That they don't have someone in the batting to take charge is not quite right. They have Smith, Gibbs and Kallis, all of whom can take charge.
Two of whom have only done so sporadically against Australia (and even then, their hundreds were of the grafting variety or in the case of Gibbs, in a dead rubber) and the other (Smith) has one 50 against Australia in 8 Tests in his first against them. All three have had their techniques summarily exposed against Australia. All three average well below their career averages against Australia. Only one (Gibbs) has a genuinely match-winning knock against Australia and, again, in a dead-rubber Test.In ODI's, obviously, it's a different story but then SA have only ever been over-rated in Tests.
Hardly the stuff of people who take charge in my opinion.
They have decent support players, though one may question the role of the likes of AB de Villiers, who seem to score next to nothing these days. They also have a knockout punch in their batting, down at seven.
In ODI's, yes. In Tests, again, Boucher has been exposed.
Their strike bowling pair is one of the best in the game these days. Can leadership be an issue? Maybe, given their resources.
I definitely agree with Ntini bowling really good stuff right now. But no-one is backing him up. Pollock has never really been SA's strike bowler, even when he was quick (aside from his 7-fer in Adelaide; THAT was outstanding bowling).
As for leadership, Australia has played against SA since 1994 now and in that time, there have been four captains (Wessels, Cronje, Pollock, Smith) and in all that time, SA haven't won a series. There's only so much one can blame on leadership when there have been so many different leaders who all have different personalities.
As I said, SA lack a game-breaker. They've got (and always have had) guys who can play long innings (Kirsten brothers, Kallis, etc.) and they've always had feisty 'keepers who can hit the ball around for half a session maybe but never have they had a Gilchrist who can change the game in one session, a number three who can alternate between rock-solid defense and 6-hitting at will consistently like Ponting or a guy like Steve Waugh who could fight tooth and nail and then when the danger had passed, start to dominate.
It may seem harsh but SA have always seemed to me to be like the team in every club league who realises they're a bit short on talent and becomes relatively successful by working on stuff they can control like ground-fielding and batting-time but ultimately, don't have the guns to push it all the way. Nothing I've seen of late has changed that; if anything, their fielding isn't as good.
They haven't quite recovered from losing their best players in a heap. They lost McMillan, a dynamic all-rounder.
Dynamic?! He was a grafter with the bat and a seam-up bowler with the ball. Not rubbish by any stretch but he was never a world-beater with either bat or ball. I mean, a SR of 42 with the bat and no 5-fers with the ball does little to support the tag of 'dynamic'.
They lost Allan Donald, one of the greatest fast bowlers of the recent past. They've lost Gary Kirsten, a world class opener with an established reputation, and also the free-scoring Cullinan, and let's not even mention Cronje. Not too many teams recover from such losses, but they've still done reasonably well, against other good teams, such as India, without two frontliners.
In the same time period, Australia has lost Craig McDermott, AB, Mark Taylor, Michael Slater, the Waughs and Ian Healy. All world-beaters for their time and a couple of all-time greats. Not to mention, SA didn't lose all of those players in a heap at all; their departures were fairly well staggered.
And, again, you're talking about players who rarely took the game by the scruff of the neck against the Aussies. Even AD (surprisingly; had all the raw materials to be an all-time great). Gary Kirsten is a prime example; several times he'd come into a series against Australia in red-hot form having spanked them in the ODI's or spanked someone else in Tests. Then the Tests would start and he'd have a run of outs. A bit more than mere co-incidence, particularly since he tended to get out in very similar ways. And again, he was a grafter; he got two hundreds against Australia but little else.
Maybe it's a perceptual thing but most of those guys would arrive in series' against Australia and (aside from AD And Hansie on occasion) and then actually look intimidated. It was weird; they'd arrive with fearsome reputations having just spanked some other good team (like India, for example) and then they'd be batting at 2 runs-per-over for a Test on a perfect batting deck and concede 400 on first-innings'. It was always really weird.
The only guy who I thought was able to really challenge the Aussies consistently just with sheer attitude and 'nads was Cronje. He looked an absolute gun in 1994 and I'll be buggered if I know what went wrong. Always mystified me.