Ken Borland

Two days made a world of difference to the Bristol pitch, but a poor start to the South African innings gave birth to a furious response from the middle-order as they posted a matchwinning 182/6 after being sent in to bat and beat Ireland by 44 runs in the second T20 on Friday night.

Wayne Parnell enjoyed one of his best days in Proteas clours as he took a brilliant 5/30 to lead an impressive Proteas bowling display that bowled Ireland out for 138.

On a pitch that had the bowlers celebrating more assistance than usual in a T20, South Africa struggled to 58/2 after 11 overs. Quinton de Kock (7 off 10 balls) and Rassie van der Dussen (4 off 14) again struggled, but opener Reeza Hendricks continued his hot form with a determined 42 off 40 balls.

Aiden Markram came in and provided some much-needed impetus as he slammed 25 runs off spinner Andy McBrine in the 12^th over, but both he, for 27 off 10 balls, and Hendricks were dismissed in the next over, bowled by leg-spinner Gareth Delany (4-0-24-2).

South Africa were 93/4 off 14 overs, but thanks to Heinrich Klaasen (39 off 16 balls) and David Miller (32 not out off 20), South Africa were given a crucial late boost. Dwaine Pretorius also chipped in with 17 off 7 balls.

Left-arm paceman Josh Little was the best of the Irish bowlers with 1/20 off four overs.

South Africa’s left-armer, Parnell, then struck twice in successive balls in his first over to rock Ireland’s chase from the start. Paul Stirling (28) and Harry Tector (34) lifted Ireland to 40/2 inside the 6^th over, but Lungi Ngidi (3-0-14-1) removed Stirling and Parnell returned to get Tector out.

Pretorius (3.5-0-33-3) then also took two wickets in two balls to all but seal victory.

Second-last man Barry McCarthy walloped 32 off 19 balls at the death to take Ireland over 100 and restore some dignity.

The shock retirement of Lizelle Lee and the continued injury problems of Shabnim Ismail have left two big holes in the South African Women’s cricket team ahead of the first ODI against England in Northampton on Monday, but such misfortunes provide great opportunities for other players, captain Sune Luus said.

Opening batter Lee retired with immediate effect on Friday, with the ODI series against England mere days away, which can only have been disruptive to the Proteas’ plans.

Fast bowler Ismail, meanwhile, has still not fully recovered from the calf injury which ruled her out of the historic Test against England two weeks ago.

“Lizelle’s retirement came as a bit of a shock, but we all respect her decision, she has given eight years of service to her country and she has obviously got her reasons,” Luus said on Sunday.

“Shabnim is still recovering from her calf injury, but she will be ready to go soon. These are big losses, but they provide big opportunities. There are a lot of spots in the team coming up now.

“We will have a young top four, but they are all excited about what they can bring to the table. It’s a big opportunity for them, it’s the start of their careers and what they make of it is up to them.

“They have been phenomenal for us lately, putting crucial runs on the board. The work they’re doing behind the scenes is great to see. It’s the energy the team needs to go forward,” Luus said.

England, runners-up in the World Cup in the summer, are a top-class ODI outfit and Luus knows the batters will face a particularly tough test against an attack spearheaded by Sophie Ecclestone, the No.1 ranked bowler in women’s ODIs.

“Sophie is No.1 in the world for a reason, she can control the game and strike,” Luus said. “So we will just try to rotate off her, get as many runs as we can, without boosting her ego or giving her a sniff.

“If it’s a bad ball then we must put it away, but we don’t want to give her anything. England will come hard at us and we need to be consistent for longer periods.

“Our semi-final loss to them at the World Cup puts in perspective how much we want to win this series. We had a lot of opportunities in that semi-final which we just did not take, otherwise the game could have gone a whole other way.

“We want to make sure we take every chance this time and not give them that satisfaction again,” Luus said.

·Play starts at 3pm SA time.

Proteas captain Dean Elgar acknowledges that England are currently playing “brave and bold” Test cricket, but he is eager to see whether they can maintain that against the pace and bounce, and two quality spinners, of the South African attack when their Test series gets underway next month.

In a delirious month of four Test matches against New Zealand (3) and India (1), England’s powerful batting line-up has chased down four successive targets of more than 250 in the fourth innings with tremendous gung-ho and aggression, scoring at run-rates of 4.93 chasing 378 against the powerful India attack, and 3.53, 5.98 and 5.44 against the Black Caps.

“England have certainly been quite brave and bold, it’s been exciting and brought extra energy to Test cricket,” Elgar told Saturday Citizen. “I’m sure world cricket has been hit by surprise, especially in the way they chase.

“But it’s been on relatively batting-friendly pitches and conditions have been in their favour. There hasn’t been too much sideways movement and they’ve been allowed to play that game.

“Our seamers will also bring a lot more pace and bounce against them and we have quite a few options to exploit any pitches that do go up-and-down.

“It will be interesting to see the pitches they prepare, knowing the fast bowling arsenal we have, backed up by two quality spinners if need be. I know I would not like to face our attack,” Elgar said.

The left-handed opening batsman has brought a hard edge to the Proteas during his captaincy tenure; the more pressure Elgar is under, the more dogged he becomes. That character is reflected in his team: The current Proteas are hard-working, stubborn and they refuse to let anyone dominate them.

It is typical of Elgar’s personality that he is loving the prospect of England going all-out-attack on them and he is backing the Proteas to be able to handle the onslaught.

“It’s going to be exciting and luckily we have quite a few pace bowlers,” Elgar says. “The basics are still fundamental to Test cricket and patience is one of our strengths. We really enjoy taking it to the last day and strangling teams.

“We have done a lot of graft on our game-plan because there could be a false sense of needing to be drawn into the way England want to play. That would be a massive error and would take our strengths out of the equation. We’ve had a lot of brilliant fast bowlers going to the UK and dominating, so I’m excited about that.

“When one talks about an aggressive or positive style of play, one needs to define exactly what you mean by that. You can still be aggressive but savvy in the way you go about things. There will be times when we need to counter and times we need to absorb, that’s just the nature of Test cricket.

“Whether the way England are playing now has any longevity, I’m not sure. It has paid off for now. It’s certainly going to be a very exciting series,” Elgar said.

Assistant coach Mzwandile Stick says the Springboks will be inspired by the past – both their’s and that of Wales – when the two nations of great rugby tradition meet in the first Test at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday evening.

For the Springboks, with their eyes on defending their World Cup crown next year, they are repeating some of the rebuilding process they did in 2018, a year before their incredible heroics in the global showpiece in Japan.

But they also know how Wales are feeling as their current situation is a bit like South Africa’s in 2018. Stick had already been with the Springboks as a backline coach under Allister Coetzee, but when the team endured a 33% win-rate in 2016, he was made a scapegoat and axed.

One of Rassie Erasmus’s first acts as director of rugby in 2018 was to reappoint the former Sevens star to the Springboks and put him in charge of attack and skills.

“We can compare this time to 2018, when Rassie and Jacques Nienaber came back and we started building for the 2019 World Cup,” Stick said at the Springboks’ Montecasino hotel on Friday.

“It’s similar now because we again have a lot of young faces and we want them to learn from the senior guys while we are still winning. It’s very important to build in the right space and that is a winning environment.

“But we’ve been No.7 in the world too, so we know how Wales are feeling at No.9. But we knew that if we could beat the All Blacks in 2018 then there would be a lot of forgiveness, even though we only had a 50% win record overall.

“It let us breathe a bit. We were desperate and we know very well that Wales will be too and they will come hard at us. They are stubborn and will not go away,” Stick said.

Since losing 20-11 to Wales in Cardiff in November 2018, the Springboks knocked the Red Dragons over 19-16 in their World Cup semi-final in October 2019 and then beat them 23-18 on their 2021 end-of-year tour.

Elton Jantjies slotted an 80^th-minute penalty that day to seal the victory and this time the Springboks are relying on the 31-year-old flyhalf to start the game rather than be the finisher.

“Elton is one of the key players in our system, he’s been with us for years,” Stick said. “Handre Pollard just joined us on Sunday, while Elton has trained with us for three weeks.

“There have been a couple of new things we have introduced in terms of how we want to play, especially in attack and our kicking game, and Elton has had more training of that on the field.

“There’s no first or second choice for us at flyhalf, they are both key for us at any given time. We know Elton is always ready and we can pick him without hesitation because he trains very hard and is very professional.

“In terms of match fitness, both of them have about 100 minutes of rugby under their belts. Elton also has leadership skills at No.10, he was one of the key leaders for the Lions when they played in three Super Rugby finals,” Stick pointed out.