Test Cricket Tours - South Africa to Sri Lanka 2004
Tour of
Sri Lanka 2004Captain: Graeme
Smith
36th
official Test tour
Third
Test-playing tour of Sri Lanka
by South Africa
(July - September 2004)
The tour was not agreed until
two months before the players had to depart from South Africa.
Klusener and Hayward were restored to a South African
touring party after past disagreements with the United Cricket Board. Klusener had not been chosen for South Africa
since the Australian tour of 2001-02. For each of them it was,
however, their last tour.
Sri Lanka won both
Test and one-day series. This was the first time that South Africa had lost a Test series to Sri Lanka.
The tourists came directly from
the South African winter and a two-month lay off. The only warm-up game was
not intense, and they were straight into facing Murali on a turning pitch at Galle. After losing the
Test series 1-0, South
Africa suffered a humiliating 5-0 whitewash
in the one-day series.
The bowling lacked penetration
and the batting failed to build long innings, except for once by
Rudolph.Pollock and Kallis apart,
performances were ordinary.The end
result was discord among the team and coach Eric Simons, and within a few
weeks of returning home, his contract, and that of team manager Tim Southey,
were terminated in October 2004.
The
Executive Committee of Cricket South Africa
decided not to place all selection responsibilities on the coach. Omar Henry
was retained as chairman although his committee was reduced from six members
to four.
Omar Henry
(convener), Eric Simons (coach),Gary Kirsten (high performance manager),Enver Mall.
Selection
Unavailable:Gary Kirsten
retired at the end of the 2003-04 New Zealand tour. He was
appointed Cricket SouthAfrica’s High Performance Manager and joined the
national selection panel.
Nantie Hayward renounced his earlier withdrawal from
international cricket.
Tour party announced:30 June 2004.
Not selected:Neil McKenzie, Paul Adams or Andrew Hall.
Time between selection and departure from South Africa
27 days
(30 June to 27 July)
Travel
The team left South
Africa on 26 July, arriving in Colombo the next day.The management team held a press conference
at the Taj Samudra Hotel on 29 July where the imposing 84 inch-high trophy
from sponsors Janashakti was revealed to the press.
J-P
Duminy and Alan Dawson were flown in to replace Dippenaar and Hayward for the
one-dayers
Time spent in Sri
Lanka
35 days
(27 July - 1 September)
On-tour selection panel
Graeme Smith (captain),Eric Simons (coach),……..
Reinforcements
A G
Puttick
WP
33
LHB
On 25 July left-handed opener Andrew Puttick was added to the touring party as cover for
Herschelle Gibbs who twisted his right ankle training at the High Performance
Centre in Pretoria.Gibbs missed the
first Test.
On 19 August Charl Langeveldt was brought in to the
one-day team when Andre Nel returned to South Africa early because of a
back strain.Langeveldt was playing in
Zimbabwe, and journeyed to
Colombo via Johannesburg
and Dubai.