Ken Borland

Proteas captain Temba Bavuma said although his team are only 75-80% of where they need to be for the T20 World Cup, it is a positive that they are still winning series as they look to sort out their best squad for the showpiece event in the United Arab Emirates in October.

South Africa have now won back-to-back T20 series in the West Indies and Ireland and they used 18 different players in doing that.

“It’s a good sign for us a team that we have not played our best cricket but we have still managed to win. Winning becomes a habit and we can take a lot of confidence after being battered a bit by being on the losing side for a while. We must not downplay the magnitude of the number of steps we have taken.

“And we have a clearer understanding of the guys to take forward and their roles. We have 70-80% of our World Cup squad and we still have to go to Sri Lanka and see who can dominate in spin-friendly conditions. We’re definitely not the finished product, we’re playing at 75-80% and there are areas to iron out, especially in the batting,” Bavuma said.

Playing Sri Lanka on the subcontinent will be good preparation for the World Cup, with conditions expected to be similar. It is obviously going to be difficult at this late stage, in the South African off-season, for new players to be introduced to the Proteas squad, but coach Mark Boucher hinted that all-rounder Dwaine Pretorius could return.

The 32-year-old missed the home T20s against Pakistan due to injury and then tested positive for Covid before the West Indies tour, from which the Proteas flew directly to Ireland to quarantine.

“There are still one or two positions we need to look at before the World Cup. We wanted to give Janneman Malan a go in the top-order because he was in such good form in the ODIs, but it didn’t quite work out. We also have Dwaine Pretorius to come back. We haven’t really played an all-rounder as the sixth bowling option, but I think we will have that covered.

“We need to look at the conditions and what we need bowling-wise at the World Cup. George Linde bowled well, but unfortunately he was a bit short of runs. Bjorn Fortuin has not had a lot of cricket, so I was very happy with the way he performed. He’s a tough character, he wants the ball. We tried to mix up selection a bit to give guys opportunity,” Boucher said.

Proteas coach Mark Boucher praised Temba Bavuma as an exemplar of good leadership at the weekend, following the captain’s man-of-the-match performance in South Africa’s 49-run win in the final T20 against Ireland in Belfast that secured a 3-0 series sweep.

Bavuma set up the winning total of 189/2 with his polished 72 off 51 balls, and Boucher expressed his delight at his skipper being back in the runs. Bavuma’s first half-century for the Proteas in 10 innings ticks another box for South Africa as they prepare for the T20 World Cup in October/November.

“I was very happy for Temba to get some runs at the end of the tour because he’s been putting in the hard work, he’s a tough character and he takes it personally if he doesn’t score runs. Those runs have come at the perfect time now and he will definitely take that confidence forward to Sri Lanka. It was really just a matter of time before he made runs.

“It’s always nice when your captain can lead with confidence because he has runs under his belt and I have to say Temba has been leading very well on and off the field. It’s very nice now that he has also ticked the scoring runs box,” Boucher said.

While Bavuma said he was aware of his shortage of runs, his focus had very much been on driving the Proteas chariot and ensuring the team came first.

“I have been a bit lean on runs, but I just put aside my personal ambitions and tried to execute for the team. From a batting point of view, our approach was a bit different in this match and we really wanted to lay a foundation up front. We haven’t been good in the powerplay in the previous games, we’ve been too aggressive and lost too many wickets,” Bavuma said.

Springbok captain Siya Kolisi on Friday pronounced himself 100% ready to give everything and inspire his team to do the same in the first Test against the British and Irish Lions in Cape Town on Saturday.

Kolisi played in the Test against Georgia but then missed the two SA A games due to a brush with Covid, and questions have been asked in some, largely foreign, quarters over his readiness for what will certainly be an all-out game of Test rugby.

“I’ve had a good build-up. Obviously it was tough testing positive and going through isolation and everything, but I was involved in every meeting and looking at the team’s preparation. And then I felt really good when I went back to training because fortunately I did not have any Covid symptoms. I was fine by the second day and after that it was all just mental being isolated in my room.

“The coaches know if I get tired, they are very good at noticing that and making substitutions a the right time, and they will definitely take me off. But I know what our bench can do, we have depth and they will turn it up even more, so I won’t be holding back, I am going to give it my absolute all on the field. My focus is just on the stuff I can control and I have a very big job on the field,” Kolisi said on Friday.

Particularly in the northern hemisphere, there have been whispers that the Springboks’ World Cup triumph was somehow a fluke and they should not be considered the best team in the world anymore. The 2007 World Cup champion Springboks were extremely motivated to beat the Lions in 2009 just to counter any such suggestions themselves and Kolisi hinted that his outfit are using similar fuel to fire them up.

“I spoke to John Smit last night and we have the same mindset as the 2007 side. We have come through many challenges, guys have been out for a long time with injuries and we have worked hard to get here. It’s rare to get this opportunity to play against the Lions again, most of us won’t. So we really want to win and we will give everything for that result.

“It’s going to be all about whose plan comes out on top and our plan hasn’t changed at all. It’s going to be about who is able to adapt and enforce their game-plan for 80 minutes. Our fitness levels and plans are there. We are also in a place of privilege to put smiles on peoples’ faces when unfortunately the country is not doing well, and that drives us even more,” Kolisi said.

As praiseworthy as Ireland’s brilliant display in the second ODI was, Proteas captain Temba Bavuma made it clear that he was not fine with the dismal performance his team produced in the field.

After South Africa won the toss and were able to bowl first, they were poor in the opening powerplay and dreadful at the death, conceding 95 runs in the last eight overs. Their fielding was also terrible, four catches that should have been taken were dropped and there were several fumbles and misfields.

“We were totally outplayed but the fielding was not the standards that we pride ourselves on and those dropped catches were always going to be costly. Bowling short and wide is never the plan, I’d like to give the bowlers the benefit of the doubt and say it was down to execution. But it’s happening all too often that we find ourselves trying to defend both sides of the field.

“In the death bowling there just hasn’t been any consistency, which makes it hard to set a plan. We’ve had enough conversations about it, we’ve exhausted those conversations now and we need to show it in action now. We trust these guys, but they must be able to bowl to a plan. We know there are guys on the sidelines who have the skills, so there is now a strong case for them getting an opportunity,” Bavuma threatened after the shock 43-run defeat in Dublin.

The batting, especially the middle-order, could also see changes beyond the expected return of Quinton de Kock.

On the bright side, Janneman Malan’s 84 off 96 balls showed that he is a young batsman who watches and learns from all that is going on around him. The 25-year-old has made a great start to his ODI career with 306 runs in five innings, including a century and now his second half-century.

“It was quite nervewracking because I haven’t had a lot of games or been able to get momentum, and it’s in different conditions. But watching Ireland bat twice before I had my first time at the crease gave me a bit of info and I was able to take all the learnings. Chasing 290, at halfway we were on a good path, Rassie van der Dussen and I had set it up well.

“But it would have been great if I could have batted through. I needed to get a big hundred, so I failed the team in that respect. We needed an in-batter at the end and to lose myself and Rassie bang-bang was not great. We needed to take it deeper and put pressure on them. They showed by scoring close to 60 runs in the last four overs what having a guy in could do at the end,” Malan said on Wednesday.