Ken Borland

Rilee Rossouw batted with power and precision and Tabraiz Shamsi bounced back superbly from his mauling in the first match as South Africa levelled the T20 series with an impressive 58-run win over England at Sophia Gardens in Cardiff on Thursday night.

Given how comprehensively they were outplayed in the first T20, the Proteas surprisingly fielded an unchanged XI and Rossouw, who scored just 4 in his comeback match, made the most of his second chance with a fiery 96 not out off 55 balls leading the tourists to a sizeable 207/3 after they had been sent in to bat.

Wrist-spinner Shamsi, who went for 49 runs in three overs in the Bristol battering, was the key bowler for South Africa, taking 3/27 in his four overs. That included the key wicket of Moeen Ali, who blasted England’s fastest ever T20 half-century in the first match and looked in similar touch in Cardiff as he blitzed 28 off 17 balls before Keshav Maharaj took a brilliant catch, running and diving at long-off.

It typified a vastly improved fielding effort by the Proteas as well, and when Sam Curran (2) fell to the same combination in the same over, England had slipped to 92/5 after 11 overs.

Earlier, Reeza Hendricks continued to fulfil the desire of the Proteas management for more aggression up front, stroking a fluent, impressive 53 off 32 balls up front.

He dovetailed brilliantly with Rossouw, the pair adding 73 in 7.4 overs for the second wicket.

The left-handed Rossouw showed his power game as he launched five sixes, but he also produced some superb touches that created some of his 10 fours.

Captain Jos Buttler gave England the rapid start they wanted with 29 off 14 balls, but Andile Phehlukwayo, another who rebounded extremely well with three wickets, had him caught off a leading edge.

Spinners Shamsi and Maharaj, with the important wicket of Dawid Malan (5) then did their job, and it was left to the outstanding Lungi Ngidi (2.4-0-11-2) to wrap up the game, England being bowled out for 149 inside 17 overs.

As South Africa’s T20 series against India heads to a conclusion, the Proteas are going to have to come up with an adroit response to how the conditions have become more and more typical of the subcontinent.

South Africa raced into a 2-0 lead in the five-match series with victories on a batting paradise in Delhi and on a pitch that assisted the seamers in Cuttack. But they were hammered by 48 runs by India in the third T20 earlier this week in Visakhapatnam, where the pitch was helpful to the spinners and much slower than the surfaces used in the first two games.

Fast bowler Anrich Nortje was one of the Proteas who struggled to adjust, bowling two overs for 23 runs, and he admitted on Thursday that the tourists were desperate to wrap up the series win in Friday’s fourth T20 in Rajkot. Nortje does at least have the excuse that he is still making his way back from a long-term hip/back injury that kept him out of just about the whole of last summer.

“The nets here have been a bit two-paced and up-and-down, they’re on the slower side. Our understanding is that it’s going to be a bit low and slow on Friday,” Nortje said.

“The game will be like a final for us. In the last match we didn’t get anywhere close towards what we are capable of playing, so for us this is a second chance and we need to seal the series as soon as possible.

“I’m still working on my bowling, I’m trying to find one or two things and my body is not 100% yet. It’s about slowly building up and I’m still trying to get back to where I was before last year’s T20 World Cup.

“It’s been a long time, but it’s about small, minor adjustments. Generally I try to keep things simple and stick to the basics, so there are small margins for me. But I think I’m on the right track,” Nortje said.

India have been able to clamber back into contention in the series thanks to their spinners coming more into play, but they have also been helped by Quinton de Kock’s injury and Aiden Markram’s illness, which have robbed South Africa of much-needed explosiveness up front, especially on pitches that get lower and slower.

The good news is that De Kock’s injured wrist has apparently made a “marked improvement” and he is practising again. Both he and Markram were in superb form in the recent IPL, but with the latter heading home after his Covid quarantine, the Proteas are eager for their regular wicketkeeper to return to the top of the order.

Having a left-hander in the top three would also make life more difficult for the Indian bowlers, who began to come into their own in the third T20.

Play starts at 3.30pm on Friday.

The five-match T20 series that the Proteas will play in India from this week is going to be a vital time of getting the combinations and plans right ahead of the World Cup in Australia in October, the all-rounder Dwaine Pretorius said on Monday.

The series starts on Thursday in Delhi, with nine of the South African squad having seen action in the recent Indian Premier League. Pretorius played half-a-dozen matches for the Chennai Super Kings, one of the franchises at the forefront of T20 development, under the leadership of Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

“We’re going to be testing ourselves against some of the best cricketers in the world in the Indian team and winning the series is important so we take positive momentum into the World Cup,” Pretorius said on Monday.

“Both teams will be looking carefully at this series and seeing who can secure spots in the World Cup team. India are a very strong T20 team and we’ve come a long way too.

“This is a chance to measure ourselves against one of the best, to see where we are and what we need to work on before the World Cup. There are a lot of benefits to this series, we will see what combinations and plans work.

“Indian conditions have changed a bit and apparently we will have good pitches in the five different venues; everyone knows that Australia will have good bounce and good wickets,” Pretorius said.

The chief takeaway for Pretorius from his IPL experience and interacting with the brilliant cricketing brain of Dhoni was the importance of staying calm and positive.

“My first IPL was a great experience, it’s been one of my bucket list items since I was 20 and it was hosted by South Africa. I was very glad to have the opportunity to play for CSK, one of the most successful teams.

“As players, we were given a lot of responsibility and to play under M.S. Dhoni and see just how big his brand is and what he’s done for Indian cricket was awesome.

“CSK has a very experienced set-up and the biggest thing I learnt from Dhoni was how calm he is. He takes the pressure away from himself by putting it on the bowler.

“He made me realise that the bowler is the one under pressure. It was a change of mindset, he’s always very optimistic and believes any game can be won by staying calm,” Pretorius said.

The Proteas leave for India and their five-match T20 series on Wednesday morning relieved that Cricket South Africa’s office politics, which threatened the careers of their coach and former director of cricket, have now seemingly come to an end, according to captain Temba Bavuma.

Proteas head coach Mark Boucher’s position was under immense scrutiny as he was accused of racist conduct, while director of cricket Graeme Smith faced the same charges. An independent tribunal cleared Smith and CSA then withdrew their charges against Boucher, admitting there was no evidence to support their case.

Bavuma said he hoped the off-field saga that had raged above their heads was done and dusted.

“I think there’s a lot of relief in the whole cricket fraternity that these off-field issues have been resolved and put to bed,” Bavuma said on Tuesday. “Hopefully we can now focus on what happens on the field.

“We should all invest as much as we can into that now. I think we handled the situation as a team as best we could. We’ve had many conversations over the months to make sure everyone is in the right space.

“We wanted to make sure there were no underlying issues between players or management, and I think those conversations really helped,” Bavuma said.

To add to their contentment, South Africa are going into the series with several players having performed extremely well in the just-completed Indian Premier League. None more so than David Miller, who helped steer the Gujarat Titans to the title in their first season, his exceptional finishing displays seeing him end the tournament with a strike-rate of 142 and an average of 68.

Where Miller is going to bat for the Proteas is going to be an interesting decision for Bavuma and Boucher.

“It’s always good having guys in form and David lifting the IPL trophy means he’ll bring good confidence into the team and it would have done a world of good for his own confidence,” Bavuma said.

“He performed exceedingly well and whatever feelings of insecurity he might have, he has never expressed those type of feelings to me. He’s an integral part of the Proteas team.

“We trust those sort of performances will continue well into the future. There’s always the conversation about him batting for longer, but he understands where he fits in in our team.

“But if he feels he can add more value in a different position then we can have that conversation. There’s no way we would stifle or restrict any of our players, we want to try set up and assist all of them to perform their best,” Bavuma said.