Thursday, 10th May 2007 at 12:34 pm

Shaun Pollock: South Africa’s best

Set aside the spell against Australia in the pool match, where Matthew Hayden went berserk on a very benign pitch, and there’s no real question: in a year in which the team made it to number one in the world, and played some excellent cricket until the leveller that was the World Cup, one flame-haired metronome stood out consistently. Take a bow then, Shaun Pollock, named on Wednesday night as South Africa’s cricketer of the year.

Graeme Smith has returned to form, and has batted through 2007 with authority. Jacques Kallis has again (bar one or two World Cup indiscretions) looked cricket’s most classically correct batsman. Ashwell Prince has emerged as a genuine Test player in the middle order, Makhaya Ntini confirmed his worth as a strike bowler (underlining the mystery of his World Cup non-selection at the end of the tournament), and Mark Boucher time and again proved himself to be one of the most ferociously competitive cricketers - and cleanest strikers of a cricket ball - South Africa has had.

But it’s Pollock who deservedly picked up the top accolade. Written off on a weekly basis as being too slow, too old, too vulnerable, he arrived in the West Indies as the world’s top ranked bowler, and while the Australians may have got hold of him in one game, it’s a measure of his worth that he was so specifically targeted.

His spot in the Test side remains a topic of discussion, although Smith would be loathe to lose his veteran seamer; and his career in certainly in its twilight, although how much longer he’ll keep playing for is a subject he’s proved skillfully non-committal on. But that’s the future; for now, a simple toast to a humble, quiet man who has dealt with unwanted leadership, a threadbare support unit, and the complexities of the South African game during a marvellous career. Shaun Pollock, Cricketer of the Year? Feverpitcher couldn’t agree more.