Ken Borland

David Miller is an outdoor kind of guy so being confined to his Lahore hotel room is taking a bit of getting used to, and on the field of play the 31-year-old says the lack of bounce on the Gaddafi Stadium pitch is going to be the main thing the Proteas have to adapt to in their T20 series against Pakistan which starts on Thursday afternoon, 3pm SA time.

South Africa take on Pakistan with only three members of the Test squad involved, so there has needed to be a period of acclimatisation, which Miller said has gone very well.

“I’ve only been to Pakistan before for a very brief time, only three games for a World XI in 2017, but we’ve all quickly realised how the conditions are here – the bounce is a lot lower than what we’re used to. But there are some venues in South Africa where the bounce is pretty low too and we have all travelled enough to adapt. It will be important to assess and adapt very quickly as we go along.

“I’m still getting used to playing in bubbles though, and I think the longer you play in a pandemic situation, the harder it gets. It’s quite restricting and you don’t have that free movement we’re used to, so it is quite challenging. Fortunately this tour is pretty short. We just need to sort ourselves out mentally and find a place we can come together as a team and address whatever issues there are as quickly as possible,” Miller said on Wednesday.

As a team, with just 218 T20 International caps between them and Miller having 78 of those and another 77 being shared between Andile Phehlukwayo, Tabraiz Shamsi and Reeza Hendricks, the Proteas acknowledge they are the underdogs but the nature of the format and the eagerness of the players being given the opportunity to stake World Cup claims, naturally levels the playing field.

“There’s been a lot of chat about this being a young side with new, inexperienced players, but they are being given a lot of opportunity to step up in a World Cup year, especially the guys who haven’t played before. We’ve prepared extremely well and as a senior player I would like to step up both on and off the field. It’s a really refreshing group and we are here to win and shine as much as we can.

“We respect the Pakistan side, but in T20 if you prepare well and mentally you’re up for the game, if you’re really switched on and stick to your processes, then I don’t see why the underdogs can’t win. We will come under pressure, but that’s a great opportunity to step up, we know we’re representing our country and we want to show the Proteas in the best possible light,” Miller, who has played 320 T20s at domestic, franchise and international level (second only to AB de Villiers’ 325 amongst South Africans), said.

A free-scoring, run-plundering Quinton de Kock is what all Proteas fans want and there is no doubt coach Mark Boucher is on the same page, but he said he is not sure whether the captaincy is adversely affecting the batting of one of South Africa’s key men.

De Kock has been loaded with the Test captaincy as well as being the wicketkeeper and skipper in the other two international formats, but his ODI average is a thoroughly decent 38.12 since taking charge and his T20 form has actually improved markedly, his average as captain soaring from 27.71 to 41.60.

But the initial impression is that the Test captaincy is a bridge too far as he has scored just 74 runs in the six innings he has batted in his four Tests as skipper, way below the top-class standards he has achieved in recent years. There have been times, especially in Pakistan, where De Kock’s head has not looked in the game.

“It’s difficult to answer whether the captaincy is affecting Quinny’s batting but all batsmen go through periods when they’re not scoring many runs. It’s just unfortunate that he’s the captain as well. Maybe it has affected him, it’s difficult to say yes or no. The big thing though is that everything is highlighted when you are captain and he is obviously suffering from a lack of form.

“We will have discussions when we get home about the way forward. We have a bit of time now before our next Test series and we need to make smart decisions and not emotional ones. But given that we now have a break from Test cricket, the time is probably now if we want to appoint someone else permanently because it would give them a few months to make their way into the job,” Boucher said after the final day of the Pakistan Test series, on which De Kock was dismissed for a first-ball duck.

Aiden Markram is probably now at the head of the pack to take over, having topped the SA batting averages in Pakistan and scored the most runs on either side. But the 26-year-old said the captaincy is not something he is chasing and he still feels like he has to cement his place in the Test side.

“We’ve only played four Tests this season so that doesn’t really allow you to think very differently about your place in the team. I would naturally enjoy the captaincy, but it’s not something I’m giving too much time to in terms of thinking about it. Ultimately my job is to score runs and win games and that’s my focus. I’m taking my cricket day by day,” Markram said.

Temba Bavuma, who averaged 50.40 this Test season, and Rassie van der Dussen, who has been solid if unspectacular at number three in the order, are also in the running, while Dean Elgar, highly respected for his tenacious qualities and assured of his place in the team, is also a frontrunner.

Any minute now Cricket South Africa are set to announce their winter tours with director of cricket Graeme Smith saying on Monday morning that he was hoping for a “very busy” year of international action. But he also called on the International Cricket Council (ICC) to show more leadership to ensure teams outside of the Big Three continue to have decent fixtures lined up.

While Australia pulling out of the Test tour scheduled for next month clearly still hurts CSA, Pakistan will help fill the void by coming over for a white-ball series in April, and CSA are expected to announce tours to the West Indies and Sri Lanka over our winter, as well as a series in India before the T20 World Cup in October/November.

“Our relationship with Cricket Australia is definitely now strained and the ICC needs strong leadership because Covid is just amplifying the Haves and the Have-Nots. The FTP [Future Tours Programme] is going to be hugely challenging with eight ICC events in the next eight years, an extended IPL and the calendar being dominated by England, Australia and India [the Big Three]. That just amplifies the stress on us and the other countries looking for good content.

“Fortunately there has been the opportunity to manoeuvre a bit in the FTP and add some tours. This Pakistan tour coming up was meant to happen last October and we were meant to go to the West Indies last year, there’s also a Sri Lanka tour, India before the World Cup and they’re also meant to be coming here at the end of the year. But it takes time to finalise these – it’s a bit of a bun fight because every nation is trying to fill gaps,” Smith said on Monday.

“So I think the men’s team is going to be very busy. But the game as a whole needs leadership right now because I don’t think we want to see only three teams competing at the top in 10 years time. Their leagues are just getting bigger and bigger and the rest will be left with no content. Covid has really fast-tracked this issue and I think the ICC has been caught a bit off-guard,” the former Proteas captain added.

Because of the uncertain global stage at the moment, Smith announced a new drive by CSA to uplift the domestic game. The T20 Challenge will start on Friday and is being played in a bio-bubble in Durban, with all the Proteas being obliged to play. The conclusion of the four-day competition will then happen in March and Smith is hopeful the national team players will also feature in that.

“Because Australia are no longer coming in March, we’ve decided it is important to invest in our domestic competitions and we are making all the national players available. Those guys coming from Pakistan will go straight into the bubble in Durban. We’re also trying to make sure the four-day competition will be televised and there will be national player involved too.

“South African cricket needs to come first and it is open season now in terms of national contracts. There have been some good performances by the Proteas, but there are a lot of places up for grabs and we want to see a lot of competition and people performing domestically. The goal is to see all our players stepping up because it is now contracting season. Everyone in the Proteas has been really positive and they want to play,” Smith said.

The mental well-being of players will need to be carefully managed though especially as some of the Proteas were already showing signs of bubble fatigue in Pakistan.

“It is a challenging space being in these bubbles, but some of the Proteas have only played seven games the whole season so the workload issues are not there. Being in Pakistan, with security around you all the time, may have caused some additional stress, but all the players were extremely happy with how they were looked after by the Pakistan Cricket Board.

“We are trying our best to manage the mental health of the players, there is a psychologist involved and SACA [the players’ union] are also helping. For the IPL the players will have to spend two months in a bubble and I don’t see our four-day competition happening in a bubble. We want to do as much as we can for the local competitions and we want to see players putting their hands up there,” Smith said.

Heinrich Klaasen not only has the challenge of leading South Africa on his first venture back on to the park since late November due to catching Covid, but also doing it with a Proteas T20 squad that is missing some major personnel.

The 29-year-old wicketkeeper/batsman has not played since the second T20 against England in Paarl on November 29, having tested positive for Covid shortly before the first ODI against the tourists, a series which was eventually cancelled. And Klaasen revealed just how badly he was affected by the coronavirus.

“It’s been a difficult summer for me, I’ve only played four games, which has been very frustrating. But I finally recovered after Covid hit me quite hard. It’s difficult to say how my form is, but I’m hitting the ball very nicely in the nets. I’ve worked hard at the Titans to get my rhythm back and I’m looking forward to having a good series after a difficult two months.

“For the first 16-17 days I was very sick and could not do much. I couldn’t practise or even run 20-30 metres or exercise for two or three minutes without my heartrate getting too high. So I had to go through the protocols to build myself back up again, until I could exercise for 10-15 minutes or walk 200 metres. But it took a long time to get my heart-rate under control.

“I needed to get past the phase of it being too dangerous for me to train, which meant two months at home doing nothing. I had a week in the bush and then I’ve trained very hard for the last three weeks and I’m fit and safe now,” Klaasen said from Lahore on Tuesday.

Captaining South Africa for the first time, Klaasen will still have some experienced heads out on the field with him, even though the likes of Quinton de Kock, Temba Bavuma, Faf du Plessis, Rassie van der Dussen, Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi and Anrich Nortje are resting after the Test series. But Junior Dala, Reeza Hendricks, David Miller, Andile Phehlukwayo, Dwaine Pretorius, Tabraiz Shamsi and Jon-Jon Smuts are experienced cricketers who will form the core of the side.

“We are by no means a second-string team although a couple of guys aren’t here, but we have rested guys quite a bit in the past. It gives other players an opportunity and they deserve it for the good form they have shown domestically, they have shown their skills. So we are definitely aiming to win the series and play to the best of our ability. It’s going to be massive for our senior players to step up and I look forward to that.

“A couple of youngsters with unbelievable potential will come in and we definitely want to give those guys more opportunity. And to have David Miller, who has played here before, helping the guys out is great because he has knowledge on the ground. We have a very strong squad and we are here to win the series, we don’t expect anything less,” Klaasen said.

But Pakistan have similarly been unable to include seasoned stars like Mohammad Hafeez, Shadab Khan and Imad Wasim.