This time last year, cricket-loving South Africans were as vibrant as balloons in a sunny park. It was two days after the test team defeated India in a dangerous contest at Wanderers and three days before the series decider at Newlands.There was admiration, respect and hope.
Perhaps Keegan Petersen could and will fill the huge void left by Hashim Amla.Perhaps Marco Jansen was absurdly tall and not just his left arm. Perhaps Dean Elgar was the answer to a question that has been asked since Graeme Smith’s retirement: Maybe people should drop the Marc Boucher case and let him coach.
A year later, that balloon appeared to be made of lead and the sunny park turned into a hurricane swamp. It turned into a fainted portrait that raises. However, they have since lost five of the ten Tests they have played in, four in a row before Sunday’s rain-affected draw in Sydney. In doing so they lost rubber for the first time in the four matches they have played in Australia since 2008/09.
The cumulative effect of South Africa’s recent failures was their final day performance at the SCG, restarting at 149/6 and recovering after being dismissed for 220 down, making him 106/2 before shaking hands. That was held as his turning point. to better days.
“We actually had a conversation last night.
Either you lie down and let the Australian roll and make you feel a little more embarrassed, or you fight on day five,” Elgar said at a press conference. “It’s great to see how the players reacted to it.
“Today there are many insights you can bring. The downside is we finished by lunchtime here and didn’t get a good seat at the camp. It’s great to see how they responded to having today’s conversation put into their very good practice. “
Interim manager Maribonwe Maketa agreed:
“It was encouraging to come here today and fight like we did. We knew we had to hit well above average to catch up.”
South Africa lost his six wickets on Sunday and scored 212 runs. Objectively speaking, this is no reason for Elgar and Maketa to breathe a sigh of relief. But under 200 in seven of the last eight innings (once for 99), 255 in the first innings at Sydney and three of his four batters bowled in Dredge in the second, You’ve spent at least an hour. With a twist that makes it look like an achievement skyscraper instead of a humble two-story block. It’s a point of view, and it could be forgiven for South Africans to be crooked at the moment.
But they brought it themselves. They are in this turmoil because in August at Lords he beat England by an innings in three days before switching XI to keep his feet off his opponents. Thus, in a disastrous decision, the South Africans ignored what they had done at Lords and paid tribute to an England undeserving of that performance. A strong team dominated the crowds at Old Trafford and the Oval. Elgar’s team has never been the same since then, especially with the kink. Steve Smith, Travis Head, David Warner and Usman Khawaja each scored over 200 runs in the series, while Alex Carey and Marnus Labuchagne each scored over 200 runs. Over 100. Temba Bavuma’s 185 was South Africa’s highest tally. Kyle Verreynne and Sarel Erwee are the only other players to reach his triple figures in gum. Verreynne and Erwee are also South Africa’s youngest centurions. Last February at Christchurch he achieved 108 with 126 knots he was out. Australia has benched 400 in that series alone, including Warner’s his 200 at the MCG.
Conditions were a key factor in South Africa’s struggles. Of the six Tests they have played in since the start of the England Series, only the last two in Australia, in Melbourne and Sydney, have seen a decent place in his first four of those games. Only once did he end up on the right side of the equation after being shaken and rolled. The South African batsmen were unable to regroup even on good surfaces. Too much hesitation and doubt crept in while they defended the MCG.
“From a confidence standpoint, of course the batter would have been hit,” batting adviser Justin Sammons said at a press conference on Friday. “In the (MCG) test, we slipped in an area where we improved as a batting group—a mental mistake we were making. We deviated from our game plan.”
Then there is the experience. Australia’s XI at the SCG has played a total of 568 Test matches, while South Africa have 310. South Africa’s top seven is 307 innings, nearly double Australia’s.
This discord continues at the national level, where her six states in Australia will play the Sheffield Shield match and his second round of the final. In South Africa, the top teams have each played just seven of his games this season. This is especially because his first edition of SA20, which starts on Tuesday, was pushed into the time normally allotted for longer formats.
“There is no substitute for experience. Play is the only way to get experience,” Sammons said. “The more you play the game, the better you get and the more lessons you learn. This is a key focus when it comes to how we continue to manage world-class systems. It is a difficult task to strike a balance with the way we are, but we need a way to balance it. We need our sons to play cricket as much as possible. It will get better. ”
Significantly, the bid to increase the number of games in the top league was initiated by the players, not the CSA, in the form of a resolution at the South African Cricketers Association’s Annual General Meeting in November. The underlying reality is that top flight his cricket is missing out on the money he could make in the T20 tournament. Basically SA20 are on the payroll of Elgar, Maketa, Sammons and everyone else who could see their main focus being Test cricket. Therefore, finding a way to live with T20 is important. “You have to think outside the box as a board and as a director of cricket to find a way,” Sammons said. “There has to be a way. We can’t just be happy with it and say, ‘That’s it. I’m not going to play enough first-class cricket. T20 will rule.’ You can’t have a mindset. You have to have the mindset that you need to find a way. What to do with it is up to the decision maker. That’s our key. We need to play more quality cricket.”
Sammons said Verreynne, who in nearly his seven years before his Test debut made 50 top-flight his games and scored two of his four half-centuries in South Africa in Australia, said the flaw was Although there is, we see what the system in this country can do.
“His development has been impressive, both technically and mentally. His success has been in his ability to play at his pace and rhythm.It also defines his identity as a cricketer. He knows who he is and how he runs. That’s a big part of the blow. Look at Dean Butt and you’ll know what you’re getting. I see the same thing day after day. Same goes for [Jack] Kallis and Graham Smith. I think [Verreynne] has it. ”
Sammons also had good things to say about Khawaja, who had an undefeated 195 at SCG.
“It’s easy to fall into the mindset of just trying to survive rather than staying positive. That doesn’t mean you have to be ruthless. What Khawaja has done so well is sticking to his game plan.” That’s going to be key for us – not doing it to survive, but maintaining that positivity.”
Kyle’s reckless hack of his swinger Hawajah away by his Abbott in Hobart in November 2016 resulted in an 8/32 collapse and sealed South Africa’s innings win and series honors. Since then, Khawaja has restructured his game and anchored it in a disciplined attack, with three centuries, two innings in the 90s and a third payoff in 2022. He was fired only four times in 12 trips to the fold for less than $50.
Elgar went this way, but it was kind of the other way around. He has achieved 8 of his 13th century in 102 innings since his Test at Hobart in 2016, but none have been completed in his last 31 innings. An undefeated 96 against India at the Wanderers in January was an honorable exception. Elgar has gone scoreless for two years, which is unacceptable for a player who leads by example above the standards of other captains. It doesn’t help that he made some of his own problems in his sixth innings for Australia, choking his leg three times and suffering a runout. “Maybe once or twice I’ll admit it, but the third time it’s pretty frustrating,” Elgar said. “They have a way out and the bowlers are going for it. Ten years into my Test career, it’s unfamiliar territory for me. Either you can say it is or you aren’t. Open it up and look around to see. It’s frustrating that I didn’t start, but when I started (26 times at the MCG) I was able to run. “
A red-ball specialist in a system with little red-ball cricket, Elgar will be able to stay out of red-ball cricket over the next few weeks.
“I take as much time as I want. This is what I need at the moment. I just want to get on the plane, go home, relax, eat braai, get out in the bush and play golf.”
He spoke with refreshing candor, perhaps because Maketa appears to be leaving his position after interviewing a shortlist of coaches that the CSA reportedly did not include Maketa.
“It’s important for us to be honest with ourselves. We’ve had a tough streak in England and we’ve had a tough streak here. We want to play big teams, but at the moment they have tests. We’ve done well against them in the past, but now they’re better than us. We brought the best team [to Australia] and didn’t compete.
“The conditions were better than anything I have played in the last 12 months. I was able to get a par 350 score so I could put pressure on them and it was very encouraging not to be able to do that.
“Statistics show that South Africa is the hardest place to be when it comes to Test cricket [the batsman average is 29.63, lower than any other country that has hosted multiple Tests]. If so, place them on better wickets to score enough runs to play at this level? do you say?
“If you’re happy with the win at home, you can let it go. We want to be successful globally. To win the WTC, you have to come here and win, so you have to go to India and win. We don’t want to be a team that just wins at home.”
A year ago, people in South Africa would never have dreamed they would have to have a conversation like this. The balloon burst.