Ken Borland

Lungi Ngidi is not just simply a fitter bowler these days, but a more skilful and canny one as well, and he said on Monday that he will go into the new season with confidence based on how he ended the 2019/20 campaign.

Having burst on to the scene in 2017, Ngidi has endured some frustrating injuries over the last couple of years. He has played just two Tests in the last two years and was only able to play four World Cup matches last year before breaking down again. But the 24-year-old came storming back in limited-overs cricket this year, taking 12 wickets in four ODIs and 13 wickets in six T20 Internationals, winning both the 50-over and 20-over Cricketer of the Year honours at the CSA Awards at the weekend.

“I put a lot of hard work in and I felt I had a point to prove. In ODI cricket I really backed myself and in white-ball cricket I was used as an impact player, trying to take wickets or defend runs, just be versatile and able to bowl in any situation. That has given me a lot of confidence. I know some guys are quicker than me, so I look to produce other skills at certain stages of the game.

“But I was very disappointed not to play more Test cricket and I definitely want to get back into that team. I believe I’ve improved my skills and the mental side of the game. I’m always striving to do well in all three formats, so doing well in Test cricket again is definitely a personal goal of mine. You have to be much more patient in Test cricket though,” Ngidi said in a teleconference on Monday.

While the towering, well-built Durbanite has always been an impressive physical specimen, there have been times when Ngidi has not exactly been a finely-honed athlete, which has also made him more injury-prone and more of a risk for five-day cricket. But he spent much of the second half of 2019 getting into peak physical shape and is certain that his conditioning will now stay at that level, the enforced Covid-19 break helping him to solidify that work over the last three months.

“I just need to continue the work we started last year, it’s about being consistent in training and eating healthily, it’s nothing extraordinary. Going forward, I feel like I’m now in a better position to do well in Test cricket. I feel now that with the conditioning block I’ve done, injury is something that’s now right at the back of the mind, it’s no longer a big deal. If I do happen to get injured again then so be it, I’ll just have to come back again,” Ngidi said.

In the meantime, Ngidi admits that it has been difficult to get his head around some of the protocols required for the return to training.

“It’s been different and difficult. You have to book sessions, train in small groups of no more than five and the bowlers have their own net and balls, gyms have to be sanitized before and after use. It feels weird as a team sport to be doing everything by yourself. We’re being tested regularly, temperatures taken, hand sanitizers everywhere and we have to fill out forms. It’s a whole process before you even bowl a ball but very necessary.”

Highly-rated batsman Theunis de Bruyn may have just lost his Proteas contract but the 27-year-old has enough perspective to know there are far more important issues at hand at the moment and he is confident a rotten 2019/20 summer for him personally is just a hiccough in a career that has promised so much.

While the Covid-19 pandemic brought the cricket season to a shocking, sudden halt, De Bruyn feels as if he didn’t really have a cricket season at all. From the time he scored 41 for SA A against India A in Mysore last September, he has batted just 20 times this summer.

His problems started in the Mzansi Super League in November when he was hospitalised with a mystery virus. Then in the Momentum One-Day Cup he had just scored a brilliant 120 against the Lions at Centurion when he tore a hamstring in the field. In his first net practice back, he was coming to the end of his session when he was too early on a pull against Junior Dala and suffered a concussion.

His last innings for the Proteas was back in October in the third Test against India in Ranchi, when, ironically, De Bruyn was the top-scorer as he made 30 out of a dismal total of 133 all out. And now he has lost his national contract.

So the 2019/20 season has exacted a heavy fee on his good humour.

“It was just one of those seasons and I have no answers to the questions why? But we need to put the situation in perspective with what is currently going on: we can’t even play cricket now, businesses are closing and it’s a crazy time. We can only hope this pandemic unites the nation and then we can stand up and rebuild. So we need to take all that on board for perspective.

“But this last season was completely not what I expected, not what I put in all the hard work towards. The current situation is a bit like my season, all questions and no answers. I’ve hardly played this season, it feels like the season never really started for me. I feel a bit forgotten but I just have to take it on the chin because I failed in international cricket. But at the end of the day the passion is still there and I will take on the new season,” De Bruyn told The Citizen on Tuesday.

The Titans star admitted it has been a tough time to get through, but he has already been putting in hard work to ensure he comes back next season as an even better player.

“I’ve figured a few things out as to how I can improve as a cricketer, to become a more complete package physically, mentally and technically. This season has been so tough, but then I had setbacks when I was young, not making a provincial team, and it makes you want to give up and then the next season you have the time of your life.

“I believe I still have a role to play in South African cricket, I still have eight-to-ten years left in my career so there’s still a lot of time. I’m just going to take all the lessons I can from this season. In the few innings I had, I actually felt good and what I have been working on was coming through. It’s the first time I’ve failed in my career but now I can help the Titans rebuild and get better, which is what I love. Plus I have the chance to watch all the cricket highlights on TV that I haven’t had the chance to see before,” De Bruyn said.

https://citizen.co.za/premium/2260168/bigger-things-are-happening-theunis-chilled-over-proteas-snub/