RYAN VREDE looks at South Africa’s biggest areas of concern ahead of the second Test against New Zealand.
Writing this piece is hard because so much was wrong about the Proteas’ dismal performance in Christchurch. There were so many deficiencies in that showing that listing them all would take hours.
So, I’ve narrowed my focus to the five areas that need the most urgent attention.
Figuring out why the energy was so low
This was a cause of great anguish for the coaching staff. A brutal travel schedule, followed by a strict quarantine period, undoubtedly impacted the players. However, this alone can’t excuse the sheer impotence of their performance.
“We just haven’t come out and given the energy that’s expected of us. I can see the energies are way below par,” coach Mark Boucher said during the first Test. “We do a lot of talking and planning throughout the series and the plans are right, but we haven’t been able to execute on those plans. The energies have been low. We can’t put our finger on it. We have to try to find a way to become better at the start of the series.”
How the team leadership addresses and rectifies this will be crucial. They can’t hope to compete against the Test world champions at 50% effort.
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Fixing a broken opening partnership
It feels like I’ve been writing that line for too long.
Aiden Markram and Dean Elgar average a woeful 20.78 as an opening pair. Overall, in Tests since July 2018, only Ireland and Afghanistan have worse records for their opening pair. Something needs to change quickly.
Markram dropped down to No 3 as cover for the absent Keegan Petersen, but the new opening pair of Sarel Erwee and Elgar contributed just one run across two innings.
Erwee has a good first-class record and deserves a chance to prove his worth. But he is 32 years old and thus should be reasonably expected to adapt to the challenges of Test cricket more easily than someone in the infancy of professional cricket.
I don’t know how you fix this in a short turnaround, but it needs the most urgent attention.
Who replaces Aiden Markram?
For me, there is no debate about whether Markram needs to be dropped. He should be. Markram averages just shy of 26 in his last 20 Tests, and 9.7 in his last 10 innings. I admire Markram as a player, but you can’t defend his now chronic mediocrity.
Ryan Rickelton is the most likely replacement. His domestic form has been outstanding this season. He has scored three hundreds in his last five innings, and his aggressive approach would offer the Proteas lineup a different dimension. Furthermore, being left-handed is beneficial in blunting the potency of the Black Caps’ brigade of outswingers.
He should bat at No 4, where he does for his province, with Rassie van der Dussen shifting to 3.
An effective strategy against outswing
Thirteen of the 20 South African wickets to fall in the first Test were caught behind or in the slip cordon. The Proteas batters had no effective counter to Tim Southee and co’s incredible ability to swing the ball away.
A clutch of Proteas batters were knicked off playing at deliveries that were in a fifth stump channel. This deficiency needs to be remedied by the coaching staff and players to avoid another massacre.
Bowling and fielding
Part of me feels for the Proteas seamers on two fronts. Firstly, they had 95 to defend in their first bowling innings. Mentally and tactically, this is a prohibitive situation. Secondly, their efforts were significantly undermined by atrocious fielding, with five catches dropped in the innings.
This alone can’t mitigate what was an ordinary bowling performance. None of the bowlers were able to exert the type of relentless pressure their counterparts did, and a score of 482 attests to that.
There is plenty of assistance for them if they get the ball in the right areas consistently, and they must take advantage of these favourable conditions for their team to stand any chance.
