LUKE ALFRED | ‘Young’ Marques Ackerman makes Test debut at 30

I can’t imagine Proteas batter Marques Ackerman slept soundly on Saturday night ahead of his debut against Australia the following day. And I don’t think after toiling for 32 balls for five through a rain-interrupted Sunday against the best attack in the world, he slept too well that night either.

But perhaps I’m being melodramatic. Perhaps Ackerman, the Dolphins middle-order batter making his Test debut in the unfamiliar position of opener, slept as soundly as a new-born babe on Sunday night? When you’ve waited until you’re 30 to play Test cricket, what’s another few hours?

Test cricketers generally have resting heart rates far lower than us mortals. Perhaps Ackerman — who was finally out for six yesterday afternoon — had a medium-rare steak, moseyed up to the salad valley and finished it up with a lite beer before setting his alarm and turning in for the night.

Ackerman matriculated from St Stithians College in Randburg in 2014, which makes a slight mockery of commentator Vernon Philander calling him “a young man”. Perhaps, though, big Vern inadvertently stumbled upon a point. It’s only in the last season or three that Ackerman has started being regarded as a red-ball cricketer. Once he was seen as a white ball specialist who couldn’t always catch a four-day game for the Dolphins.

It’s probably fair to say that Ackerman was slightly overshadowed at school by another left-hander of the same age, Ryan Rickelton. Ryan’s dad worked at the school and Ackerman, a West Rand kid, came along on a scholarship. Cricket at the school drifted into the doldrums in the early 2000s and schoolmaster Wim Jansen, himself a West Rander, was recruited to address the slump.

Enter bursary boys like Ackerman and Wiaan Mulder, who arrived at his entrance interview barefoot; Kagiso Rabada was already at St Stithians College. He was kept on the straight and narrow after some accused him of petulance (what teenager hasn’t had his brush with authority?) and quietly, without the surrounding Joburg schools noticing, Saints were establishing a dynasty that also included Ricky Vasconcelos and Brandon Glover, who subsequently went on to play for the Netherlands.

After school Ackerman knocked about with North West, then a satellite of Gauteng. His rise was steady rather than meteoric. Finding the idea of cricket on the coast more congenial, he moved to the Dolphins. Of late he seems to have hit a purple patch all batsmen dream of. In the winter, playing for South Africa A, he scored 256 (in 237 deliveries) against Bangladesh A at Tukkies. It’s the kind of “notice-me” innings that has its intended effect.

Ackerman has been given his chance but he can’t have been entirely comfortable with where he’s been given it. The Proteas upper order under coach Shukri Conrad and selection convenor Patrick Moroney is a bit like the top shelf of a fridge — ever-changing, multifarious, never the same twice.

While we think of Ackerman and what he’s doing to prevent himself from getting cabin fever with all the rain in Gqeberha yesterday, spare a thought with all this chopping and changing for Tristan Stubbs, discarded for the second Test at St George’s, although probably not for him.

Stubbs — to coin a phrase — doesn’t know where his off-stump is. The issue with him only partly has to do with selection, because it’s systemic. South Africa seldom play three-Test series anymore (this season’s Tests against Australia and England are exceptions) and Stubbs and three-Test series are strangers. He’s played two consecutive Tests against India, Pakistan (twice), West Indies, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, which account for 12 of his 15 Tests. He’s played single Tests against Australia (twice, but not in the same series), and one against India on debut at Newlands in the bizarre second Test of the 2023/4 series, in which South Africa were out for 55 and 176, leading to Conrad apologising for throwing him to Jasprit Bumrah on a snakepit.

Nine of Stubbs’ 15 Tests have been played away, which further adds to the confusing environment in which he finds himself. Let’s hope that Ackerman, now that he’s in the promised land, is given the opportunity to spend time there. I’m not sure that Stubbs ever has.

Business Day