Ken Borland

One would not have guessed from Mark Boucher’s face that he was celebrating another Proteas series win on Monday, but the lack of a big smile was probably because the South Africa coach knows his first priority now is to save his job in the face of those in South African cricket who are intent on his removal.

The Proteas ended their season on Monday in Gqeberha with a crunching 332-run win over Bangladesh for a 2-0 series win and an overall record of five wins from seven Tests this summer.

Combined with their unexpectedly good showing at the T20 World Cup and their brilliant 3-0 ODI whitewash of India, their coach should be sitting pretty and all smiles.

But instead Boucher will be facing a disciplinary hearing next month over charges of gross misconduct. In terms of his on-field job, in the here-and-now, about the only shortcomings of this Test side have been their annoying tendency to lose the first Test of a series, as they did against India and in New Zealand.

“It’s been a good summer, but we are still learning, we’re definitely not the complete team yet,” Boucher said sternly. “We’ve had our challenges, but we’ve played some very competitive cricket at times.

“There have also been times when we have played some bad cricket, like the first Tests against India and New Zealand. But we have grown a lot in a short space of time.

“For me personally, it has been tough. I’ve really enjoyed coaching the guys and the cricketing side of my job, it’s a tight unit. But outside that team environment, it’s quite difficult to say I enjoyed it.

“I don’t think anyone would be able to say they enjoy what has been put on my plate,” Boucher said.

The 45-year-old was famous for being a fighter though in his playing days, and overcoming challenges is his trademark, something his team managed to do against Bangladesh when they were lumped with a second-string side due to five players choosing to go to the IPL instead.

“It gave us the opportunity to play a couple of other guys and see what sort of players we have in the system. And also the opportunity to play a different brand of cricket, which has been good to watch.

“It’s a nice position to be in. The IPL guys did vacate their spots, and there is good competition now for those places. Through Covid we’ve looked at a lot of players and I think it’s paying off now,” Boucher said.

But even though things on the field are going well right now, the sum of all real South African cricket lovers’ fears could well come true if Boucher is fired for incidents that happened in the changeroom two decades ago.

As a human being, Mark Boucher seems to lack the gene for a fear of failure which made him one of the most tenacious cricketers around, but now as a coach he has admitted to frustration that that is exactly the weakness his Proteas team showed as they crashed to a series loss to Bangladesh in humiliating fashion in the third and final ODI at Centurion on Wednesday evening.

Choosing to bat first, South Africa’s batsmen folded meekly to 154 all out in 37 overs. Bangladesh them showed them how to bat on the SuperSport Park pitch as they raced to victory in just 26-and-a-half overs with just one wicket down.

“We lacked intent, we went to sleep after a good start to our innings,” Boucher said after the loss. “We wanted to take the game forward, you do need to take some risks, but there was almost a fear of getting out.

“It was as if we were not batting to set a total, which Bangladesh showed should have been more than 300, but batting to not get out, and then we spiralled into a total collapse.

“We need to have belief in how we play, we’ve played spin very well in places like Sri Lanka but then we come back here and go back to old ways. We have to have faith to play the way we want to play.

“We wanted to be proactive, we have worked hard on shot-selection and the guys know they have the armoury. But it’s like a mental block. We need to put the fear of failure out of our minds, the fear of getting out,” Boucher said.

What is baffling, however, is that much the same team beat India 3-0 in January and they should have had the confidence of a billionaire on the front cover of Forbes magazine. Boucher said the vagaries of form had also played a role in the shock series defeat.

“Against India we had guys in great form and there were big partnerships. In this series we lost an aggressive player like Aiden Markram whose form is worrying, so new guys come into the team.

“In the back of their heads they probably want to get runs to prove that they belong here, and that brings in a bit of fear. Maybe they are too scared to play the way they should.

“So it comes down to a lack of form and belief,” Boucher said.

Kyle Verreynne spent so long worming his way into the Proteas batting line-up and has now scored a Test century and averages 45 in ODIs with four fifties in nine innings, so it is unfortunate that his place is still not secure, depending on the permutations of the bowling attack, as South Africa go into the decisive third ODI against Bangladesh at Centurion on Wednesday.

Verreynne finished off the chase with aplomb in the second ODI at the Wanderers with a polished 58 not out, but the hamstring injury that has ruled Wayne Parnell out of the deciding match means the reserve wicketkeeper and in-form batsman might still miss out at SuperSport Park.

South Africa’s bowlers were not able to make early inroads into the Bangladesh batting in the first ODI at Centurion, as the tourists turned an opening stand of 95 into a record total of 314/7. All-rounder Parnell was brought into the attack at the Wanderers to provide more venom and took a wicket in his second over, before leaving the field in his next over.

But the Proteas also only fielded five bowlers in the second ODI, which left them vulnerable. So Parnell may in effect be replaced on Wednesday by two bowlers, meaning a specialist batsman has to go.

“As we saw at the Wanderers, having just five bowlers can prove costly,” Verreynne conceded on Tuesday, “and if we play a sixth bowler then more often than not it’s me who will miss out.

“I understand that. So it is quite difficult to get a fixed position and cement my spot. It’s about being adaptable and able to bat in any spot. I need to be ready to play in the middle-order or at the top.

“I think I’ve shown that ability, but our batting line-up is very strong. But that hundred in the Test in New Zealand has done wonders for me and I feel more comfortable now at international level,” Verreynne said.

The 24-year-old said the stellar performances of Kagiso Rabada (5/39) and Quinton de Kock (62 off 41) in winning at the Wanderers and levelling the series showed that the IPL players in the squad are still fully focused on winning the series despite their imminent departure for India that will see them miss the Tests in Durban and Gqeberha.

“I don’t think there has ever been any question over their commitment to the Proteas,” Verreynne said.

“Obviously they’re going to miss some international cricket when the IPL is on, but I certainly feel they are fully committed to their duty to the country and their minds are not in any other space.

“In the last ODI, KG and Quinny’s performances were particularly good and they showed their full focus is on making sure we win the ODI series,” Verreynne said.

The Proteas have been the butt of so much criticism in recent years that it almost feels like they are now not getting enough credit for their sterling exploits over the last nine months.

Their latest achievement may have just been a 1-1 stalemate against New Zealand, a team that has never won a series against South Africa, but, as ever, context is important.

Their 198-run win this week in Christchurch was the most dramatic of comebacks considering how heavily they were hammered in the first Test. That was a largely indefensible performance, except for the fact that the team had to travel to the anus-end of the earth, spend 10 days confined to their rooms in quarantine and then come out and take on the reigning world Test champions while their bodies were still trying to deal with jetlag.

The current Proteas are far from a star-studded outfit. Only Kagiso Rabada and Keshav Maharaj would probably be in contention for a World XI. But beating both India and New Zealand, the two sides that contested the World Test Championship final, in back-to-back series shows that there must be a pretty solid team culture being built in their changeroom.

Of course there are those who would like to see the efforts of the last nine months all go to waste by firing the current coach. If Mark Boucher leaves the Proteas family, there can be little doubt it will have a negative effect on performance. But Cricket South Africa has a history of believing the results of their showpiece product don’t matter.

Apart from the remarkable resilience, determination and composure shown by the Proteas, it is always most pleasing when so many crucial contributions come from players who are still relatively new to Test cricket.

Batting does not come much harder than on the opening morning of a Test at the Hagley Oval, but Sarel Erwee knuckled down with Dean Elgar and backed up his captain’s incredibly brave decision to bat first after winning the toss. A statement of intent and sheer bloodymindedness if ever there was one.

Batting through to lunch unscathed was a superb effort and Erwee then announced himself on the Test stage by going on to a highly-skilled century, one that has literally taken years of hard toil.

There were similarities in the second innings when Kyle Verreynne and Wiaan Mulder crucially survived the first hour of the fourth day under big pressure. If wickets had come during that period, South Africa would probably have been bowled out with a lead of less than 300 and the Black Caps would have really fancied themselves to get that.

It was also a very brave decision for the Proteas to include Maharaj in the starting XI on a ground where spinners have seldom been in the game. But a major factor in South Africa’s victory was the fact that they read the conditions in Christchurch much better than the home side did.

Maharaj’s first contribution came in the Proteas first innings when he shared a crucial ninth-wicket partnership of 62 with Marco Jansen. Again, in the second innings, South Africa’s bowlers were in fine form with the bat with Rabada’s sensational 47 off 34 balls not only providing vital quick runs but much inspiration.

Maharaj was a key figure with the ball in the second innings, and while Rabada and Jansen were also in the wickets, Lutho Sipamla made his mark in the game with a tight spell that kept the batsmen in check and ultimately resulted in the major wicket of Devon Conway, trapped lbw for 92 when the bowler fired in an impressive yorker.

Even Mulder fulfilled his role with some useful medium-paced seam bowling.

In fourth place now in the World Test Championship, and with two Tests against Bangladesh coming up in South Africa, we look forward to this Proteas squad, including management, being kept intact so they can continue to make waves in international cricket.