Ken Borland

The last month in England has produced never-seen-before scenes in Test cricket as the team representing the home of the stiff upper lip and historically often dominated by dour Yorkshiremen and Lancastrians, have pulled off four successive fourth-innings run-chases with all the dash and aggression of a limited-overs game.

England have chased down four targets in excess of 250, the first team in the history of Test cricket to do so in a calendar year, and they have done so extraordinarily quickly. Traditional Test logic is that scoring anything more than 250 in the fourth innings is never easy, but England have won by seven wickets twice and by five wickets twice in beating New Zealand 3-0 and now levelling their postponed series against India 2-2.

Their run-rates in those innings have been 4.93 chasing 378 against the powerful India attack, and 3.53, 5.98 and 5.44 against the New Zealand bowling line-up that won the World Test Championship last year.

These extraordinary achievements have come under the refreshing new positive philosophy of coach Brendan McCullum and captain Ben Stokes. It has been called BazBall in honour of the Kiwi-born coach, but it is also a reflection of how captain Stokes, one of the great all-rounders, has always tried to play the game.

Having seen off the two teams that played in the inaugural World Test Championship final, England are now heading into a series against South Africa, currently second in the standings.

Many critics will be tempted to write off the Proteas as having no chance, but let’s not forget they beat India in a series at the start of the year and then drew with the Black Caps in New Zealand. And South Africa have a history of taming teams that have set out to play ultra-aggressively against them, thanks to their perennially strong bowling attacks.

Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje are amongst the fastest bowlers in the world, and left-armer Marco Jansen is an exciting prospect who could surprise the English.

But it could be an unfamiliar strength that the Proteas turn to: In Keshav Maharaj and Simon Harmer, South Africa have two world-class spinners and, with the pitches in England starting to dry out and take turn in August, their contest with the mighty English batting order should be memorable.

Following their historic one-off Test against England, the Proteas Women now begin their preparations for the ODI and T20 series that will be played over the next two weeks, and will be looking to marry the batting basics they showed in the longer format with the more dashing strokeplay required against the white ball.

Star batter Laura Wolvaardt is probably not alone in being quite pleased to return to what she is more used to facing.

“The red ball was very tough to face, it was quite a challenge up front,” Wolvaardt said. “And there were some very tough conditions to deal with too, plus the Duke ball does a lot more than we’re used to.

“So I had to concentrate on leaving a lot of balls, which I’m not used to, especially since so much of my game is about cover-drives and going after wide balls. So it was quite a mental challenge as well.

“Test batting is all about technique and getting in strong positions, and the basics stay the same, so it’s good I’ve done that work ahead of the white-ball games and hopefully my timing will be there.

“It also helps having faced their bowlers in tough situations, and hopefully the white ball doesn’t do as much. But the ODIs are a format we enjoy and we’re very good at it,” Wolvaardt said.

The South African bowlers have also borne a heavy burden, but the chance to avenge their semi-final loss to England in the World Cup at the end of March is no doubt going to motivate and energise the squad.

“It was a big effort from our bowlers. Marizanne Kapp scored an incredible 150 and then bowled 16 overs the next day, and Nadine de Klerk bowled 23 overs in one day.

“But we are all very excited for the white-ball series. We’ve had a mixed bag of results against England recently: we won the first game against them at the World Cup but then we were very disappointed to lose the semi-final.

“Hopefully we can get a bit of payback for the semi-final. It feels like a long time ago, but it was still this year that it happened,” Wolvaardt said.

The first ODI in the three-match series will be played next Monday in Northampton.

The South African women’s team’s first try at Test cricket in eight years ended in a stalemate in England this week and one could only praise the Proteas batters for sticking at it and their attack for being competitive against mighty opposition.

At the midway point on the second day, England were struggling on 125/5 in reply to South Africa’s creditable 284, showing just how competitive the Proteas were, even with first-choice players Shabnim Ismail, Chloe Tryon, Ayabonga Khaka and Dane van Niekerk all unavailable.

It took a phenomenal partnership between one of England’s most storied all-rounders in Nat Sciver (169) and Alice Davidson-Richards (107) to eventually lift the home side to a first-innings lead of 133, at which point they declared on the third afternoon.

South Africa had a day-and-a-half to survive to bat themselves to the draw and, although the weather gave a helping hand, one could only admire their determination. Especially Marizanne Kapp, who backed up her magnificent 150 in the first innings with 43 not out on the final day, and Tumi Sekhukhune, who was sheer defiance at the crease, having come in the previous evening as nightwatcher.

Batting for longer than she ever has in a match, the 23-year-old pace bowler stayed at her post for three hours, keeping 134 deliveries at bay for 33 not out. In her 48 white-ball games for South Africa, Sekhukhune had only previously faced 81 balls in international cricket.

“We had a three-day warm-up match but nothing could really prepare us for what we experienced in this Test,” captain Sune Luus said. “Nat and Alice played amazing innings, but I thought our young bowling attack did well.

“They kept running in with 100% effort all the time and if Tumi’s innings doesn’t persuade people of our character and fight then I just don’t know.

“Marizanne is a star, she actually said she wanted to bat lower down in the match because she doesn’t have a game-plan in Test cricket! I don’t know where that 150 and the second-innings runs came from then!

“But I’m very proud of the team, nine debutantes and two players with one Test each against players who have been part of Test cricket for 10 matches. It was exciting and we’ve had lots of positive feedback,” Luus said.

While the cost of staging women’s Test cricket means it is unlikely to become an everyday thing anytime soon, Luus was clear that the South Africans would like to play more of the format.

“I haven’t watched a lot of Test cricket but I will have to start soon,” Luus joked. “It’s a definite learning curve for us, but the team obviously enjoyed it a lot.

“We learnt plenty and we will take a lot of experience from this. We were put in tough situations but we still had a lot of laughs. Hopefully we will get more Test matches in the near future.

“We don’t know when a Test will come our way again, so we just decided to live in the moment and take it all in. There’s not enough money in the world to buy that experience,” Luus said.

Rilee Rossouw has been one of the most exciting products to emerge from South African cricket in the last 15 years, and the left-handed batsman is finally back in the Proteas fold after being named in the T20 squad to play in England at the end of July.

Having announced himself in the 2008/9 domestic season as a 19-year-old, Rossouw was first chosen for the Proteas in August 2014. He played 36 ODIs and 15 T20s, and finally seemed to have nailed down a regular place in the batting line-up, even though he had not entirely done his talent justice yet with an ODI average of 38.71 at a strike-rate of 94, and an average of 29 and strike-rate of 137 in T20s.

But at the start of the 2016/17 season, having just negotiated a contract renewal with CSA, who had also paid for a big shoulder surgery, he jumped ship and took up a Kolpak deal with Hampshire. The timing of his departure – in the middle of a series against Sri Lanka – blindsided CSA, and even when all Kolpak contracts came to an end in early 2021, Rossouw seemed to still be out in the cold.

But the unavailability of Temba Bavuma for the England tour due to a torn tricep muscle has led to Rossouw returning from the wilderness. His form certainly justifies it: playing for Somerset in the T20 Blast, the 32-year-old has scored the third-most runs (498), passing fifty six times in his 12 innings, at a scintillating strike-rate of 191.53, making him by far the most explosive batsman in the competition.

And in terms of eligibility he met the national selectors’ requirements by playing in the CSA T20 Provincial Cup at the start of last summer and topping the batting charts with 295 runs in five innings, at a strike-rate of 157, leading the Free State Knights to the title. He did not play in the CSA T20 Challenge later in the season though, and the Knights finished last.

According to the national selectors, they have had discussions with Rossouw and he is only looking to play through to the T20 World Cup at the moment, but they believe he can provide the x-factor the team needs at the top of the order.

Simon Harmer and Duanne Olivier (Tests) and Wayne Parnell (T20s) are the other former Kolpak players who have passed muster and will be touring England.

Harmer has proven his worth in the Test arena and the selectors are seriously considering playing him alongside Keshav Maharaj in a five-strong bowling attack that would include Marco Jansen as the all-rounder at No.7.

Olivier’s experience of English conditions and ability to swing the ball have counted in his favour too.

Bavuma passed up the option of having surgery on his elbow, which can sometimes speed up the process of healing a triceps tear. The more reliable route is apparently to totally rest the arm and let natural healing take place, although this will take 8-10 weeks.