There is no need to wait for defeat before you make changes.

The cracks in the Proteas batting line up need filling before it is too late.

When a team is winning, it is easy to focus on results and forget other important things that still need to be fixed because one day they might be the reason the team does not win. This is a trap that the Proteas can easily fall into. From a coach’s perspective, results will always be important but how you get those results will also remain equally important.

The Proteas have just recently smashed England at Lords in 3 and a half days. Heading into this series, there was a lot of talk about “Bazzball” and whether the Proteas would survive after being beaten by the England Lions in a warmup match. Personally, I believed the result from the warmup match was of no importance as long as batters got to spend some time in the middle and bowlers got to try and find their rhythm. The Proteas’ main bowlers were rested for the warm match which made the result even less meaningful. The result of the warmup match may have resulted in Sam Billings throwing a jibe at the Proteas. However, neither the result of the warmup match nor the jibe from England’s 5th option wicket-keeper batter had any bearing on what happened at Lords as the Proteas’ Fast bowling quartet together with Keshav Maharaj destroyed England’s batting line up.

The Proteas in this Test Championship are doing something right, that is winning. The team is winning test matches and test series which is something that everyone wants to see. However, at some point we need to talk about how we are winning matches because it seems that the cracks that exist within the team are being ignored. The Proteas are where they are in the Championship table because the bowlers have been showing up consistently and even against England at Lords just now, it is the bowlers that won us the match. There are big cracks in the batting department and instead of trying to fix the cracks, it looks like we are riding the wave of victory and ignoring the cracks as if they will just go away. We might not be losing matches now, but nobody knows when our bowling will have a rare day off and the cracks in our batting will be exposed. It does seem like we are sorted when it comes to the opening pair for now as Sarel Erwee and Dean Elgar seem to have something going on there at the top.

It is in the middle order where a shake-up is seriously needed before it is too late. I know a South African fan will probably ask right now, “Why change a winning team?”  From a coach’s perspective, you do not have to wait for defeat to make changes to your team. Yes, we are winning but there are cracks that need filling and now could be the best time to do so because the guys coming in do not have to come in when the team is losing and there is more pressure to perform. “Why change it if it is not broken?” Another question that could possibly come from a Proteas fan, but

 is it really not broken?

Without even having a look at all our matches in the Championship, one can easily see that the day our bowling struggles again, we could be in for a massive defeat. So far, the matches we have won, we have won because opposition has batted worse than us. We can maybe exclude the series against Bangladesh where we were able to score 453 in the first innings although 126 of those runs came from batters 8-11. Even in the 367 we made in the second test against Bangladesh, 81 runs came from the tail. New Zealand showed us what could possibly happen when they beat us by an innings and runs. Our bowlers struggled to take wickets and add runs which saw us being bundled for less than 100 in the first innings and for 111 in the 2nd innings. Fast forward to the series against India at home. In the 3rd test, we bowled India out for 223 only to respond with a poor 210 runs. Our bowlers again had to bring us back into the match by bowling India out for less than a hundred. Even in those 210 runs, 53 of those were scored by specialist bowlers, although Keshav came in earlier as night watchman. 2nd test was no different as we bowled India out for 202 only to respond with another poor total of 229. We may have won the first two tests by 7 wickets each, but the truth remains that our batting was poor throughout the series and if it were not for our bowling, things would have been completely different. The 1st test showed exactly that. All India needed to do was to bat better than us and they did exactly just that. A beautiful 100 from KL Rahul took India to 327 and the Proteas could only manage 197 in reply. From that 197, 56 runs came from batter 8-11. The Proteas could not reach 200 in both innings and ended up losing the match by 113 runs. The winning template was no different against England just recently. A 48 from bowling allrounder, Marco Jansen and 72 runs between batter 8-11 helped the Proteas get to 326 in response to England’s first innings score. While the above shows how great our bowling is, it also highlights how big the cracks are in our batting department.

Test captain, Dean Elgar expressed his preference for “experience” in his middle order. However, the experience he speaks of has not produced runs in the test championship and this year alone. The Proteas went in with both Aiden Markram and HE van der Dussen in the middle order even though both have been struggling to score runs in test cricket. The two batters have less than 50 tests between the two of them so the point about experience might not necessarily hold any water. Ryan Rickelton is currently in the form of his life and has been playing in the UK, scoring runs in the build up to the test series. This too, after scoring plenty here in South Africa and having managed 114 runs in the 4-test innings that he has played. Another batter is Khaya Zondo. Whilst his overall first-class numbers may not make for much reading, it is fair to note that his performances in the last 3 seasons or so are the reason he is in the squad. He, much like Markram and Rassie also managed to score runs in the warmup match. We could not blame the selectors much for being reluctant to bring in young and or new batters when we had the likes of Hash, JP, and AB but at the moment, it makes extraordinarily little sense as to why they would not be giving other batters a chance because the ones playing now are not scoring runs. Perhaps someone needs to remind Dean Elgar that experienced gained from carrying drinks is only good enough for carrying drinks and at this rate, Ryan and Khaya might never play because they would only have drinks carrying experience.

I am a massive Aiden Markram fan. Some fans today call him “The President” and it is because of me. I declared him the president because he is that good. However, sometimes we must let logic take its course. Chances are, Aiden would not be playing if Temba was fit. Maybe the Proteas can look to have one of Aiden and Rassie as opposed to both because as individuals right now, they are not giving any returns and as a pair they are not much different either.

Their stats in the Championship

AK Markram -10 innings -149 runs 14.90 average – 44.34 SR – Highest 42

HE van der Dussen – 10 innings – 1 not out – 23.77 average – 36.08 SR – Highest 45

In the Championship, Keshav Maharaj is currently doing better than both with the bat. Keshav averages the same as Rassie in one less innings and has a highest of 84.

There is no doubt that both these gentlemen are really good cricketers and batters but there is nowhere to hide for them at the moment. They both managed to score runs in the warmup only to fail in the actual match. South Africa’s chances of winning the test championship may be determined by the middle order, who knows?

IN 2022

AK Markram averages 16.78 in 9 innings

HE van der Dussen averages 27.38 in 9 innings

Aiden Markram is easily our best T20i batter and Rassie our best One-day international batter, but both seem out of place in the test side. Continuing with them may hurt their confidence even more and may even hurt the team eventually. Our batting issues may not necessarily be solved if any of them or both are dropped. However, keeping them in the side will not solve anything either. In 14 innings of test cricket in the championship, we have managed only 2 scores above 100 but that is perhaps a story for another day. It will be interesting to see if any of Aiden or Rassie will make way for either Khaya or Ryan.