the team he has left temporarily. Petersen was the leading run-scorer in the home series against India in December and January, and brought gravitas to the No. 3 position - the most difficult in the order to fill successfully.

Opening the batting is the toughest job in cricket, but openers know what they are in for and tailor their technique and their temperament accordingly. And you always have twice as many openers to choose from than No. 3s. The converse is true of those who bat at first drop. They are required to be several players folded into one: dogged defenders, ace attackers, and able to bat with defenders and attackers up and down the order. They need a technique that is solid but not rigid. Similarly, their temperament requires the strength and flexibility to be able to go from plan A to plan Z; sometimes in the space of a session.

Petersen is just nine innings into his career, and only in the last six of them, against the Indians, has he settled and looked the part. But the point is he has, and was an important factor in South Africa's series victory. And now this.

On Wednesday, before the South Africans left for New Zealand, Dean Elgar made the case for Erwee's elevation and, in what seemed a diplomatic afterthought, tacked on Hamza's claim to the spot. Rickelton didn't feature in Elgar's view, which might seem difficult to believe.

Rickelton has scored three centuries in five first-class innings for the Lions this season. At Newlands last week he made 90 and 102 not out against Western Province, whose attack harboured Beuran Hendricks and Wayne Parnell. In November at the Wanderers, never the easiest of batting pitches, Rickelton scored 117 against Boland, who had Hardus Viljoen and Kyle Abbott in the mix. In October he was run out for 159 against North West, Senuran Muthusamy and all.

Rickelton's only failure this summer was suffered against the Warriors in November, when he was caught behind for five off Glenton Stuurman. It was quite some St George's Park pitch - the Lions won by an innings despite being dismissed for 170. They shunted the Warriors for 96 and 54.

So why has Rickelton apparently been shown the cold shoulder by South Africa's captain? In a word, politics. Rickelton was in the squad for a T20I series against Pakistan in January last year and for an ODI rubber against the Netherlands in November. But he was first in the Test squad for the India series, and has retained his place for the trip to New Zealand.

By contrast, Erwee is an upper-cruster the bench. This will be his fifth consecutive rubber as a member of the Test group. Since December 2020 he has sat and watched nine Tests without getting onto the field but for a spot of fielding here and there. Cricketing convention - politics, by any other name - decrees that Erwee is the next cab off the rank come what may, even if the cab behind him is newer, shinier, faster, more comfortable and has a better driver.

That's not to say Erwee hasn't earned his opportunity to play ahead of Rickelton. In November he scored 163 for the Dolphins in a first-class match at Centurion - another unfriendly batting surface - against a Titans attack studded with Junior Dala and Simon Harmer. In Bloemfontein in December he made 75 and 97 against India A, who bristled with Deepak Chahar, Navdeep Saini and Ishan Porel. He had Stuurman and Dane Paterson bowling at him for the Warriors at Kingsmead last week, and scored 93.

Both Rickelton and Erwee bat left-handed. Rickelton has been at No. 3 for three innings this season and at No. 4 for the other two. Erwee has opened, and taken first strike, in all eight of his trips to the crease. But there's no devil in those details. What matters is that Erwee has paid more dues than Rickelton.

Certainly, Gary Kirsten thought so when Cricbuzz asked him whether he would select the in-form Rickelton or the long-serving, and suffering, Erwee: "I would always pick the guy who is next in line to play - form is temporary and is short-term thinking." Herschelle Gibbs concurred: "If the extra batter in the squad is the next one to play, he should. There's no point keeping him in the squad all the time and you don't play him."

You would have to go a long way in the game and the wider world to find cricketers and people as different from each other as Kirsten and Gibbs. If even they are on the same page on this question, consider it answered. The smart money has to be on Erwee, at 32 and 96 matches into his first-class career, making his Test debut at Hagley Oval on February 17.