Ken Borland

Veteran lock Sam Whitelock has been a member of some great All Blacks teams during his dozen years of international rugby, and while New Zealand’s current slump may be confusing for many, the 33-year-old knows his job is to make sure his game is in the best possible condition in Saturday’s crunch Rugby Championship Test against the Springboks at Ellis Park.

Whitelock is a totem for an All Blacks side coach Ian Foster says is still in development, and not just because of his 6’8 stature or his 135 caps. The Crusaders legend has also provided much of the smarts for the 2011 and 2015 World Cup winners, and is a proven leader.

“I’m not used to having this many losses in an All Blacks jersey, but as a senior player, the main thing is to sort myself out first. I go back to what I can control and that is my own game. I look at what I can do better. I make sure I train well so that I can play well,” Whitelock said on Friday.

“There are always things you can improve on, whether that be in terms of skills, discipline or mentality. I’ve played under some great leaders and they all sort themselves out first when things are tough.

“We’ve got to be better, there were some improvements last weekend, but also things we did not nail. There are things we have to nail down as a forward pack.

“Test rugby is all about not getting sick of nailing the basics and there were basics we did not quite get right,” Whitelock said.

Playing in Johannesburg has been kind to Whitelock, who has won four out of five Tests there as well as a Super Rugby quarterfinal and final against the Lions at Ellis Park.

“The atmosphere is electric, it’s an amazing place to play. Both teams have had some great games there, and some really tough ones too,” Whitelock said.

“I immediately think back to 2013 when the Springboks scored a couple of quick tries, but we managed to come back and win 38-27.

“There’s massive history at Ellis Park, you go back to 1995, and we understand as All Blacks what it means for South Africa to play there. But it’s also one of the places we love to play at. “Driving in, it is very loud with fans of both sides banging on the bus and saying a few things. It’s an amazing place and you want to go out there and put your best foot forward,” Whitelock said.

Duanne Olivier was a member of the South African Test squad on their previous tour of England in 2017, but he had just one Test under his belt then and is obviously a very different bowler to the rookie who played in two of the matches as the Proteas were beaten 3-1.

Having enjoyed match figures of five for 57 on debut against Sri Lanka at the Wanderers in January of that year, Olivier arrived in England in the role of enforcer, pace and bounce being his key weapons. He played in the second Test, when South Africa levelled the series with an imposing 340-run win at Trrent Bridge, and then in the last Test at Old Trafford, which the hosts won by 177 runs.

Olivier took seven wickets in the series at an average of 27.57.

“The way I played in 2017 will be completely different to now,” Olivier told Saturday Citizen. “England play swing quite well and you need to get the ball to nibble around over there.

“That’s what I worked on in my three years of county cricket. But there are times when you can’t do that because the pitches and conditions play a massive role in England.

“It’s important not to complicate things, it depends on the situation whether you can be more aggressive or must be defensive. Maybe my job is to get the run-rate down.

“The important thing is to bowl in partnerships, put pressure on the batsmen. But you have to graft to get wickets. You get pitches where you have to just sit in and build pressure,” Olivier said.

The previous incarnation of the Groblersdal-born paceman seldom drew the batsman forward, he preferred to bombard them, pushing them back and only using the fuller ball if he hadn’t yet found a glove or an edge behind. Olivier, who turned 30 in May, knows he has to have a more rounded strategy in England.

“At times you can be aggressive with short-pitched bowling, but you aim to be fuller, especially early on with the newer ball,” Olivier said. “I don’t mind the batsmen coming at me, I will just try and hit my length and stay there.

“You have to stay within your game-plan and some days it goes for you, some days it doesn’t. We have to be patient, England play a risky game and if they lose two or three wickets early on then everything changes.

“Things happen quickly in Test cricket, and when you have that momentum, it’s about riding the wave, being ruthless when you’re on top. As bowlers, we also want to throw the first punch.

“We believe in our game-plan and we will stick to that, what we believe in, the simple things. Small things can make a big difference in the end and we know we have a world-class bowling unit,” Olivier said.

Heinrich Klaasen is not a regular member of the Proteas starting XI, and yet he had the confidence to go out and back himself in his matchwinning innings in the second T20 against India at the weekend. It is that same self-belief that South Africa will want to take into the third match in Visakhapatnam on Tuesday, with victory clinching the series for them.

Klaasen, who replaced the injured Quinton de Kock, came in at 29/3 after Bhuvneshwar Kumar had destroyed the top-order on a helpful pitch for seam bowling, and massacred the Indian attack in a superb 81 off 46 balls as the Proteas won by four wickets with 10 balls to spare in Cuttack.

“It was difficult and I struggled up front,” Klaasen said. “But then I decided that if I was going to get out then I would rather go out my way. So I decided to be positive and it was just one of those days when it came off.

“I said to Temba Bavuma that we needed to target the spinners because the seamers were getting up-and-down bounce. It’s a blessing to have this innings at this time of my career,” Klaasen, by no means a certainty for the Proteas T20 squad, said.

The Proteas have now travelled nearly 500km down the eastern Indian coastline to Visakhapatnam and her sweeping beaches on the Bay of Bengal. The Dr YS Rajasekhara Reddy Cricket Stadium was not used in the last IPL and the most recent T20 International there was in February 2019 when Australia chased down 127 off the last ball of the match and with seven wickets down against India. Pacemen Nathan Coulter-Nile and Jasprit Bumrah were the most successful bowlers.

So the pitch for Tuesday’s game could be more like the one in Cuttack than the batting paradise in Delhi for the first game.

Mother Cricket has not turned her smile towards the spinners so far in this series, with another small ground being used on Tuesday, and Proteas captain Bavuma is banking on his pacemen to again stifle the Indian batting.

“It was a good day for us in Cuttack and it started with the bowling, the way we bowled up front was exactly what we wanted,” Bavuma said.

“We want to be ruthless with the new ball, hit those areas and try and get whatever we can out of the pitch. We were able to apply pressure throughout, which happens whenever wickets fall regularly.

“We have a series to win and our focus will be on the achievables we set ourselves in all these games,” Bavuma said.

Hooker Bongi Mbonambi is a seasoned and potent member of the front row club and he knows the importance of the Springbok pack being a cohesive unit ahead of the bruising forward battles that lie ahead against Georgia and the British and Irish Lions.

South Africa take on Georgia for the first time since their inaugural meeting and 46-19 win in Sydney in the 2003 World Cup, with back-to-back Tests on July 2 at Loftus Versfeld and July 9 at Ellis Park. The Georgian forwards are a lively bunch and they will provide decent preparation for the Lions series.

“We’re definitely focused on Georgia at the moment, they have a quality pack and they scrum very low so we have to adjust to that. As a pack we want to make sure we are all aligned and on the same page, especially in the scrum and maul. Other countries look at us and see those as a threat and it is definitely one of our weapons, but we do have other weapons too,” Mbonambi said.

The 30-year-old Stormers star, capped 36 times, also acknowledged the gulf between professional club rugby and the international game, which was so rudely exposed by the hammering of the Bulls in the Rainbow Cup final last weekend.

“There’s a massive difference between local and international rugby, the intensity is about 10 times higher. But the coaches are making sure we get back there to those levels, so I am feeling it on the body at the moment. But I’m 100% sure we’ll be ready given the way we are training now,” Mbonambi said.

Apart from the scrums and mauls, Mbonambi obviously also has a key role to play in the lineouts and, as in all facets of their game, the camp in Bloemfontein has focused on ensuring there is no broken language when it comes to communicating about this crucial set-piece, which is usually a South African strength.

“We’re focused on our system and working on the lineout detail. A hooker needs to have a feel for the other players, you need to build that confidence and connection. We always have high standards, but as a thrower I aim for 100%, I want to be perfect.

“The Lions have top-class payers in the lineout so we know we will be under pressure, but we have great coaches who have put things in place and now it’s up to the players just to execute,” Mbonambi, who is renowned for his accurate set-piece work, said.