Ken Borland

The Proteas have passed the test of their character and fighting spirit when put under pressure, especially after losing the first Test, coach Mark Boucher said after South Africa sealed an epic 2-1 series win over India in the third Test at Newlands on Friday.

Chasing a testing target of 212, South Africa won by seven wickets thanks to three successive half-century partnerships between Dean Elgar (30), man of the series Keegan Petersen (82), Rassie van der Dussen (41*) and Temba Bavuma (32*).

Having been beaten so thoroughly by the world’s No.1-ranked side in the first Test at Centurion, it was a remarkable comeback by a team that is still in transition.

“The team showed great character and fight, but that did not surprise me because Dean Elgar is a captain that leads from the front and Temba Bavuma too,” Boucher said after his biggest triumph as coach.

“That fight showed in Dean and Temba’s batting as well, so the guys will certainly follow that. When you have real fighters like that as leaders, then that will probably be the character of the team as well.

“This is a team that is on its own mission and it is a special, driven changeroom to be in. It’s fantastic that the results are starting to come in now. There were lots of ebbs and flows in the last two Tests.

“But we played those pressure moments pretty well and if we lost a session, we didn’t lose it too badly so we were still in the game. We are playing good pressure-cricket at the moment,” Boucher said.

As the new-look Test side’s most notable triumph, the players are going to take away enormous confidence and belief from what is one of the best results for South African cricket sine the return from isolation.

“It was a really hard-fought series, and certainly one of the best, top-five, we’ve ever had in South Africa,” Boucher said. “We lost all three tosses and lots of people wrote us off after the first day of the first Test.

“But we need to see this result through the perspective of where this team is and where India, probably the best team in the world, are. Our youngsters will take a lot of confidence from this.

“There’s nothing like winning games when you know you’ve had to play very, very hard Test cricket. But our feet are firmly on the ground and we know we are not the finished product.

“But from where this team has come from, in terms of the on and off-field stuff, they have been through a lot as a unit. But we have had solid chats and we are a close-knit group that has worked very hard,” Boucher said.

“In our minds we will be back in the game if we get Virat Kohli early tomorrow,” Proteas batsman Keegan Petersen admitted on Wednesday after the Indian captain steered his team to 57/2 and a lead of 70 runs at stumps on the second day of the third Test at Newlands.

Having surrendered a 13-run first-innings lead despite Petersen’s defiant career-best innings of 72, South Africa rocked the Indian second innings by removing both openers with just 24 runs on the board. But Kohli (14*) and Cheteshwar Pujara (9*) then steadied the innings. The pair of experienced batsmen shared a first-innings stand of 62, Kohli going on to bat for four-and-a-half hours, scoring 79, and the Proteas know just how important it will be on Thursday morning to nip their current partnership of 33 in the bud.

“We’re a bit behind the eight-ball and these two batsmen have been a bit of a headache for us,” Petersen said. “Virat is one of the best batsmen in the world, he’s shown that time and time again.

“If we can get him early then it will break open the game, in our minds we will be back in it. Taking a few early wickets on Thursday will be key.”

Petersen initially struggled to establish himself in Test cricket, scoring just 76 runs in his first five innings, but he was not helped by having to come to the wicket with less than 10 runs on the board in all those knocks. There was speculation that he should drop down the order in order to ease his passage into the international game, but he has now scored half-centuries in successive Tests in his beloved No.3 position.

“It has been a challenge, the most difficult attack I’ve ever faced, but I like batting at three, I’ve batted there for most of my career,” Petersen said.

“It’s been tough for the openers on the pitches we’ve played on, and Aiden Markram is just going through a rough patch, but he’s a quality batsman who will pull through.

“But if I can make the No.3 position mine, I’d be very happy,” Petersen added.

Scoring 162 runs in his last three innings there suggests he is well on course for that.

After two low-scoring matches at Centurion and the Wanderers, former Proteas spinner Paul Harris says he is looking forward to a better pitch at Newlands, helping South Africa’s batsmen in building a big total in the third and decisive Test starting in Cape Town on Tuesday.

South Africa were dismissed for 197 and 191 in losing the first Test by 113 runs, and then made 229 in the first innings of the second Test, before a highly-encouraging 243/3 took them to victory. Dean Elgar’s matchwinning 96 not out is the Proteas’ highest score in the series and they have made three other half-centuries. Lokesh Rahul’s decisive 123 in the first Test is India’s only century.

“It will be interesting to see what the Newlands pitch is like,” Harris told The Dot Ball Podcast. “It can be flat or it can do a bit, and it used to provide some spin too.

“I think we’ve had two poor pitches so far, with too much sideways movement. So there have not been a lot of hundreds and it would be nice to see someone get in and score big.

“We play bounce well, so what you want is good bounce and carry. A good old-fashioned wicket, where you can play normal Test cricket and we can see a couple of hundreds.

“Dean has showed that he wants the team to play tough cricket, but I think on better pitches we will see the South African batsmen start scoring some big runs,” Harris said.

In terms of the batting line-up, Harris, who took 103 wickets in 37 Tests, says Aiden Markram is a rare talent who should continue open the batting, although with maybe a slight technical change, while he would also like to see the batting order tweaked.

“We need to give Aiden a bit of grace because these pitches so far this series have been a bit of a lottery. If he does move down to four, the problem then is who opens and who is left out for him?

“The only thing is I’m not 100% sure about him batting on off stump, because when the ball nips back then he’s out.

“I would love to see Temba Bavuma bat at three though. He’s obviously worked really hard on his technique and of late he’s been in incredible form. He’s a senior player and has the best technique for No.3.

“That would allow a novice like Keegan Petersen to bat five. Moving Temba to three would give him the best chance of scoring those hundreds everyone is on about. He’s often ended up batting with the tail,” Harris said.

It is typical of the negativity and destructiveness of so many in South Africa that even after the Proteas completed an outstanding 3-0 ODI whitewash of India, to go with their remarkable triumph in the Test series, there were still choruses of ‘Boucher Out!’ from many of cricket’s version of the RET faction and the naively woke.

Of course the major reason for those wanting Boucher’s head to roll has got nothing to do with what happens out on the field, which has sadly been a recurring theme in South African cricket for way too long. It is because of alleged racial slurs that date back 20 years to Boucher’s early playing days with the Proteas.

It is highly improbable that Boucher was the only one singing the offensive song in question, so why is he being singled out? Because it is the continuation of the same witch-hunt put in place by the same people who took Cricket South Africa to the brink of ruin before the Fundudzi Report and Stavros Nicolaou’s Interim Board sorted things out.

Of course, justice needs to be done for sins of the past, but when they involve entire teams and took place in a time very different from our own from which we are peering back in judgement, then rough justice will cause more harm than good.

Boucher’s evidence before his disciplinary tribunal will probably point out that, due to the total lack of sensitivity training and the state of society as a whole back in the 1990s, it was not just Paul Adams who had a nasty song written about him (the author of which is apparently a major surprise). The White players were called names too, as were the Black Africans and the Coloureds. For those who have never been in a fines meeting, it is all meant to be about poking fun. However misguided the lyrics were.

But confidence in CSA and their ability to ensure we have a competitive Proteas team will be severely dented if they summarily dismiss Boucher, just as the national side are starting to bloom again.

The last two months have seen not just any team vanquished, but the mighty Indians, the superpowers of the game and ranked No.1 in Tests before being knocked off their perch by South Africa.

To make the triumph even more memorable, the Proteas managed to overturn the previous history between the two teams when it came to playing and bowling spin. India’s spinners were previously able to exert a stranglehold over the South African batsman, including during the February 2018 series over here.

But in this series, the Proteas batsmen were terrific against the turning ball, in conditions that were going to suit the visitors, and they have said much of the credit for that should go to Boucher and batting consultant Justin Sammons.

And then when India batted, they were dominated by Keshav Maharaj and Tabraiz Shamsi, with even Aiden Markram keeping them under pressure, to such an extent that South Africa won the crucial middle-overs battle conclusively. The way the Proteas have embraced the use of spin and have become one of the best sides in the world in that department is another reason to commend Boucher, who has instituted a sea-change in strategic thinking.

Boucher’s immense playing experience is obviously helpful to the team as they navigate the varied challenges of the international game, but his knowledge of various team cultures and environments can also serve to help the current team as they forge a new identity.

When Boucher made his debut for the national team in 1997, the culture was pretty rotten with new arrivals treated very much as juniors and a threat to the places of the senior players. He lived through that and learnt from it, and he was also a key part of the Graeme Smith era when the team embraced Protea Fire and made big efforts to become more inclusive.

Getting rid of Boucher now would only serve as an exercise in bloodletting and scapegoating. CSA Boards have a history of giving baying mobs what they want; let’s hope Lawson Naidoo and Co can show stronger leadership at this crucial time.