Ken Borland

The second and third days of the second Test against Australia at the MCG have been tough times for the South African attack, a good batting pitch meaning too many of their balls were amorphous, non-shaping deliveries that did not threaten a powerful batting line-up that racked up a massive 575 for eight declared.

That gave Australia a huge first-innings lead of 386 and the Proteas struggled to 15 for one in their second innings at stumps.

Bowling coach Charl Langeveldt said on Wednesday that although the attack could be proud of their effort, they needed better control when the ball was not doing much.

“It’s been a tough three days in general for us, but we did not start well with the ball on Day One. On the second day we put in the effort, Anrich Nortje brought a lot of heat,” Langeveldt said.

“Control is something we need to speak about, that can improve. It’s a young bowling attack, but they need to control the run-rate for longer periods.

“Stringing together 18 consecutive good balls is one of our KPIs and we could not achieve that, which is a bit of a red flag going forward. But this is a good pitch and we have played a lot of Tests lately on more bowler-friendly wickets.

“I’m happy with the enthusiasm, that was brilliant and I cannot fault it. We need to stay patient and I think reward is going to be around the corner,” Langeveldt said.

While Kagiso Rabada is currently the year’s leading wicket-taker in global Test matches with 47 in just nine matches, Langeveldt admitted that their spearhead has been out of sorts in Melbourne and that the other bowlers have not bowled well enough in partnerships.

“KG has not been on song and the others have only been in periods. We haven’t bowled well as a unit, those bowling partnerships are important and they have just not been there,” Langeveldt said.

“So we need to address that, but we have not played much on good cricket wickets lately and this is a good one. Sometimes you just need to bowl a few dot balls and use the bumper as a surprise ball.

“KG always takes wickets, but the challenge for him at the moment is control. Someone like Pat Cummins also leaked runs when he was at the beginning of his career, now he takes wickets and has control.

“That’s the challenge for KG going forward, especially on flatter pitches. We always need to assess the conditions and we always talk about adapting,” Langeveldt said.

But blaming these shortcomings on inexperience does not seem right. Rabada has already been playing Test cricket for seven years and has 267 wickets. Cummins debuted 11 years ago but has played 11 Tests fewer than Rabada due to injuries.

Anrich Nortje and Lungi Ngidi are both playing in their 17^th Test match, while Marco Jansen has only just completed his first year of Test cricket.

Spinner Keshav Maharaj, playing his 47^th Test, was also not at his best as he conceded 135 runs in 41.5 overs and went wicketless.

The Proteas batsmen found new ways to disappoint on a good MCG pitch as they were bundled out for just 189 little more than an hour after tea on the first day of the second Test against Australia on Monday.

Having been sent in to bat, openers Dean Elgar and Sarel Erwee weathered the early movement and, although Erwee, reaching for a drive and edging Scott Boland into the slips, had fallen for 18, South Africa looked solid on 56 for one as lunch approached.

But Theunis de Bruyn (12), the new face in the batting line-up as he replaced Rassie van der Dussen, then tried a wild pull stroke from off-stump against Cameron Green, top-edging a catch to the wicketkeeper. Having seen the previous delivery climb steeply from a similar line and length, it was poor shot-selection.

An even bigger Christmas present for the Aussies was to follow though as captain Elgar ran himself out for 26, moments after becoming the eighth South African to score 5000 Test runs. He had led a charmed life up till then, being dropped on seven and 19 and also surviving when an inside-edge trickled back on to his stumps. But Elgar failed to capitalise on getting in, and there was a hint of him trying to escape strike against Mitchell Starc when he pushed the left-hander into the covers and ran, Marnus Labuschagne producing a brilliant piece of fielding and a direct hit at the bowler’s end to run him out, the first time the skipper has suffered that dismissal in Test cricket.

The next delivery saw Temba Bavuma (1) caught behind off Starc and, after a promising start, the Proteas had slumped to 58 for four at lunch.

That became 67 for five in the fifth over after lunch when Khaya Zondo, flatfooted and throwing his hands at a drive at a wide delivery form Starc, was superbly caught by Labuschagne at extra over, moving sharply and then diving to his right.

Wicketkeeper/batsman Kyle Verreynne and bowling all-rounder Marco Jansen then steered the Proteas innings back on to the road as they added a much-needed 112 for the sixth wicket.

Verreynne, fresh off his half-century in Brisbane, was smoothly underway and went to another fifty, off 80 balls. Jansen took a little longer to get going, but his maiden Test half-century was just reward for how sensibly he batted.

Starc’s accident in the outfield while trying to catch Jansen saw him dislocate his finger, resulting in Green having a prolonged third spell.

And the all-rounder took full advantage as he ripped through the rest of the South African batting to finish with a career-best five for 27 in 10.4 overs.

Verreynne (52) and Jansen (59) were both caught behind the wicket to probing deliveries just outside off-stump in successive overs, and Keshav Maharaj (2), Kagiso Rabada (4) and Lungi Ngidi (2) then meekly surrendered as the last five wickets fell for just 10 runs.

This batting display, on a good surface, was even more of a reckless car-crash than the Brisbane fiasco.

South Africa’s bowling was then as loose as profligate shoppers at the Black Friday sales as Australia reached 45 for one at stumps. David Warner had cruised to 32 not out.

The Proteas did at least claim one wicket when Usman Khawaja, defending well out side off-stump, was caught behind off Kagiso Rabada for 1.

The consensus among former Australian players in Brisbane was that they had never seen a Gabba Test pitch that was so green as what was prepared for the first Test against the Proteas this weekend; it has also probably been years since they saw such a weak South African batting line-up.

Those two factors, plus the sheer quality of both bowling attacks, were the reasons behind the astonishing two-day Test match in Brisbane, the second-shortest ever in Australia and the second-shortest anywhere since 1935.

The Proteas batting was already at a low ebb when they arrived in Australia. Their entire squad boasts just 17 Test centuries and captain Dean Elgar has scored 13 of them. It is a far, far cry from previous South African touring teams Down Under which saw batsmen like Faf du Plessis, Jacques Kallis, Hashim Amla and AB de Villiers boast great individual performances. Previously, stars like Eddie Barlow, Aubrey Faulkner, Graeme Pollock and Colin Bland wowed Australian crowds.

There will be many different opinions as to why South African batting is at such a nadir; mine is the lack of top-quality first-class cricket played by the batsmen, yours may be different.

Elgar seems reluctant to make changes for the vital second Test in Melbourne from Boxing Day, but the Proteas have to bring something different to stay in the series. Selection does not seem to be a strong point of their’s at the moment and in Brisbane, in the most bowler-friendly conditions imaginable, they went in with five frontline bowlers instead of playing the extra batsman. Between them, Lungi Ngidi and Keshav Maharaj bowled just 11 overs.

Rassie van der Dussen has scored just 295 runs in his last eight Tests at an average of only 21.07, having not reached fifty in that time, and would appear to be most in danger of losing his place. Theunis de Bruyn and Heinrich Klaasen, both in-form domestically before going on tour, are next in line.

Meanwhile Ryan Rickelton is back in South Africa and looking invincible whatever is going on in his ankle.

The ICC do have a structure in place whereby the match referee rates the pitch for all international games, but Proteas captain Dean Elgar made sure his feelings were known about the Gabba snakepit as he said after South Africa’s six-wicket defeat in the first Test against Australia in Brisbane that it was not suitable for Test cricket.

Former West Indies captain Richie Richardson, the match referee on duty for the series, can rate the Gabba pitch as being ‘poor’ or ‘unfit’, which would lead to the International Cricket Council (ICC) requesting an explanation from Cricket Australia and possibly taking further action.

The general consensus on Sunday was that the grassy Brisbane pitch was very poor, with excessive sideways movement and inconsistent bounce, much of it steep from a good length. The Test was the second shortest since the Second World War and only the second two-day Test in Australia ever.

“For me, that’s not what Test cricket should look like. I would ask ‘Was it a good advert for the format?’ To have 34 wickets in two days means it was pretty one-sided towards the bowlers,” Elgar said after Australia had struggled to 35 for four to win, having bundled the Proteas out for just 99 earlier in the day.

“I’m a purist of this format and you want to see it go four or five days. But it was not a good Test pitch, there was some seriously steep bounce even with the old ball.

“When KG Rabada got Travis Head caught down the leg-side and Anrich Nortje was sending short ones over everyone’s heads, I asked the umpire when do they consider it dangerous? I didn’t get a reply, maybe they thought I was taking the mickey.

“The divots had a big role to play in the sideways movement, the up-and-down bounce, much of it steep. It was interesting to see how quickly the wicket started divoting,” Elgar said.

While the terrible pitch has taken some of the attention away from another poor batting performance by the Proteas, that is sure to come back under the microscope as the crucial second Test starting in Melbourne on Boxing Day gets closer. As captain of the good ship Proteas, Elgar needs to be shouting “Ahoy! There are rocky times ahead!”

But he, perhaps cleverly, pointed to the pitch as being the root of their problems.

“We need to be honest and realistic about what happened, we were absolutely jaffered out and they bowled properly,” Elgar said. “We were confident coming in to the game, we had practised bloody well. “We will now have some extra days to tap into our mental spaces. The biggest danger is to withdraw and not deal with what happened.

“I don’t see how hitting more balls is going to make us become better cricketers, we all know our games pretty well. It was just one of those games where we failed.

“Personally, I’m still confident going into the next Test, and you still want to give your batsmen confidence and positivity,” Elgar said.