England did not even need it(Bazzball) to beat the Proteas.
A look at how poor decision making cost the Proteas a test series win against England.
The Proteas have struggled to win a test series against England both home and away for quite some time now. Many of us had hope that the recently concluded test series would be different and that was mostly because of where the Proteas were on the Test Championship Table and where England was. Things turned out differently as England came back from 1-0 down to winning the series 2-1. The Proteas may have lost the series against England but our hopes of making it into the Test Championship Final are still very much alive as the Proteas are still in the top 2.
Building up to the test series, there was a lot of talk. England’s newly found style of playing had seen them win matches in a way that few sides would be able to counterattack unless they have a bowling attack as potent as South Africa’s bowling attack. The English were oozing in confidence and ready to unleash their “Bazzball” on the Proteas even though, Proteas skipper seemed unfazed by the brand of cricket that he believed was unsustainable. A Proteas loss in the warmup match where the fringe bowlers got to be on the receiving end of the “Bazzball” raised a lot of people’s eyebrows and a lot of questions were asked. Unfortunately, the wrong questions were asked as many people were still concerned about the bowling unit even though everyone saw that Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi and Anrich Nortje did not play.
Before even looking at the test series a bit deeper, it might be the right time for us to admit that as much the team had been winning, the “how” of the team’s winning raises a lot of concern. This is something I have been reiterating for a long time now and I honestly do not blame anyone for not really being bothered by how the team was winning. The team went through a phase where it was not winning enough matches if any at all and under Mark Boucher, the team found a winning formular in tests that put them on top of the Championship table so all that mattered was the fact that the team is winning. Perhaps we found ourselves being ambushed by the obvious because visible cracks were ignored because the results were coming. It almost looked like nobody really cared about the fact that the way we were winning was no different to “Bazzball” in terms of sustainability. To be honest, I knew what England needed to do to expose the cracks in our test team, but I did not think they were capable. I was more worried about our cracks being exposed when it really matters most, in the Test Championship final. When you have very few batters scoring 100s in your top 6/7, picking two out of form batters will not do you any good and that is exactly what the Proteas did. It proved costly after all.
The series
Going into the series, the winning template for the Proteas had not changed. The Proteas would either start slow then fight their way back or start well, lose momentum, and allow opposition back into it then fight their way back again. It was no different against England. The Proteas went to Lords, beat England by an Innings and 12 runs. This test was no different to most tests played by the Proteas. Bowlers rolled opposition over twice and contributed 72 runs to help the team score 326. Losing the 2nd test by an Innings and 85 runs hurt but at that point, I was not too worried about losing the series because I knew that our “Wounded Buffalo” prefers being wounded and being in a position of fighting back. This is something that continues to frustrate me because it seems the Proteas cannot just dominate throughout a series without giving opposition a sniff. It is unfortunate that they gave England more than just a sniff but the whole series. 3rd test came and our batting was no better. The rest is history really.
Why we lost the series
Sometimes no matter how good a side you think you have, the decisions you make are often more than enough to lose you a match and even a series. The Protea’s decision making really cost the team this series.
1. Being reluctant to make changes just because the final result is a W – I wrote There is no need to wait for defeat to make changes because I was seeing that there was this reluctance to make changes. Yes, the team was winning but it was important that we look at how the team was winning. Our bowlers were doing all the work and my worry was that at some point, our batters would need to carry their weight and if we continued playing guys who are out of form, we would find ourselves in the losing end. That is exactly what happened. All the talk about experience from Dean Elgar was really unnecessary and senseless. You have two guys who are clearly out of form who also barely had 50 tests between the two of them in a struggling batting line up. It made no sense why they were never dropped. Or at least one of them.
2. Witnessed a lot of debates about two spinners and I was never really sold. I genuinely hoped that the Proteas would not go for two spinners. We generally do not even use one spinner properly anyway. In the second test, dropping Marco Jansen for Simon Harmer was a poor call. Simon Harmer is a really good spinner, but I still reckon he was not needed. They could have just dropped Keshav then but there was no need to play two spinners. Simon Harmer as an individual player is not the reaason the team lost but playing him in that test was not a good decision.
3. Recalling Wiaan Mulder and then picking him to play in the 3rd test. I still feel Mulder was recalled too soon and that he should be allowed to find himself. I am sure scoring all those runs in Division 2 was good for his confidence, but I am not sure how much it would have contributed towards his overall game. I believe Mulder will go on to bat in the top 5 for the Proteas across formats but for now, I would rather he be allowed some time in domestic cricket because he has been tried in international cricket.
All the talk about “Bazzball” going into the series but England did not even need it to beat the Proteas. The Proteas bowlers were able to tame the English batters but then the bowlers can only do so much. What the Proteas batters are doing is synonymous with a situation where you wash dishes and then someone else comes and wipes them with a dirty cloth. All the time and effort you put into washing the dishes is undone in a blink of an eye. The bowlers bowl England out for 158 only for the batters to make a lousy 169. One can hope that the return of Temba Bavuma will make a difference since he has been the team’s best batter in the last year or so. It will help the team even more if he can also start adding to his tally of test 100s.