Ken Borland

Proteas pace bowler Lizaad Williams provides some insight into how difficult it has been for all the new players included for the series against Pakistan to step up to the plate when he said on Tuesday that he feels like “a toddler going into primary school”.

Williams has been one of three debutants during the T20 series, while half-a-dozen fringe players have also been pressed into action in the two formats to cover for players who have left for the IPL and those who are injured. While the ODI series was lost 2-1, all three games were close, and the T20 series is level at 1-1 following South Africa’s overwhelming victory in the second match, heading into the third game at Centurion on Wednesday.

“It’s been an unbelievable experience and I’m really honoured to represent my country at the highest level, and being able to contribute in the second game after the first match did not go to plan. But there are still two big games coming up. And I am still trying to figure out the intensity of international cricket, I’m still very much in a learning phase.

“I feel like a toddler going into primary school, I’m just observing everything and trying to take it all in. The difference in intensity is the biggest thing, probably the biggest lesson that the margin for error is much smaller. The batsmen don’t give their wickets away easily, they grind you out. So at training you have to try and match that intensity,” Williams said on Tuesday.

The Proteas bowling was outstanding in the second T20 as they restricted Pakistan to 140 for nine, which the home side chased down in the 14^th over with six wickets in hand. Williams said the mental side of the bowlers’ game was much stronger, giving them a template for what to do in Wednesday’s crucial game.

“The biggest thing was the clarity in your mind when you go up to bowl. You have to commit 100% to the delivery and not think too far ahead about what the end result will be. In the first game I got caught up a bit in what the end result would be, but you should just be thinking about executing to the best of your ability. It was actually a bit easier to make your debut with no crowd.

“I would enjoy the crowd to be there, but in those very nervous moments they bring a bit of added pressure and you just want clarity of mind in those moments. But at the start of my professional career, I played two seasons with Charl Langeveldt in Cape Town and I learnt so much, so I’m very excited to be working with the bowling coach again,” Williams said.

Cricket South Africa’s announcement this week that they had chosen a high performance squad of 45 players to resume training in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic gave an interesting insight into the players that the current Proteas management believe are going to take the national cricket team forward into a new era.

While the likes of Dean Elgar, Faf du Plessis, Rassie van der Dussen, Imran Tahir, David Miller and Dwaine Pretorius were all included because they still have important roles to play for the Proteas in the near future, it is also irresistible to not cast our minds forwards to five years’ time and consider what the South African team would look like then.

There is no doubt head coach Mark Boucher and director of cricket Graeme Smith, in the middle of a rebuilding process following the retirement of greats such as Dale Steyn, AB de Villiers, Hashim Amla, Vernon Philander, Morne Morkel and JP Duminy, are also thinking ahead to a time when another half-dozen players call quits on their careers. Their goal will be to ensure the next overhaul of the national team is not as painful as the one we are currently going through.

Let’s hope that in five years’ time, a 30-year-old Kagiso Rabada and a 29-year-old Lungi Ngidi are able to share the new ball and have developed into a partnership to rival the great South African fast bowling duos of Neil Adcock and Peter Heine, Peter Pollock and Mike Procter, Allan Donald and Shaun Pollock, Pollock and Makhaya Ntini, and Steyn and Morkel.

Rabada, if he continues in the same vein that has seen him take 197 wickets in just 43 Tests since 2015, should be challenging Steyn’s record of 439 Test wickets and should be established as one of the greats of the game. His current bowling average is just 22.95 and only Curtly Ambrose, Richard Hadlee, Glenn McGrath and Muttiah Muralitharan have taken 400 wickets at a lower average. Amazingly, Steyn has finished his Test career with the exact same average of 22.95.

Let’s also hope that Rabada fulfils his potential with the bat and can slot in at number eight in the batting order, contributing valuable runs.

With Anrich Nortje and Lutho Sipamla as back-up quicks, the Proteas could field a ferocious pace attack. The best South African teams have always hit their opposition with an unrelenting pace barrage.

Current first-choice spinner Keshav Maharaj will be 35 in five years’ time, which is certainly not too old for a slow bowler to be playing Test cricket. But I fancy George Linde, a tall left-arm spinner who has already had a taste of Test cricket, taking four wickets in India in the only innings he bowled in, may well have forced his way into a regular starting place by then, not least of all due to his prowess with the bat, which has already seen him score three first-class centuries.

In terms of the batting order, much depends on whether Quinton de Kock is still as keen on playing with the gloves as he is now. If he is no longer the wicketkeeper, playing as a specialist batsman, then there is an excellent replacement behind the stumps in Kyle Verreynne, with the likes of Heinrich Klaasen, Wandile Makwetu and Sinethemba Qeshile waiting in the wings.

One hopes that top-class talents like Aiden Markram, Zubayr Hamza and Temba Bavuma have by then built a formidable reputation in Test cricket, a trio of batsmen all averaging over 40 and allowing De Kock to do what he does best, taking a long handle to opposition attacks.

As a great fan of Markram, having followed his career closely since those glorious U19 days, I would also hope that by then he has become established enough to be the national captain. He has the most natural leadership qualities, is respected by friend and foe alike, and that would allow the likes of De Kock and Bavuma to play with the freedom that makes them most dangerous.

In terms of Markram’s opening partner, the tremendously determined Elgar’s Test career might not yet be over but he will be 38. Chances are that he would have moved on, likewise a 36-year-old Van der Dussen. Current Warriors opener Ed Moore should be at his peak at 32 years old and I have chosen him over Janneman Malan simply based on a technique that is probably better suited to Test cricket.

Malan should be a key figure though in South Africa’s white-ball sides, along with current stars like Tabraiz Shamsi and Andile Phehlukwayo.

Raynard van Tonder, who topped last season’s run-scoring chart with 843 at 70.25 for the Knights, is currently at the front of the queue of uncapped young batsmen looking to be Proteas regulars by 2025, but over the course of five years, new talents will certainly emerge, so who knows?

Somewhere out there right now there could be a 15-year-old who is the next AB de Villiers, Steyn, Jacques Kallis or Paul Adams. Although overlooked for my potential starting XI, there are also players in this week’s 45-man training squad like Wiaan Mulder, Gerald Coetzee, Bjorn Fortuin and Senuran Muthusamy who could also develop into world-class Proteas.