Ken Borland

In-form spin-bowling all-rounder George Linde could be welcomed into the Proteas T20 starting XI for the first time on Friday night as South Africa look to play a sixth bowler against a typically high-scoring England team in the first match of the series at Newlands.

South Africa’s last T20 outing was also in Cape Town back in February when they were thumped by 97 runs by Australia to lose the series 2-1. Australia managed to rack up a sizeable 193 for five batting first, and then skittled the Proteas for just 96, with spinners Ashton Agar and Adam Zampa sharing five of the wickets.

One of South Africa’s chief problems that day was that they only had five bowlers – spinner Tabraiz Shamsi was the pick of the attack, but three of the four seamers went for more than 10-runs-per-over. Linde, whose left-arm orthodox complements Shamsi’s wrist-spin, has been in great form this season with the bat, so he could comfortably slot in at number six in the order. On what is expected to be another slow Newlands pitch, a second spinner is probably going to be more useful than another paceman.

With Dwaine Pretorius ruled out of the matches against England due to a hamstring strain, Andile Phehlukwayo is likely to return to the side as the lead all-rounder.

Given the importance of making a good start to the season against the powerful English side and the eight months of inactivity for the Proteas team, coach Mark Boucher is likely to defy those calling for a new-look team and IPL stars like Kagiso Rabada, Quinton de Kock, Anrich Nortje and Faf du Plessis will surely feature because they have form and match-fitness on their side.

Lungi Ngidi was outstanding in the T20s South Africa played at the end of last summer and should play on that basis, while Temba Bavuma was also excellent as De Kock’s opening partner and should get the nod, having missed the previous Newlands game because of injury. He would replace Pite van Biljon, while David Miller and Heinrich Klaasen are probably fighting it out for one place in the middle-order.

Probable Proteas XI – Quinton de Kock, Temba Bavuma, Faf du Plessis, Rassie van der Dussen, David Miller/Heinrich Klaasen, George Linde, Andile Phehlukwayo, Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortje, Lungi Ngidi, Tabraiz Shamsi.

Winning the series against England and twice showing their ability to bounce back after a really poor outing against Wales is a great credit to the Springbok management team and the senior players.

What was really impressive was the way they did it – not just while fulfilling their transformation goals, which the whole country should celebrate – but also the way they played: they wanted to outscore the opposition, they showed freedom on attack and they wanted to try things.

The way they came back from big deficits showed real guts and character, they showed the ability to accept adversity, not to shy away from it, to grasp the nettle and come back. When teams continually bounce back from those sort of scorelines – 3-24 at Ellis Park and 0-12 in Bloemfontein – then you know something special is brewing.

In contrast, it has been disappointing to see England unravel both on and off the field.

It was not good to see an international coach or Mike Brown interacting with fans. Verbals come with the territory; international rugby produces extreme emotion, not just among the fans but in the players as well because the stakes are high and the pressures are huge.

When England were winning 18 games in a row everything was working well. Now they have lost six in a row and they are under pressure, so we want to see their character emerge in hard times. We want to see fight, but not off the ball, not players pushing and shoving and swearing. We want to see hard hits in the collisions and when clearing out the rucks.

In the first 20 minutes of both Tests, England have played with positive intent but have then just died a death. And you can’t win Test matches if you give away so many penalties; you have no chance if you concede so many set-piece penalties. Those kill you at any level because they give away field-position and push your forwards into a really negative mindset.

One has to credit the Springboks for not showing the same emotions when under pressure. They have stuck their chests out and decided to do something about it, for which one must give credit to the leadership group. What happens on the field is not always about the coaches, they often can’t have an influence sitting a hundred metres away in the stands. Then it’s about your senior players and one has to give credit to Handre Pollard, Duane Vermeulen and Siya Kolisi. They have set the standard in terms of discipline, they have really come through and managed to get the younger guys to follow them and play better.

You have to ask why England’s senior players have not been able to do the same? Their coach bickering with the crowd is a real problem and they are obviously a group in freefall judging by the behaviour of the senior players.

So this weekend in Cape Town could be a defining moment for the England team, they have got to arrest their slide. But hopefully the Springboks will show sufficient intensity, will and attitude to put them away. If they can win the series 3-0 that would be a huge statement. This same England team won so many games in a row, they are a massive scalp, but maybe the Boks have put the final nail in their coffin.

It’s been a fascinating series and at a different level to the Tests between New Zealand and France, and Australia versus Ireland, in terms of intensity and the quality of the rugby, plus sheer excitement and the fever sweeping the country. There is definitely a renaissance brewing, the resurrection of Springbok rugby.

There are obviously things the Springboks still need to correct though, like their backline defence and the way they’ve been exposed any time the ball has been moved wide, but they have been scoring tries.

The way Vermeulen has come back after a huge season in France, playing 80 minutes of every Toulon game, and then producing this sort of form in June shows his commitment to Springbok rugby.

The Springboks are definitely a different animal in South Africa as compared to away from home, just as our SuperRugby teams are. Their real challenge is to play as they do in South Africa when they are away from home.

It must have been a really difficult week for Eddie Jones and it’s tough to play the Springboks three weeks in a row in Africa, he must be in a flat spin at the moment. His teams always seem to have the tendency when they lose to go into a deep run of defeats – examples of that are when he coached Australia to seven successive losses in 2005 and the Queensland Reds to nine defeats in a row in 2007. This week is a real test of his character and ability to turn things around.

It is with some sadness that I hear this could be the last Test at Newlands, which is a really special venue. Just the history of the place is amazing and the drive in from the brewery was always quite interesting as a coach of the Bulls! It was certainly far more enjoyable as part of the Springbok coaching team.

I hope the players can feed off the energy of the fans on Saturday and South Africa get the 3-0 whitewash.

John McFarland, the assistant coach of the Kubota Spears in Japan, was the Springbok defence coach from 2012 through to the 2015 World Cup, where they conceded the least line-breaks in the tournament and an average of just one try per game. Before that, McFarland won three SuperRugby titles (2007, 09, 10) with the Bulls and five Currie Cup crowns with the Blue Bulls. In all, he won 28 trophies during his 12 years at Loftus Versfeld.

There were many inspiring individual performances in the Proteas’ 3-1 win over Australia in what was an incredible series, but the events in Durban on the fourth afternoon of the first Test may have been the most important catalyst for the impressive comeback.

It’s fair to say that the Proteas probably weren’t in the good books of their fans after they were walloped 5-1 in their ODI series against India and lost the T20 rubber as well, and then they were decidedly flat at Kingsmead as Australia put themselves in an unassailable position.

And then David Warner behaved as if he had a hornet in his pants, never mind sandpaper, after AB de Villiers was run out in the second innings, with an unhinged display of angry, crass celebration in the face of young Aiden Markram. It was clear Australia’s attack dog in chief had lost control, but insipid umpiring ensured nothing was done.

Much of the afternoon session was spent verbally abusing Markram and Quinton de Kock, who eventually decided to respond to all the personal taunts with a verbal volley of his own. Of course, according to the Australian team rules, that crosses the line and Warner was now threatening physical harm.

All of this drama had the effect of making the Proteas angry, as captain Faf du Plessis admitted, and from that moment on they were a different beast, and the South African public rallied behind their cause. It was like an unstoppable wave and all because of Warner’s sledging, a tactic which Du Plessis considers counter-productive, due to its motivational effects on the opposition.

The Australians were also angry, Warner’s exposure, Kagiso Rabada winning his appeal in Port Elizabeth and then the crowd in Cape Town making them feel more and more victimised. Warner, who was made vice-captain to bring positive energy into the camp, then crossed over onto the dark side because of how unfair he felt it all was. Ironically, it was he who had set all this in motion.

On the outside, Cricket Australia have seemingly been very upfront in dealing with the issue. But, as the dust has settled, it has become clear that they have merely stage-managed the whole fiasco, they have been doing their utmost to control the narrative and ringfence themselves from any major damage.

They have their three scapegoats in Smith, Bancroft and Warner, who have now accepted major penalties, but what of the organisation itself which has promoted the win-at-all-costs attitude in crass social media posts and that awful gloating podium presentation set-up after the Ashes?

Cricket Australia have not made the whole truth accessible, leaving questions unanswered such as how was it possible that not a single bowler knew what was going on? South African media were deliberately excluded from Darren Lehmann’s first press conference after the scandal and I was effectively banned from asking questions at Australian press conferences – whenever my hand was up, a firm shake of the head by their media manager would follow.

It should also incense South Africans that Cricket Australia came into this country, which holds democratic ideals so dear after our dark past, and tried to interfere in the rights of free speech of spectators. In Cape Town, several spectators were evicted for using abusive or foul language, the kind that is commonplace in Australia, at the behest of the tourists’ management, who had their security manager practically in the field of play.

There has, however, been a lot of soul-searching in Australian cricket this past two weeks, which is a positive, and in Tim Paine they have a captain who can lead them into the new brand of cricket they say they want to play.

But there are already murmurs in Australia that perhaps some leniency should be showed to the culprits, so whether they really do head in a new direction is by no means certain.

https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/the-citizen-gauteng/20180407/282475709397424

Whoever the new coach of the Standard Bank Proteas will be, the team’s biggest need at present is for stability after all the disruptions of the England tour that ended with South Africa being heavily beaten in four days in the fourth and final Test, losing the rubber 3-1, their first series loss in England since 1998 and their heaviest defeat since losing 3-0 to Colin Cowdrey’s team in 1960.

The frontrunner to replace Russell Domingo, judging by media reports, is Ottis Gibson, the current England bowling coach and the former West Indies head coach who won the World T20 in 2012. The 48-year-old Barbadian has both the international experience – having been involved at that level for 11 years – and the local knowledge, having played in South Africa for the better part of the 1990s for Border, Griqualand West and Gauteng.

The list of disruptions the Proteas suffered on their tour of England, with the Tests following their defeats in both limited-overs series and the disappointment of an early exit in the Champions Trophy, starts with Domingo. The coach was not only in the awkward position of not knowing whether the tour would be his last in charge, but then had the awful heartbreak of his mother being involved in a car accident and eventually tragically passing away, forcing Domingo to leave the squad on two occasions and fly back home.

The Proteas were not only without their coach but they also went into the series without their galvanising skipper Faf du Plessis, who missed the first Test at Lord’s having stayed in South Africa for the difficult birth of his first child; a hard call but a totally understandable one.

Du Plessis returned for the second Test at Trent Bridge, with the Proteas winning by a whopping 340 runs. But they were brought back down to earth, hitting the ground hard, in the last two Tests, losing by 239 and 177 runs respectively.

The combination of Vernon Philander and Chris Morris as bowling all-rounders worked a treat in the second Test, but not in the third as Philander suffered an untimely, debilitating illness having made the ball talk in spectacular fashion as he did great work on the first day at the Oval.

The stalwart of the attack then pulled out of the fourth Test with a sore back, prompting Du Plessis to snipe that Philander needed to work harder on his fitness.

The captain shows refreshing candour in press conferences and he basically also confirmed that AB de Villiers’ Test career is dead and the team need to move on as quickly as possible.

At the moment it seems as though they have been left hanging by De Villiers, with three different batsmen being used in the crucial number four spot against England.

For me, Du Plessis should step up, take responsibility and bat in the number four position. He can bat both time and aggressively, and as captain he also needs to set the tone.

Temba Bavuma and Quinton de Kock, as good as they are, are better suited to coming in lower down the order.

Bavuma has the technique and tenacity to be a middle-order fighter much like Jonty Rhodes was, and his value is often worth more than simply the sum of his runs; he should be batting five or six and can also handle the second new ball and marshal the tail.

De Kock has been touted as the new Adam Gilchrist and needs to be used in the same role as the great Australian wicketkeeper/batsman. De Kock has all the shots and likes to use them, and needs to come in at six or seven where he can play his own, counter-attacking game. Having to rebuild at 40 for two does not suit him and he is the sort of batsman who can shift momentum batting lower down or really take the game away from tired bowlers.

Everything depends on a solid start, however, and South Africa had an average opening stand of just 13.62 against England and nothing higher than 21 between Dean Elgar and Heino Kuhn.

Elgar had a good series in tough conditions, scoring a century and two half-centuries as he made the second most runs (291) for the Proteas, behind Hashim Amla (329), but Kuhn’s place must be under serious threat after he made just 113 runs in eight innings.

Stephen Cook, the man Kuhn replaced, must still be in the mix judging by his century last weekend for the SA A side, while those who believe players of the future must be given as much opportunity as possible will be clamouring for Aiden Markram to make his Test debut against Bangladesh at the end of next month.

But whatever the final selection, there must be far more stability over the coaching situation – who Gibson’s assistants will be is shaping as an interesting discussion – and the captaincy. Surely everyone would feel a lot more settled if Du Plessis was just given the captaincy for all three formats?

The selectors and management also need to make up their minds about batting positions and stick to them, players floating up and down the order is doing nobody any good.

A couple of Tests against Bangladesh should be a good opportunity for the Proteas to regather their balance and get back on the winning trail.

There will be the distraction of the Global T20 League after that, but the South Africans need to get quickly back up to speed because world number one India and Australia, itching for revenge, will be considerable opposition when they arrive on these shores later in the summer.