Ken Borland

The Proteas have passed the test of their character and fighting spirit when put under pressure, especially after losing the first Test, coach Mark Boucher said after South Africa sealed an epic 2-1 series win over India in the third Test at Newlands on Friday.

Chasing a testing target of 212, South Africa won by seven wickets thanks to three successive half-century partnerships between Dean Elgar (30), man of the series Keegan Petersen (82), Rassie van der Dussen (41*) and Temba Bavuma (32*).

Having been beaten so thoroughly by the world’s No.1-ranked side in the first Test at Centurion, it was a remarkable comeback by a team that is still in transition.

“The team showed great character and fight, but that did not surprise me because Dean Elgar is a captain that leads from the front and Temba Bavuma too,” Boucher said after his biggest triumph as coach.

“That fight showed in Dean and Temba’s batting as well, so the guys will certainly follow that. When you have real fighters like that as leaders, then that will probably be the character of the team as well.

“This is a team that is on its own mission and it is a special, driven changeroom to be in. It’s fantastic that the results are starting to come in now. There were lots of ebbs and flows in the last two Tests.

“But we played those pressure moments pretty well and if we lost a session, we didn’t lose it too badly so we were still in the game. We are playing good pressure-cricket at the moment,” Boucher said.

As the new-look Test side’s most notable triumph, the players are going to take away enormous confidence and belief from what is one of the best results for South African cricket sine the return from isolation.

“It was a really hard-fought series, and certainly one of the best, top-five, we’ve ever had in South Africa,” Boucher said. “We lost all three tosses and lots of people wrote us off after the first day of the first Test.

“But we need to see this result through the perspective of where this team is and where India, probably the best team in the world, are. Our youngsters will take a lot of confidence from this.

“There’s nothing like winning games when you know you’ve had to play very, very hard Test cricket. But our feet are firmly on the ground and we know we are not the finished product.

“But from where this team has come from, in terms of the on and off-field stuff, they have been through a lot as a unit. But we have had solid chats and we are a close-knit group that has worked very hard,” Boucher said.

Dean Elgar was philosophical about the telling blow his team has suffered with the withdrawal of fast bowler Anrich Nortje from the series against India, but the Proteas captain was more upset when he told South Africa’s administrators that they have not backed the squad, and especially the coaches and management, enough.

As has become the norm, the Proteas go into a vital series with off-field clouds hanging over their heads. The most threatening of those is the news this week that coach Mark Boucher and director of cricket Graeme Smith are to be subjected to a formal enquiry by the CSA board based on the “tentative” and “untested” findings of the Social Justice and Nation-Building Report.

On the field, they will be without one of their key enforcers, Nortje needing to see specialists to sort out a persistent hip injury. The 28-year-old has been South Africa’s leading wicket-taker in Tests this year with 25 in five matches at an average of just 20.76.

“It’s not too tough for us, as a team we’ve got used to bad news being around us the last one-and-a-half years,” Elgar said on Tuesday. “We just adapt to it, even though they are not ideal headlines.

“What happens off the field is irrelevant now, we have to try and implement a game-plan and trust it. We’ve been through such crappy times, but we’ve formulated such a bond that works for us as player group.

“There have been so many different administrators, but I feel that we have not received enough backing, especially in terms of our coaches and management. We need to show them some love.

“As players, we would like to say that we back them, we know the work they put in that is not seen by the public. It’s not nice to see them being lambasted by articles in the media,” Elgar said.

Another Proteas squad member who is encountering some mixed media treatment is returning fast bowler Duanne Olivier, and Elgar did his best to bolster the former Kolpak’s image. Nortje’s injury means the 29-year-old is now surely almost certain to play his first Test since February 2019.

“The team has responded very well to Duanne coming back, he’s played with quite a few of the guys before and he has half-a-dozen Central Gauteng Lions team-mates here as well,” Elgar said.

“I want us to have the best opportunity of winning matches and series and I’m sure there’s 100% backing for that in the changeroom. Which means sometimes you have to make tough calls.

“But I’m very pleased and excited to have him back, I know what he can do on the field and there are no bad feelings. I see a different energy and enthusiasm in him.

“He’s a different cricketer now and he brings a lot of knowledge and experience back into the team, which is what we need. He’s a matchwinner, I’m very aware of that and that’s what I want to have,” Elgar said.

Zubayr Hamza is definitely one of the most skilful batsmen in the country and his breakthrough in limited-overs cricket came when he realised those same abilities were applicable in the white-ball game.

Over the last couple of seasons, Hamza has shaken off the tag of being a red-ball player, becoming a key batsman for the Cape Cobras and now Western Province in both 50-over and T20 cricket.

After being dropped from the Test side in January 2020, having played five Tests, during South Africa’s troubles against England, Hamza found himself in the middle of a slump in form. It was actually 50-over cricket that revitalised his career as he averaged 55.58 at a strike-rate of 97.81 later that season in the Momentum One-Day Cup. This season it has been T20 cricket in which he has sparkled, averaging 46.75 at a strike-rate of 142.74, including a century against the powerful Central Gauteng Lions attack.

And so the national selectors have rewarded him with a call-up to the squad for the three-match series against the Netherlands in Gauteng from November 26.

“I started as a red-ball batsman in the middle-order, now I’m at the top in white-ball cricket. It’s been a learning curve in terms of adapting my scoring areas and strike-rate, I’m very happy with my progress.

“It was a bit of spite actually to get one-up on the naysayers who said I couldn’t play limited-overs cricket. To play white-ball cricket for South Africa has always been a goal.

“So I adapted my game to meet the standards around the world. The game is evolving and it’s best to keep up with that.

“If you want to keep up at the highest level then you have to continually adapt and become a better all-round batsman. I’ve learnt to apply myself to whatever game-plan is required in the different formats,” Hamza said.

It’s been a winding road for Hamza since he began playing franchise cricket for the Cobras shortly after turning 21. The Rondebosch Boys High prodigy was soon averaging around 50 in first-class cricket and his Test debut came in 2019 when he was 23.

And then came the loss of form, but the talented batsman now seems to have regained his usual prolific ways, thanks to the freedom he has enjoyed in limited-overs cricket.

“The turnaround came after a tough run for a season and a bit,” Hamza said on Thursday. “When you’re not performing and things aren’t going your way, you can look for issues that aren’t actually there.

“It was mostly in the mental space that I had problems, but I managed to turn it around. Now playing is purely about enjoying myself and trusting the players around me.

“There will always be criticism and I’m realistic with how I view the game – obviously there were certain areas I had to improve. Other guys have enhanced their games to fit into different formats and I’ve taken some advice from them.

“My focus is on adapting and understanding my different roles, all purely for the good of the team,” Hamza said.

Pieter Malan showed he is obviously still one of the best opening batsmen in the country when he batted the Boland Rocks through to the safety of a draw in their CSA 4-Day Domestic Series match against Western Province in Paarl on Monday.

Malan batted through the 119 over innings to score an extremely disciplined 117 not out off 349 balls to deny Western Province on the final day. Boland, who were 177 runs behind on first innings, began the final day on 106 without loss, still trailing by 71.

But Isma-eel Gafieldien was only able to add one run to his overnight score of 60 before he was trapped lbw by left-arm paceman Wayne Parnell.

Left-arm spinner Kyle Simmonds (45-16-81-3) then really raised Western Province’s hopes for a victory with a three-wicket burst that left Boland on 178/4.

But Malan found an able partner in the in-form Ferisco Adams, who scored 50 not out as the pair stayed together for 30 overs to secure the draw with Boland closing on 269/4.

The other match that went into the fourth day, between the Northerns Titans and the KZN Dolphins at SuperSport Park, was also drawn after the final day was washed out by rain.

Northerns, trailing by nine runs on the first innings, were left on the overnight score of 125/1 in the second innings.