Ken Borland

Many teams coming to Loftus Versfeld these days try to ignore the effects of altitude, but one factor the Bulls are hoping Munster are not able to brush aside in their United Rugby Championship clash in Pretoria on Saturday is the late afternoon heat of a summer’s day.

Kick-off on Saturday is at 4.05pm and, judging by the weather forecast for Pretoria this week, the temperature could still be a warm 28°, a far cry from the 7° Munster was shivering in on Monday.

“We hope the conditions at home will give us a bit of an advantage,” Bulls flyhalf Chris Smith said on Monday. “The coastal teams battle with altitude here and hopefully the sun is out on Saturday.

“Hopefully it’s cooking for the 4pm kickoff and that heat could actually be more important for us than the altitude. We hope we can chase them around the field with the sun beaming down.

“We want to make them tired and then hopefully the game will open up a bit later on. But it’s going to be a good challenge for us, to measure ourselves against top players in the URC,” Smith said.

It’s a big sporting week for the Smith family, with Chris’s teenage brother Daniel scoring his maiden first-class century for the Western Province cricket team. The 27-year-old Chris Smith is a key figure in the Bulls side at present, with Morne Steyn suspended and Johan Goosen out injured, and he has enjoyed very good outings against both Zebre in Parma and Griquas in Kimberley.

“I’ve definitely felt the pressure because I’ve mostly played off the bench for the last two years, I have not played many full 80s,” Smith said. “But I see it more as an opportunity.

“It’s more the pressure I’m putting on myself to make use of this opportunity than any external pressure.

“I’ve been working on playing more flat and being more in the defence’s faces. I do tend to hang back a bit, I sometimes rely more on my passing game than my running game,” Smith said.

Given they have already fielded one debutant in the batting line-up in Sarel Erwee, one could sense Proteas captain Dean Elgar’s unease when it comes to introducing another new face for the second Test against New Zealand starting in Christchurch at midnight on Wednesday evening South African time, but making runs right now is surely the embattled Aiden Markram’s last safe port of call.

Markram was far from the only failure in a first Test which saw the Proteas bundled out for embarrassingly low scores of just 95 and 111, but his poor run of form now extends to just 97 runs in his last 10 innings. Captain Elgar admitted on Wednesday that the time for talking is over.

“There is a big possibility of a couple of changes, no doubt,” Elgar said. “Conditions and weather will play a part, but some guys are low on confidence, especially in the batting. But it’s difficult for debutants to come in and make a play.

“Aiden is a tough one and I don’t need to speak to him anymore. We’ve had a lot of tough conversations, he needs to score runs and his position is vulnerable at the moment.

“He knows that. There’s no need for me to harp on about it. He needs to contribute, he’s in a very important position in the top-order. We can’t afford to carry guys in positions like that.

“We’ve had a lot of very good conversations over the last few weeks that have definitely resonated with him. But I need him now to return the favours,” Elgar said.

Apart from the uncertainty surrounding Markram, South Africa have also suffered a blow to their bowling hopes with the news that Lungi Ngidi is still on the road to recovery from his back strain and will not be available for the second Test either.

The Proteas bowlers made the spiteful Hagley Oval pitch look like a road at times, so poorly did they bowl, and Elgar would have loved to have the accurate and probing Ngidi as an option, coming in for Glenton Stuurman, who showed promise with the new ball on debut in the first Test, but grew increasingly flat and ineffective as New Zealand’s massive first innings grew and grew.

If the pitch is considerably flatter after a week of more sunshine than it was for the first Test, then spinner Keshav Maharaj may come into the reckoning. But South Africa are unlikely to not field four pace bowlers, so the left-arm spinner would have to replace a batsman, a risk in itself given what happened last week.

South Africa have made it through to the quarterfinals of the U19 Cricket World Cup in the West Indies but are obviously going to have to be at their best to avoid elimination as they take on one of the most impressive teams in the competition in England, at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium at North Sound, Antigua, on Wednesday.

With Dewald Brevis stealing the limelight in the first couple of games, it was encouraging to see the other Junior Proteas batsmen start to come to the party in the win over Ireland, which was basically a knockout fixture.

Brevis still made 96, but there was a tremendous century by captain George van Heerden and some brilliant late hitting by all-rounders Mickey Copeland and Andile Simelane.

But South Africa are going to need to repeat a similar batting effort against a stronger England attack that is led by a potent left-arm paceman in Joshua Boyden, while leggie Rehan Ahmed will test their abilities against spin.

While the rampant Brevis is the leading run-scorer in the tournament so far with 265 in three innings, England captain Tom Prest has roared to 251 runs.

He generally bats No.3 for England and South Africa have two ferocious fast bowlers in Liam Alder and Matthew Boast, who will want to get Prest in against the swinging new ball.

England, of course, are able to throw some serious cash at their U19 programme, but what the South Africans lack in Rands, they have been making up for in enthusiasm.

But for those wanting to take a punt on the outcome, bookmakers have installed England as the 1.6-1 favourites.

But much depends on Brevis.

“What works for you, you must stick with that,” Brevis, a major Bangalore Royal Challengers fan because his two favourite players – AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli – play for them, said when asked how he would be approaching the knockout encounter.

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.