Ken Borland

Tristan Stubbs, the 23-year-old Proteas batting prospect, has now been earmarked for the crucial number three position in the Test team, a crown prince following in the footsteps of South African greats like Hashim Amla and Jacques Kallis.

Amla scored 7993 runs at an average of 49.95 batting at number three for South Africa, the record, while Kallis, who scored the most runs overall for the Proteas, made the number four slot his own but established his career at first wicket down from 1997 to 2009, playing 49 Tests there and averaging 49.

Given that Stubbs has only played a single Test and just 18 first-class matches, it was a surprise when Proteas Test coach Shukri Conrad was emphatic that the Eastern Cape product would be the number three batsman going forward, starting with the two-Test series in the West Indies next month.

“It shows how highly I rate Tristan,” Conrad said after announcing the Test squad. “Technically, he is one of our best batsmen and I believe he is unfairly seen as just being a white-ball player. The way he came in under pressure in the T20 World Cup and commanded his space, he imprinted himself on games.

“He’s a helluva player, the type I want at the top of the order. He has all the makings of a top-class number three. We have eight Tests in this cycle, so he will get a really good run with one eye on the future. Some may say it’s a big call, but I don’t believe I’m throwing him in the deep end, I’m not giving him a task I don’t think he can handle,” a typically forthright Conrad said.

Players coming from the Eastern Cape are often of rural stock and typically have no airs and graces, it being a strong farming community. Stubbs fits the stereotype: humble but in no way doubting his ability to fulfil the responsibility Conrad has given him.

“Batting number three for the Test side is a huge opportunity and challenge and I’m very thankful to the coach for backing me,” Stubbs told sportsboom.com in an exclusive interview. “Any time someone praises you like that, you don’t ever want to let them down. But I’ve dealt with a lot of expectation in my career before.

“It’s going to be a completely new role for me, but I’m going to go out and enjoy it and I’m really optimistic that I’ll be ready for it when I get on the plane to the Caribbean next week,” Stubbs said from the Proteas training camp in Durban.

Stubbs’s performances in the T20 World Cup suggest he is certainly up for the challenge. While 165 runs in eight innings at a strike-rate of 101.22 are mediocre figures at face value, he played most of his innings on extremely testing pitches and was batting up the order. He had the highest batting average (33.00) for South Africa in the tournament and played a key role in their progress to the final.

“It was a different role for me because I’ve never come in before when the team has lost two quick wickets, batting in the powerplay, trying to see off the new ball. But I really enjoyed it, coming in in some really tough positions. I enjoy batting when it is tough,” Stubbs said.

A natural strokeplayer and a powerful hitter of the ball, it is not surprising that Stubbs has made his mark initially in white-ball cricket. But he has a top-class record in the four-day game, averaging 50.20.

The fact that his last red-ball innings was a landmark innings of 302 not out for Eastern Province against KwaZulu-Natal Inland in February in South Africa’s premier red-ball competition, and that he has a phenomenal conversion rate of going to his hundred five of the six times he has passed fifty, suggest he has the makings of a quality number three. And a great desire for big runs.

“I took a lot of confidence from that triple-century. Our coach, Robin Peterson, is always harping on about we mustn’t just score hundreds – that’s not good enough, we must score big centuries,” Stubbs said.

“I got to go in early [at 20 for two] and I was able to bat all day. In the last year or so, I’ve really tried to value my wicket more. I’m always looking to score, but I also want to be more consistent. So I’ve put a big emphasis on not getting out, and that’s in all formats, particularly T20. Before I would get in and then play a stupid shot to get out. Now I’m trying to bat until the last over.

“I probably take more confidence, though, from how I batted in New York during the T20 World Cup, because of how I reacted when I was under high pressure. I really enjoy batting, I joke with my mates that the only time I’ve been dismissed between 50 and a hundred in first-class cricket is when my team-mate ran me out! So I would probably love a five-day draw with both teams making 600 in the West Indies,” Stubbs said with a laugh.

While he admitted healing would be slow from their T20 World Cup final disappointment – “it hurts so much more because we had done so well before” – Stubbs has exciting new opportunities lying ahead of him that will help ease the pain.

South Africa’s Test and ODI captain Temba Bavuma is full of praise for the captaincy of his colleague Aiden Markram, which has seen the Proteas go into the semi-finals at the T20 World Cup in the West Indies.

The South Africans are the only side to have won all seven of their matches on their way to the last four, but their progress has been as thrilling as one would expect from a side whose World Cup history is infamously littered with dramatic and emotional exits. The Proteas will play Afghanistan at Tarouba in southern Trinidad in their semi-final on Wednesday night, while India, who are also unbeaten but had one match washed out, take on England at Providence in Guyana on Thursday.

Only two of South Africa’s seven wins have been in any way comfortable, and Bavuma said Markram’s captaincy has been a key factor in building a unit that has the belief to win in pressure situations over and over.

“Aiden may not have scored the number of runs he would have liked, but his leadership has been phenomenal,” Bavuma told SportsBoom.com. “His captaincy style really brings the team together and has given them a lot of belief. It’s collaborative leadership and you can see the team has that belief and they are really playing for each other.

“I think tactically Aiden has also been very good, using all that spin against the West Indies was really crucial. He’s getting the best out of the players and you can see how much it means for them. KG Rabada has his big celebrations back every time he takes a wicket; it’s not that he hasn’t been celebrating, but now you can really see how much it means to him every time he gets a wicket,” Bavuma said.

South Africa pulled off a nervy, rain-affected chase against the West Indies to reach the semifinals, winning with seven wickets down and five balls to spare at North Sound earlier this week, and Bavuma said the sense of calm that Markram brings to the field was evident.

It is a trait Proteas coach Rob Walter also highlighted when SportsBoom.com asked him to appraise Markram’s captaincy thus far.

“Aiden is a very understated leader, but the team listens when he speaks, he is massively respected in the changeroom,” Walter said. “Strategically I think he has been very strong – defending low scores so often means he has to be good tactically to win because he does not have a lot of margin for error.

“Aiden has a real competitive edge and he is 100% engaged in everything he does, but he is also very calm and level-headed, which creates the right environment for the players to produce their best performances. He’s running the show and making the right decisions – I don’t think KG has ever bowled his first over in the 18^th over before, but that sums up the flexibility. It was also great to see Aiden bowl all four of his overs against the West Indies, he backed himself.

“He has been able to sum up very quickly how to best utilise the resources he has in the conditions we’ve been playing in and that feel is a real skill of the game. We’ve had to play the tricky conditions in front of us and Aiden is always trying to take the game on. It’s created some seriously good games of cricket,” Walter said.

Apart from a gorgeous 46 off 32 balls against the USA, Markram has struggled to make much of an impact with the bat, but he did take a brilliant running catch over his shoulder in the seven-run win over England to dismiss the flying Harry Brook in the final over.

“I’m grateful it stuck! Your mind races as a captain and you find yourself drifting in the field – but I was happy to hold on to it. It certainly made a difference,” Markram said afterwards.

Allowing things to drift has certainly not been the captaincy style of Markram, however; the 29-year-old has had his hand firmly on the tiller as he stands poised to steer the Proteas through uncharted waters, South Africa having never played in a World Cup final before.

It was a day to test your patience at Leopard Creek on Sunday as thundershowers limited play to just over two hours of action, restricting the great title showdown between Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel to just seven holes which failed to break the deadlock between the two longtime friends.

Leaders Oosthuizen and Schwartzel, together with Christiaan Bezuidenhout, who began the final round five shots behind, teed off at 10am and were able to play four holes before the first storms moved over Malelane.

In that time, both Oosthuizen (2^nd hole) and Schwartzel (3^rd) managed to collect a birdie, while Bezuidenhout made his presence felt with birdies on the par-five second and par-four third holes to cut the gap to four strokes.

The lingering threat of lightning meant play was only able to resume at 4pm, and even then it only lasted 43 rather miserably wet minutes before thunder rumbled again and play was called off for the day.

Not much had changed in that time, although Oosthuizen must have had his heart in his mouth after he hit his tee-shot on the par-three seventh into the water. He showed his mettle, however, as he stroked in a 25ft putt to limit the damage to just a bogey.

Having just birdied the short par-four sixth after a lovely approach shot to six feet, it meant Oosthuizen dropped back to join Schwartzel on 16-under.

All three members of the final group began the final round smoothly, finding the fairways off the tee and hitting precision iron-shots. Bezuidenhout, however, had more success with the putter and he further cut the lead to three strokes as, straight after the lengthy weather delay, he rolled in a 20ft birdie putt on the par-three fifth hole.

Andy Sullivan was also cruising with two birdies in his first six holes, but he then bogeyed the par-four eighth to slip back to 11-under, five behind, alongside Germany’s Matti Schmid, who was three-under for his round.

Of the other South Africans besides the top three, Thriston Lawrence is accelerating up the leaderboard and is currently tied for eighth on eight-under, four-under for his round with three holes to play.

Jayden Schaper made a fast birdie-birdie start, but then went bogey-bogey and is level-par at the turn, also on eight-under overall.

Casey Jarvis sandwiched birdies at the first and third holes with a bogey at the par-five second, and then had a bit of a car crash on the ninth, with a double-bogey that dropped him to seven-under for the tournament, alongside Wynand Dingle.

The final round will only resume at 9am on Monday to allow the greenkeepers to ready the waterladen course.

Khaya Zondo and the rest of the Proteas batsmen in Australia can’t do much now about the structural issues in South African domestic cricket that are undermining the batting at international level, but the Test rookie did mention some basics of the game that he and his colleagues can do better to ensure they get more runs on the board in the second Test starting in Melbourne on Boxing Day.

The 32-year-old Zondo had batted in just two previous Test innings before he was thrown on to the Gabba minefield, but his 36 not out in the second innings was a defiant, plucky effort that would have given him some confidence for the rest of the series.

“It’s just a matter of really applying ourselves, getting really focused and making sure that we are present at the crease at all times,” Zondo said on Wednesday.

“A lot of the guys are new to Test cricket and there is a lot of intensity at that level, so we need to really focus on the ball. We need to bring all our soul and might while there at the crease.

“You’ve got to find a way to work through the challenges. It’s been a tough year of international cricket for the Proteas, playing in New Zealand, England and Australia is tough.

“And most of the pitches have been really tough. Test cricket tests your technique, makes you play with a straight blade because the ball is always between the stumps and you have to make sure you defend them,” Zondo said.

Watching the ball seems like an obvious thing for a professional cricketer to do, but there are levels and Zondo said his focus on every delivery has been something he has had to work on, even between innings in Brisbane.

“In the first innings, when I was lbw [for a two-ball duck], the ball nipped back quickly. So in the second innings I was trying to react ahead of the ball, watch the ball more closely,” Zondo said.

“Australia bowled very well, they were on the money. They realised there was a lot happening and they bowled a lot straighter. So it takes better defence to ensure you keep the good balls out.

“Playing for the SA A side and a bit of ODI cricket [6 matches] helped me adjust to this level, but there’s quite a difference in intensity and execution of skills. They were ruthless in their skills and their basics are sharp.

“You need to really defend your stumps and watch your off-stump. There’s not much to score off, but you can’t just sit there and think you’ll survive, because the bowlers will work you out,” Zondo said.