Ugly but extremely effective

Protean off-spinner Harris holds his own among quality pace demons

The left-arm spinner isn’t the greatest turner of the cricket ball, doesn’t fancy himself as a match-winner and is as unpretentious as they come. His numbers make for modest reading, but quite clearly, he lends a certain balance and performs a specific job with aplomb, attributes that have made him a permanent fixture in the playing eleven since his Test debut against India in Cape Town in January 2007.

The 32-year-old essentially does a holding job, taking over once the ball gets older and keeping things quiet from one end as a four-pronged pace attack operates in short, sharp bursts at the other.

Seldom does he get clobbered, and at the first sign of the batsman taking to him, he has no qualms in going over the stumps and bottling up the scoring with a leg-stump line to the right-hander.

An obstinate lower-order batsman who has been used as a night watchman and an excellent catcher in the slips, Harris is self-deprecating and generally dismissed as barely a threat by experts and oppositions alike, but he has the immense respect of his team-mates and brings colour and character to the team. Watching him in action, especially when he resorts to his run-denying line, is anything but exciting, but if the criticism fazes him, then it is masked remarkably well.

At SuperSport Park on Saturday, the Harare-born Harris became the third South African spinner, after Paul Adams and Nicky Boje, to take 100 Test wickets since the country’s readmission to world cricket in 1991. It took him 33 Tests to get there, but the wait was worth it, perennial tormentor Virender Sehwag his milestone victim just as the Indian second innings was beginning to gather momentum.

Where Steyn and Morkel might blast batsmen out, Harris’ speciality is driving them to frustration with his accuracy and control. Occasionally, like in the second-innings in Nagpur earlier this year or last year against Australia in Cape Town when he took a career-best six for 125, Harris comes away with accolades. For the large part, though, he is the unsung support cast, his job clearly defined and one he is totally comfortable with.
Indeed, at SuperSport Park, he comprehensively out-bowled Harbhajan Singh, the leading wicket-taker among active cricketers. The Indian offie, it must be stressed, didn’t have the luxury of operating behind two outstanding new-ball bowlers and two adequate back-up seamers, but he showed nowhere near the control that his less experienced spinning counterpart did.

“I thought Paul was brilliant, if you compare him to Harbahjan, the way he controlled the game for us,” skipper Graeme Smith agreed. “Paul gets written off before every series; whether it’s the opposition or the media, everyone seems to bad mouth him. But he always seems to find a key way to do something for us, to control the game, to allow other people to do their things. Whether he is being the night watchman or bowling a long spell, he’s always a 100 percent cricketer.” Huge compliment, that!