The Johannesburg test of 2020 was Vernon Philander's final appearance for South Africa. Throughout the series he was a diminished figure, never bowling badly but struggling to manage more than 4 overs in a spell and pulling up injured in that final test. If I was Somerset chief executive I'd be checking his new contract very carefully.
So, where does this leave us. It leaves us embracing the lack of pace and looking at a new, better, future for English cricket, it leaves us with the face of progress.
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But that shouldn't detract from what has been an excellent test career with Philander taking his wickets at an average of just over 22. What's more there's an argument the simple average doesn't fully capture just how good a bowler he was. The highly recommended redballdata blog ranks Philander as the fourth best bowler of the past fifty years on the basis of impact on the opposing batsman's average. You can always niggle away at these type of exercises (although any list of bowlers that has Malcolm Marshall at the top is OK by me), but the real point is; any way you slice it Philander was a supremely effective bowler who averaged 24 with the bat, more than any of the three bowlers ahead of him on the redball stats league.
My question is, would he have played test cricket if he'd been English? Despite Mo Bobat's curious comments, it seems form in county cricket is the main way for an English batsman to reach the national side (There's the odd ODI bolter but they are rarely successful). But for bowlers there seems to be a consensus county form isn't that relevant. Be it Ben Coad, Chris Rushworth or Martin Bicknell some bowlers can be consistently effective in county cricket but never get an England call -up. What we need, apparently, is "mystery spin" or "big boy pace", Jamie Overton gets mentioned as a test player whilst Ben Coad doesn't, although Coad averages 21 to Overton's 31. The commentariats need for speed has been around for as long as I've watched cricket but the speed gun has only emphasized the trait. Listening to Sky commentators you might think the bowler's sole aim was to register 145kph plus.
And yet Vernon didn't bowl leg spin and although he was a big boy he didn't have pace, I reckon in his pomp he would have wheezed in at just over 80 miles a hour, all he had was the ability to get batsmen out. Admittedly Philander's military mediums didn't work in all environments, he was ineffective in Sri Lanka and India, deadly in South Africa. But being good at home (where you play 50% of games) is really a feature rather than a bug. So I come back to the question if he'd been English would Philander have traveled up and down the motorways of Britain, taking bagfuls of wickets whilst being subtly diminished as a county stalwart? I think the answers, yes.
So, where does this leave us. It leaves us embracing the lack of pace and looking at a new, better, future for English cricket, it leaves us with the face of progress.
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