Express News Service
CHENNAI: In 2019, in the middle of South Africa’s home summer, Duanne Olivier literally turned his back on South Africa. One of the last ones to take the Kolpak deal, he had not only declined a two-year national contract offered by South Africa, Olivier still wanted to play Test cricket. But not for South Africa.
He was harbouring an ambition to play for England. And nearly three years later, thanks to Brexit rules, Olivier is back home in South Africa and is likely to be one of the pacers who will take the field against India in the Boxing Day Test in Centurion.
For a team that will badly miss the pace and hostility of Anrinch Nortje, the return of Olivier only strengthens them further. He may not be as quick as Nortje or Kagiso Rabada, but when Olivier took the Kolpak deal, South Africa knew what they were going to miss.
On pitches where there is good bounce and visiting batters take time to get used to the pace on South African pitches, Olivier was tailor-made.
A lethal short-ball that got batters into an uncomfortable position and nagging length around the corridor of uncertainty which made even the best in the business go fishing outside off-stump, Olivier had it all.
In his short 10-Test career between 2017-2019, which saw him play eight matches at home, he averages 17.82 at an incredible strike-rate of 28.7.
That South Africa has welcomed him with arms wide open isn’t a surprise. The only one who sounded so was Olivier himself.
Despite making himself available for selection by turning out for Lions in South Africa’s domestic cricket, Olivier comes into the series on the back of being the leading wicket-taker in the local four-day tournament. While the three seasons he spent at Yorkshire has made him more mature, as his captain Dean Elgar pointed out, Olivier comes back with wealth of experience and now has learnt to pitch it consistently on a fuller-length, which is sort of the ideal one in Centurion and Johannesburg, the two venues which will host the first two Tests.
“I want our best opportunity to win matches and win series, and in order for that, you need to make tough calls on bringing people back, for instance. I was very keen to have him back,” Elgar said.
“There’s no bad feelings about what’s happened in the past. I want to win cricket matches for South Africa, I want to win series for South Africa, and I’m pretty sure I’ve got 100% backing when it comes to that in our change room. It’s nice to have him back,” he added.
In that sense of giving the team best opportunity to win matches, Olivier provides Elgar more variety in the attack that now consists of Rabada, Lungi Ngidi, Marco Jansen, Keshav Maharaj. With seam movement combined with bounce still a dreaded factor for batters across the globe, Olivier will have a big role to play by virtue of being a new-ball bowler.
“The UK helped me a lot in perfecting that fuller length that every bowler wants to bowl. For me, it was quite difficult because it can come across floaty and I wasn’t that consistent. I am still working on it,” Olivier said.
“I can still go short if I want to, but at the end of the day, the games dictates that. People thought I only bowl short and fair enough, I did that, but now I feel like I have a different element to my game,” he said.
For a team that came up with below-par performance in the first World Test Championship cycle after losing key players, the return of Olivier is a timely one. For the man himself, whose Test career appeared to have ended for the good, this is a new beginning, which is full of promise and hope.
“I am a nervous person when it comes to playing. Wherever I play, I am always nervous. If it’s my first over, I am very nervous. I’ll have different feeling this time. It will be interesting to see what the nerves will be like, but I’m sure, if I am selected to play, I think my nerves will be shot through the roof,” Olivier said.
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