Ken Borland

Proteas coach Mark Boucher says the team has found a new vision and identity for themselves and also a new way of playing that will hopefully bring greater success as a rebuilding side looks to regain their glory days.

The South African cricket team’s Culture Camp at Skukuza last month not only dealt with wrongs of the past, especially those that involved racial discrimination, but also plotted a way ahead for the future. #ProteaFire, the mantra of the team that went to number one in all three formats with Boucher as a player, has now officially been extinguished, replaced by three watchwords: Belonging; Empathy; Respect.

“One of the biggest changes came in terms of #ProteaFire, which gave us direction and the values to become the number one side, especially when under pressure. But none of those guys are playing anymore and we have outgrown that, it’s an outdated identity. Maybe it became too commercialised, it ended up just being on paper and the guys no longer live it.

“There are more cultures in the team now and it was time those came through. It’s important for a new team to create a new identity and that’s exactly what we got – a new set of values. It will start with how we play and the players chose the same route that myself and Enoch Nkwe [assistant coach] wanted, everything aligned without us really trying. It’s also about how new guys coming into the team must feel and management did not choose the vision, the players did,” Boucher said in an audio interview released by Cricket South Africa on Monday.

Boucher said the Culture Camp also gave the larger group of players from which the Proteas will draw the opportunity to talk about their pet peeves and he found the revelations to be eye-opening.

“We all come from different backgrounds and have been brought up in different ways, and we must understand our shortfalls in the past. We can’t turn a blind eye, we must acknowledge them, that’s empathy, which is a big word for us. We need to use our four or five different cultures to our advantage and I came out of the camp with a completely different understanding.

“I educated myself, I found it quite fascinating, things I have never thought about before. The camp opened my eyes in a massive way and I would encourage people to get out there and try and understand the feelings of different races. Now the best thing for the game would be for our biggest assets – the players – to be able to take over the headlines for good things, let the game do the talking rather than the other things that have been hogging the headlines,” Boucher said.

The postponement of the ICC T20 World Cup and the cascading effect it has had on all the other world cups will give a rebuilding Proteas side some breathing space, but it is probably a blow to the hopes of veterans such as Dale Steyn, Faf du Plessis, AB de Villiers and Imran Tahir of playing in them.

The ICC have announced that the T20 World Cup scheduled to be held in Australia this October has been postponed by a year to October/November 2021, with another edition of the shortest-format world cup to be held at the same time in 2022.

The next 50-over World Cup will still be held in India in 2023, but it has also been pushed back, from February/March of that year to October/November.

But delaying the T20 World Cup by a year is probably good news for a new-look Proteas side that has battled to hit its straps in the format, winning just seven of their 14 matches since February 2019.

South Africa used 27 players in those matches, so their T20 unit is far from settled. With key player JP Duminy having retired, Faf du Plessis having scored just 65 runs in his last four innings and AB de Villiers not playing in nearly three years, there are plenty of questions to be answered in the batting department.

But De Villiers will be 37 by the next T20 World Cup and how willing he is to be seriously involved in the build-up to that competition will probably determine whether he gets one last hurrah.

Du Plessis will also be 37 and there is a chance that the Proteas selectors will just focus on building a settled, younger batting order with a middle-order built around the likes of David Miller, Rassie van der Dussen and Heinrich Klaasen.

Steyn has bowled 19 overs for 166 runs and taken six wickets since last February and he will be 38 in October 2021, while champion leg-spinner Imran Tahir, who has played just once in the same period, will be 42.

The T20 squad needs to be using the extra 12 months of preparation they have been given to develop into a slick, tight unit, especially given how dismally South Africa performed in the previous world cup, the 50-over event in England last year. Integrating these veterans, given their various commitments all over the world, into that side is going to be a challenge for coach Mark Boucher.