You think you know the match-up, don't you? An Australian top seven that could include any four left-handers in Travis Head, Matt Renshaw, Nic Maddinson, Cooper Connolly and Alex Carey, will surely be in Simon Harmer's sights as the best way for the offspinner to bag a few wickets? Think again.
"A lot of the time the turn is from outside of the stumps and the best part of the wicket is stump to stump. So as an offspinner bowling to a left-hander, you hope that it turns from straight. And if the wicket is good, which it should be, you could potentially see that it's actually Kesh(av Maharaj) who is more threatening against the left-handed batters and then myself to right-handed batters," Harmer said in Durban, two days ahead of South Africa's first Test against Australia.
"I hope that it turns from straight and if it does, then I really want to be able to put my hand up and break partnerships. But if it's the other way around, then I'm going to have to hopefully do better against the right-handers."
With early season surfaces, Harmer doesn't expect there to be a lot of turn even though South Africa's coastal surfaces are known to take more than the Inland ones. He does, however, think that as the match goes on and the area outside of the stumps wears, there could be assistance and that may work in the opposite way to what we've come to expect. Maharaj, the left-arm spinner that is all but certain to be in South Africa's XI, could then be the one causing problems for the left-handers with the ball turning into them.
The opposite would then be true for Harmer and he will become a threat against right-handers, including Steven Smith who he said he would "relish the opportunity," to, "get into the battle with." Harmer wouldn't be the only one in the South African squad looking forward to a rematch. Kagiso Rabada, whose availability remains pending on his match readiness after a hamstring injury, famously got into it with Smith when he shoulder brushed him in Gqeberha in 2018, Keshav Maharaj had Smith as his only wicket of the series in Australia in 2022-23 and Aiden Markram removed him in the first innings of the World Test Championship final.
You'll notice the common theme of spin remains. While South Africa have found more spinners that can win matches, Australia have developed a reputation as being vulnerable against the turning ball and the recent one-day series was proof of that. Maharaj, with six wickets, was the leading wicket-taker while fellow left-arm spinner Bjorn Fortuin had five as Australia's middle-order collapsed. Harmer doesn't expect the same in the longer format.
"Based on the one-day series, they didn't play it (spin) as well as they probably would have wanted to, but Test cricket is a completely different kettle of fish. There's also different personnel that come into their Test set-up," he said. "I hope they don't play it well, but we're expecting them to play it well."
Harmer even had a few tips for how batters could look at playing spin on South African surfaces from what he has seen from batters from the subcontinent.
"The bounce is similar to Australia. I think back again to that Bangladesh series (in South Africa in 2022), the subcontinent players play with very low hands because the ball doesn't bounce as much, so there was a lot of balls off the glove in that series. Non-subcontinent players probably play out in front of their body a lot more than the guys from the subcontinent do- they like to play the ball nice and late. If you look at how guys cut, it's almost out of the wicketkeeper's glove behind point, where we generally try and murder it in front of square and get one," he said.
Soft hands, and playing late and deftly seems to be Harmer's advice but that only applies to technique. Everything else, he expects to be as hard and abrasive as it gets. "The Australian team is always extremely competitive. They fight to the death," Harmer said. "It's quite a similar trait to South Africans. We're resilient and we probably do our best when our back's up against the wall. I think that was sort of for the world to see in the World Test Championship final. It was almost a foregone conclusion that Australia were going to win that game, but the team found a way to get through it and to get the win, so I'm sure Australia wants a bit of revenge from that loss, and I expect them to come out firing."