Ken Borland

The Proteas may have spent the last couple of days off the field in reflection, but Test vice-captain Temba Bavuma said there was no shelter from the honest, harsh discussions they needed to have in the wake of their humiliating innings-and-276-run defeat at the hands of New Zealand in the first Test in Christchurch.

With the second Test against the reigning world champions starting at the same venue at midnight on Thursday evening South African time, the Proteas need to produce a drastically improved showing after their awful batting, bowling and fielding in the first match.

“We had conversations as a team and they were mostly around honesty surrounding our performance,” Bavuma said on Tuesday. “Losing like that in practically a two-day Test match is not good enough.

“We did not produce the standards we pride ourselves on in all three disciplines. We are all very disappointed and we know we have to improve.

“Yes, our energies were down in the first Test, but that’s no excuse. We have to make sure we’re in a better mental and physical state to compete this week.

“And it starts with being honest. The performance was simply not good enough,” Bavuma said.

Although it may seem like the Proteas are buried under an avalanche of soft dismissals, poor deliveries and dropped catches, Bavuma is still confident they can dig themselves out of their predicament and still level the two-match series, maintaining their proud record of having never lost a series to New Zealand.

“We’ve had to remind the guys that over the last while we have overcome a lot and this is not a foreign situation. We know how to come back when our backs are against the wall,” Bavuma said.

“We do have the character and we can take confidence from how we have performed over the last while, as a team we can take a lot of positives from how we have fought before.

“Last week is now gone and it’s important how we come back. We are preparing as best we can to put our best foot forward.

“The sun has come out and the Hagley Oval pitch should be a bit more pleasant to bat on. We expect conditions to be a bit different,” Bavuma said.

Sharks hooker Bongi Mbonambi said not allowing outside influences to affect the inside of the team, and pulling together to make sure there were consistent energy levels between the forwards and backs, were the main things they needed to improve on from their loss to the Stormers if they are to beat the Bulls in their United Rugby Championship match in Pretoria on Saturday.

But are there any other things the Sharks need to do to make sure they do the business against the Bulls?

1. They need to start much better.

Especially playing away from home, as they were last weekend and will be at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday, they cannot afford to allow the home team to settle and dictate the run of play. But the Sharks seemed somehow distracted and not fully focused on the task at hand against a fired-up Stormers side. The Sharks lacked energy and intensity in the opening exchanges, which perhaps contributed to several handling errors. It meant they struggled to gain any momentum.

2. They need secure, more consistent set-pieces.

Solid set-piece displays were a feature of the Sharks’ impressive win in Johannesburg a fortnight ago and their scrummaging was outstanding against the Stormers in Durban, although they still allowed their opponents to sneak the draw. But in Cape Town, they gave away crucial scrum penalties and were untidy at key moments in the lineouts. Their woes in Pretoria recently have started up front and they cannot afford to give the Bulls an advantage in the set-pieces.

3. They need to fix their breakdown work.

You can tell the opposition have enjoyed a field day at the rucks when their openside flank gets man of the match as Deon Fourie did in Cape Town. The Sharks conceded turnovers and penalties at the breakdown at vital moments, which needs to be rectified. Their lack of organisation and/or accuracy at the breakdown is also having a telling effect on their attacking efforts because they are not securing enough quick ball.

4. They need to sort out their personnel at flyhalf and inside centre.

Although he is a quality player, moving Lukhanyo Am to inside centre seems to have adulterated their backline, with his defensive organisation sorely missed at outside centre. Bringing Marius Louw back into the No.12 jersey would allow Am to have his usual impact at No.13, but flyhalf is also a troubling position for the Sharks. What Tito Bonilla brought on attack was undone by his defensive lapses.

If Temba Bavuma received any advice from his predecessors as Proteas captain it was probably to beware of the suits and the victorious skipper said after their amazing ODI series whitewash of India that one of the hardest parts of his job has been managing the off-field distractions.

The Cricket South Africa board’s antipathy towards their players came to a head on the eve of the ODI series when they charged head coach Mark Boucher with gross misconduct, due to allegations made by the flawed Social Justice and Nation-Building report that more than 20 years ago the record-breaking wicketkeeper sang a team song that contained racial slurs.

This after the Proteas had pulled off a remarkable Test series win over India, knocking them off the No.1 ranking. The tremendous fight the team has been showing, and their clear growth in terms of skills and composure, make it clear that it must be a happy changeroom and a healthy environment. Which is now seemingly under attack from their own board.

“It has not been easy, to be honest,” Bavuma said after completing the 3-0 win with a thrilling four-run win at Newlands. “There have been a lot of dynamics that need to be managed.

“The big thing is to try and keep the cricket as the main focus. It’s been a really challenging time for the players and management, because we’ve been under a lot of scrutiny.

“So I’ve had to manage the conversations we’re having and ensure that our energies are 100% towards performance. It’s been a challenge, but a privilege as well, and I’ve enjoyed it,” Bavuma said.

A dominant batting display by the Proteas, who for so long struggled in that department, saw Bavuma call his fellow batsmen a “revelation”.

“The batting unit has really been a revelation for us. Before we were scoring fifties and sixties and then finding a way to get out. But the coach gave us a challenge to start making hundreds.

“We scored three of them and we now have five guys averaging more than 40 in ODIs, which gives us a lot of confidence. It’s a formidable batting line-up,” Bavuma said.

Apart from topping the Test series averages (73.66), Bavuma also averaged 51 in the ODIs. Clearly the captaincy has agreed with him.

“It seems to have had a knock-on effect in my own performance. I enjoy the thinking side, the tactical side, and maybe that has made me a bit more clearer on what I want to do.

“I’m always thinking about the situations, how to counter, and maybe that’s why my form came back. For me, it means a lot to look back on the series and I know I contributed significantly.

“It makes it even better and to convincingly beat an Indian team of that calibre and pedigree speaks a lot to my captaincy.

“It’s still early days in my captaincy career though, I’ll take the acknowledgement but I definitely won’t get ahead of myself,” Bavuma said.

South Africa have not played a completed ODI in four months but captain Temba Bavuma says his team is going to carry the momentum from their Test series win over India into the 50-over matches that start in Paarl on Wednesday.

The Proteas, fielding a second-string side, had a washed out ODI against the Netherlands at the end of November, but before that their last proper action was a 2-1 series loss to Sri Lanka in Colombo at the beginning of September.

But confidence is running high in the Proteas camp after their tremendous Test series triumph over India, in which Bavuma played a key role with his second-innings heroics.

“Momentum is a real thing and in the Wanderers Test we managed to get some,” Bavuma said on Tuesday. “So we will lean on that, although it’s obviously a different format with different skill sets and pressures.

“There’s always going to be pressure, whether we played ODI cricket last month or not. We’re coming up against a very strong outfit and hopefully that inspires us to bring our best cricket.

“We need to make sure we pitch up and do what we need to do. We played a lot of T20 cricket last year and in one-day cricket we accept that there are improvements we need to make.

“This series is the perfect opportunity, against a very strong outfit, to test ourselves and see how our game needs to improve and whether we have the right personnel because the road to the 2023 World Cup has started,” Bavuma said.

In terms of selection, the skipper said the first thing he will look for is bowling options, making it likely that part-time off-spinner Aiden Markram will play. But he will not be opening the batting.

“As captain, I always like as many bowling resources I can get on the bowling front,” Bavuma explained. “You accept that one of your bowlers is not going to hit their straps on the day, and then to have a replacement is a luxury.

“I would like as many bowling options as I can get, considering the balance of the team. But Quinton de Kock and Janneman Malan have done well up front, so I don’t see a change there and I come into the picture at No.3.

“But the middle-order is where the real conversation is – do we play another all-rounder at No.6 or a specialist batsman?

“Considering the Paarl conditions – the bounce is lower and more skiddy – we need pace bowlers who can exploit that with the new ball and it’s quite friendly to the slower bowlers,” Bavuma said.

Kagiso Rabada has been released from the team for the series due to high workloads over a sustained period of time and the need for him to recover before the Test tour to New Zealand in February.