Last Chance Saloon: Jacques Rudolph playing to save his career.

Last week, I wrote about Jacques Rudolph and how he stood to gain the most out of JP Duminy's injury if he made the most of his opportunities.

I wrote how Rudolph has perhaps struggled to make runs in the number six batting slot because South Africa's top order had done very well over the last 12 months and when he did come in it was always in search of quick runs, which perhaps is not his natural game. But in the 2nd Test in Adelaide, Rudolph had the opportunity to make plenty of runs, in part because the top order collapsed and because he batted at no.4 because of an injury to Jacques Kallis and perhaps some tiredness on AB De Villiers' part due to the extra burden of keeping wicket.

Regardless, Rudolph couldn't make the most of his chances and scored 29 and 3. The man who did take advantage of his opportunity though was Faf du Plessis, Duminy's replacement for this test. I thought going in to the Test though that the South African selectors would relent and give Thami Tsolekile the gloves but even he says he didn't expect to get into the XI as quoted by Australian papers. 

Duminy will not make an immediate return to the Proteas but between know and when he does come back there could be a lot of players who have put their names in the hat for a place in the team. Rudolph needs to be careful beacuse other players offer a little more than solid batting, like du Plessis who can turn a few with his wrist and is also an excellent fielder. Robin Peterson and Duminy also bat and bowl a bit so when the selectors look back, maybe they could decide Rudolph offers the least if he's not scoring big runs. Rudolph will survive until the 3rd Test but when the Proteas return for their home series against NZ & Pakistan, he might find himself back playing for the Titans if he doesn't put up a very big score in the final test. The SA batting line up will be under a lot more scrutiny since Kallis is expected to miss the final Test through injury putting a lot more pressure to make runs on the other batsmen. When the third Test does come around, Rudolph might find himself in the match to fight for his career. Who knows, it could be motivation he needs.

Ricky Ponting's Big Test

During the lead up to the current Test series between Australia and South Africa, the Aussies reckoned that their bowlers were on par with the South African bowling attack which is pretty much the most dangerous bowling unit going around in World cricket. Their concerns were placed on the batting department, more especially on Ricky Ponting and Mike Hussey. Both players performed terribly in their last series against South Africa and had been pointed out as weak links by their own media.  

Ponting and Hussey have terrific statistics to back up their ability. They have done it all in cricket and right now, there have been questions on whether they can still sustain their performances enough to justify their places in the Aussie line up. Both players have indicated that they would like to end their careers after the next Ashes series, but in order for them to end their international careers on their own terms, both players have to be at their supreme best from now until then. Hussey has done well scoring 2 centuries in his first 2 test innings this summer and might have booked his place in the team for the rest of this summer. Neither can afford the slightest dip in form and all the luck has to go their way otherwise, it's all over. There won't be a way back for either of them as revered as they are Down Under.

In contrast to Hussey’s form, Ponting has registered scores of 0 and 4 so far this summer. Australia at the moment doesn't have any outstanding performers threatening the places of Ponting and Hussey which is probably why they have stayed in the team so long that people would start to have their doubts, that and a couple of brilliant knocks at the SCG against India at the beginning of the year. Ponting and Hussey are what Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman were last summer. Only difference is, these two have a chance to prove themselves, and Hussey is erasing his name off the list of suspect batsmen.

The next innings Ponting plays will be a very important one. The highly regarded Shane Watson has not played a Test this summer because of injury and should his replacement, Rob Quiney, hit a century and Ponting fails, I would not be surprised if the ex-skipper was axed. The Australian selectors have shown they have little regard for sentiment as was seen with Brad Haddin losing his place in the test team after leaving the series against the West Indies to attend to his critically ill daughter. Haddin has been in great domestic form this season, but while he was away from the game, his replacement Matthew Wade hit a century in his absence, prompting the selectors to stick with him. There is no telling whether or not they will hold on to their places until the Sri Lanka tour of Australia which will probably be a less cumbersome task than facing the South Africans.

 I would like to see Ricky Ponting end his career on his own terms. There is a certain satisfaction that comes to me when a legend gets to bow out with a smile a wave goodbye. Besides that, I watched a lot of Ponting last summer and I came to the conclusion that he wasn't past it, and selfishly, I would like to see him batting at his best, at least once more.

Misfortune and Opportunity.

Nobody wants to see a good player, or any other player, sidelined by injury especially one as serious as an Achilles tendon snapping. But when it does happen, we can only hope for a swift and complete recovery and to see that player get back to his best. With JP Duminy's freak injury ruling him out of action for up to six months, it might seem as though the Australians are the biggest beneficiaries in the short term, but the person who stands to gain the most out of the situation is Jacques Rudolph.

Rudolph has been in the number 6 slot since last summer after years of good performances in domestic and county cricket. But since he returned to the Test side, he hasn't stamped his authority and made that spot his own. There will come a time when the SA selectors decide that AB de Villiers is not suited to keeping wicket and performing with the bat. Class wicket-keeper batsmen aren't a dime-a-dozen and it is extremely rare that a keeper can hold on to his keeping spot and still perform with the bat. Look at Sri Lanka's Kumar Sangakkara who has performed far better as a batsman without the added responsibility of the gloves. At some point, the Proteas would have had to find a spot for a specialist keeper and the person most likely to fall away would have been one of Rudolph or Duminy.

Rudolph now has the opportunity to make runs without looking over his shoulder to see what Duminy is doing. Granted, it is difficult to make runs in the South African line up at number 6 especially when the top order has been performing so well over the last year. During the recent Test series against England, the first which featured Rudolph at number 6 and Duminy at 7, Rudolph averaged 35,25 in 4 innings whilst Duminy averaged 67, 5. There will be a little added pressure on Rudolph though, as every innings he bats from now until the New Zealand and Pakistan tours to South Africa in December and early 2013 will be watched with intense scrutiny, but at least in the race for the number 6 spot he doesn't have to worry about Duminy breathing on the back of his neck, for the time being.

What happened, Jacques Freitag?

He is one of only eight athletes to have won IAAF world athletics championships at youth, junior and senior level. He is in good company too. That list of eight includes Usain Bolt, Veronica Campbell-Brown and Yelena Isinbayeva, amongst others. But how did it come to be that the man who became world champion at the age of 21 would find himself on the wrong side of the law 9 years later and without any further distinction in his career? 

Forsbury Flop: Jacque Freitag. Half Fulfilled Potential.

I remember the hype around Jacques Freitag when he won gold at the World Athletics Championships in Paris in 2003. He was supposed to be the next great South African sports star, an equal to Hestrie Cloete the South African female high jumper the two-time women’s high jump world champion who had also won gold in Paris that year. I remember thinking that he would turn out to be the next South African Olympian to win a gold medal. In 2004 he had to withdraw from the South African track and field team to participate at the Athens Olympics because of a recurring ankle injury and at the time was quoted as saying: "I've decided to go for the long-term plan. The ligament is totally shredded and needs to be replaced. I'm still young, turning 22 this year, so I should have at least two more Olympic Games in me." But that wasn’t to be as he never featured in either of the Games in Beijing or London.

Ivan Ukhov won the men’s High Jump event at this year’s Olympic Games in London with a leap of 2, 38 metres, which incidentally is Jacques Freitag’s personal best leap, a mark he cleared in 2005. Since that year, Freitag virtually disappeared from the South African sporting landscape. 

He had a run in with the law in 2006 after he and a friend allegedly assaulted a 17 year old schoolboy. 

Freitag never returned to his supreme best. He did try to make a comeback from injury but in 2009 retired from the sport following more surgeries to his damaged ankle. Soon after retiring, Freitag established an academy for jumpers in partnership with the High Performance Centre in Pretoria and unsuccessfully attempted comebacks in 2010 and in 2011 but the giant athlete was reduced to only a shadow of his former self. His best jump in 2010 was a dismal 2, 05 metres.

This past weekend, Freitag was arrested and remanded in custody by Police in Pretoria for the possession of the drug Cat (methcathinone). 

I don’t know if anything infuriates me in sport more than stories of incredibly talented athletes who only half fulfil their potential, whether it is through, injury, injustices or indeed their own actions. I can’t speak for Jacques Freitag and I don’t know what all the circumstances that led to him being bust for drug possession or the circumstances around his failed career were. It is a difficult thing to say, but at the end of the day that is what we have to deal with, the fact that despite all his talent and early achievements, Jacques Freitag was a bright talent with an even brighter career that never was.