Ken Borland

National coach Mark Boucher confirmed on Thursday that he has his sights set on getting Jacques Kallis back into the Proteas fold but in the short-term he is looking forward to his batsmen capitalising in Pakistan on the confidence boost the series win over Sri Lanka has given them.

Kallis has just started a controversial stint with England as their batting consultant in Sri Lanka. But South Africa’s most prolific run-scorer was almost forced into the position by the negative reaction he, Boucher and director of cricket Graeme Smith received when he was appointed Proteas batting consultant in late 2019 and by a subsequent Cricket South Africa decision that White consultants were no longer allowed.

That ruling has subsequently been put on ice by the interim board that is now running cricket.

“Losing Jacques to England is a bitter pill to swallow. He was working with our guys on an individual basis, someone like Temba Bavuma would Skype him and spoke very highly of his work. But then we were getting messages that we could no longer use him, so it was a massive loss. Jacques was a very good cricketer, he can add a lot of knowledge, so why wouldn’t you want him in the set-up?

“But I picked up from the media that Judith February [interim board director] said we were allowed White consultants again so the rules have changed a bit and I would certainly like to get him back in some sort of role, maybe even against Australia after the Pakistan tour. A lot of players have spoken highly of the knowledge he imparted in a short space of time.

“So Jacques is on my radar, but we need to treat it with care because he has a lot of other opportunities around the world. I know he would love to work with South African cricket again, but we must make sure we don’t mess him around,” Boucher said on Thursday.

The Proteas depart for their two-Test series in Pakistan on Friday and Boucher said it has historically been a good place for batting, something which a rebuilding South African batting line-up will welcome.

“They’ll take a bit of confidence from the Sri Lanka series where most of the batsmen had some good time in the middle. Historically the pitches in Pakistan have been pretty flat and Mickey Arthur [the previous Pakistan coach] said they were pretty good for batting. But you score in different areas over there and a lot of adjusting needs to be done, especially against reverse-swing, which a lot of our guys haven’t seen before.

“Pakistan have a very good bowling line-up, but the message to our batsmen is that if you apply yourself and spend a long time at the crease, then there are a lot of runs to be had. We are well aware of the technical adjustments that are needed over there and it’s not like India or Sri Lanka. It will be very foreign, but we expect nice and flat pitches, good cricket wickets,” Boucher said.

Pace bowlers are likely to play a much bigger role than elsewhere on the subcontinent and Boucher said he was pleased to have a bowling coach like Charl Langeveldt who has such a sound knowledge of reverse-swing.

“The pitches in Pakistan don’t turn a lot and they are more conducive to fast bowling. We expect them to go with pace and reverse-swing because it’s very flat. So there’s certainly a need for us to look at reverse as well. But you need to be able to get the ball to reverse first and in these times of Covid you have to be very careful with the ball, but there are always legal ways to scuff up one side.

“A lot of our bowlers have not had to deal with reverse-swing before and the guys sometimes can’t control the ball if they’re not used to it, so they need to adapt. Kagiso Rabada uses reverse really well, so he can pass on the right lines and lengths and fortunately Langers was a master of reverse so I’m very comfortable we’ll get it right,” Boucher said.