Ken Borland

Aiden Markram is not sure whether or not his game has grown from his couple of weeks playing in the IPL in the UAE, but he does believe he has a better idea of the flexibility required in T20 cricket, which he says is going to be crucial for the Proteas in the forthcoming World Cup.

Markram joined the Punjab Kings for the completion of the IPL following the withdrawal of English star Dawid Malan, and, batting in the middle-order, made starts in every innings as he ended with 146 runs in six innings, averaging 29.20 with a strike-rate of 122.68.

When South Africa begin their T20 World Cup campaign on October 23 against Australia in Abu Dhabi, the middle-order is where Markram is most likely to find a place in the team.

“The pressure is always a lot more at a World Cup, the environment is all about pressure and you need to perform under it. The IPL is also high-pressured,” Markram said on Monday, “but I’m not sure if my game has grown or not.

“But it’s obviously a good standard of cricket and I was learning on the job, mingling with some seriously good players, chatting to legends of T20 cricket, but also trying to work things out in the middle during games.

“The important thing is that you have plans for the conditions before matches, the type of cricket you want to play, but if conditions don’t allow it then you have to have something else to fall back on.

“Trusting that back-up plan is important and we have certainly upskilled ourselves lately. I don’t think this team brings too much baggage from previous World Cups and we haven’t had too many chats about 2019,” Markram said.

In terms of the conditions, the Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi is in the desert but within sight of the dhows in the Persian Gulf, and arguably the best place for batting in the United Arab Emirates. The Proteas have an attack to thrive in most conditions, but the question is whether South Africa does have the batting line-up to put up big enough scores.

“Conditions were not too bad in the IPL, but each ground was very different, which I didn’t expect because I thought the conditions would be pretty generic. But each ground poses a different set of challenges.

“The pitches are not the easiest to bat on, but once you get in, you can take the game away from the opposition. But it’s tough at first for the batsman coming in.

“Sharjah [where they play a qualifier and England] was probably the toughest batting pitch and Abu Dhabi the nicest to bat on.

“In general you’re looking to take pace off the ball, that’s the go-to, lots of changes in pace. And you have to bowl your spinners at the right time, getting that decision right is important,” Markram said.

Given the great rivalry that exists between the two teams, it would be stupid not to expect the Springboks to find some extra motivation against the All Blacks in Townsville on Saturday, especially since it is the 100^th Test between the only two sides to have won the World Cup three times, but South Africa’s veteran eighthman Duane Vermeulen said on Tuesday that he was approaching the milestone fixture as just another international.

Given their unfocused displays in the last two matches against the Wallabies and Vermeulen’s slow return to full fitness after ankle surgery, it is understandable that the 35-year-old does not want to be distracted by any of the fanfare this week.

“We will take it as just another Test match; yes, it’s the 100^th match against the All Blacks, but we want to compete in the Rugby Championship and try and still win that competition. We are playing New Zealand and we will go out and give it our best whatever the occasion; the fact that it is the 100^th Test is for the people who write books.

“We can only talk about the ‘now’, the past has gone but we just want to improve on last week. New Zealand play a whole different style of rugby to Australia and we have got to prepare accordingly,” Vermeulen said.

Since the first Test between the teams – coincidentally also 100 years ago on 13 August 1921 in Dunedin (NZ won 13-5), the All Blacks have won 59 times and South Africa have 36 wins, with four matches drawn. But since the return from isolation in 1992, the Springboks have only won 16 of 62 Tests.

Nevertheless, South Africa are still New Zealand’s greatest rivals with the highest winning percentage (36.4%) against them of all opposition. Due to the travel restrictions imposed by Covid, this match is being played in north-eastern Queensland. The Springboks and All Blacks have met at a neutral venue on four occasions, all of them during World Cups, and South Africa’s only win came in Cardiff in 1999, 22-18.

South Africa need to beat New Zealand in successive matches for the first time since winning three in a row in 2009 to regain the Freedom Cup, which the All Blacks took off them in 2010.

Brodie Retallick, the talismanic New Zealand second-rower who has never lost to the Springboks, said his team are certainly embracing the history of the occasion.

“You can’t underestimate them. We’ve talked about the fact that it’s the 100^th Test between the two nations and they are the World Cup champions, it’s the first time the All Blacks have played a World Cup champion in a long time. So we’re going out there to give it our best shot and hopefully take it to them.

“Where they’ve caught us the last couple of times, when they did, was through their line-speed defensively. They’ve outmuscled us and we haven’t been able to break them down through our attack and then they’ve punished us. So physically, you’ve always got the set-piece battle but you also have to deal with their line-speed,” Retallick said.

The Springboks’ maverick approach to both game-plan and selection has certainly served them well since their third match in the 2019 World Cup, but this morning’s Rugby Championship Test against Australia was only the second time that it has been used against one of the Australasian sides.

South Africa lost 13-23 to New Zealand in their World Cup opener, using a traditional 5-3 split between forwards and backs on the bench and struggling to get much momentum in the game. An easy 57-3 win over Namibia followed, but their next match, against Italy, was a potential knockout blow.

That was when the 6-2 bench was first used and the Springboks really started to use a kicking game in order to gain momentum.

Their execution of the plan was poor last weekend against Australia and it is still early days when it comes to deciding whether the Bomb Squad replacements tactic will work against teams like the Wallabies and especially the All Blacks next weekend, sides that are used to playing at high intensity.

“We believe in the 6-2 split, it has worked for us and there’s no need to panic when it comes to selection,” assistant coach Mzwandile Stick said this week after the Gold Coast defeat.

For some though, the risks in the strategy are too great when it comes to well-matched opposition who are likely to keep the result to within a single score. There was heartbreak last weekend for the Springboks when flyhalf Handre Pollard had an off-day with the boot and his replacement, Damian Willemse, who is not a frontline kicker for the Stormers, missed the Springboks’ last kick at goal, a 73^rd-minute conversion.

There is little respite for Pollard, such a key performer for the Springboks and very seldom rested. But a 6-2 bench makes it hard for Jacques Nienaber to choose a specialist goal-kicking flyhalf amongst the replacements because both Morne Steyn and Elton Jantjies are not going to be able to provide real cover for any other backline position.

“Week in and week out, there is always massive debate about our selection and not just this week. It’s nothing new. Handre did not have his best game last week, but we did not lose because of that, it was mostly down to our discipline. He has been brilliant for us since 2018, but sometimes a star will have an off-day, he’s only human. Damian is a brilliant player and is still getting better. We did not lose because of kicks at poles,” Stick said.

In a week in which they returned to normal, non-bubble life and played in front of a crowd for the first time since the World Cup, the Springboks seemed to have stage-fright as they slid to a 28-26 defeat at the hands of the Wallabies on the Gold Coast on Sunday.

Flyhalf Quade Cooper, playing his first Test in four years, was the hero with a 100% kicking record of  seven penalties and a conversion, including a long-range, angled penalty after the final hooter to snatch the victory.

But it was an unfocused performance by the world champions, who made basic mistakes and conceded too many penalties against a Wallabies side who were far from the weak pushovers they seemed to be against the All Blacks. They were crafty as ever in the scrums and avoided many of the physical battles by shifting the ball quickly away from the contact points.

The lineout was the only area where the Springboks enjoyed a clear advantage, and all three of South Africa’s tries, scored by hookers Bongi Mbonambi in the first half and two by Malcolm Marx in the second, came from the rolling maul.

The visitors started well, using an aerial bombardment and their lineout prowess to win two penalties for flyhalf Handre Pollard, but the Wallabies began to find weaknesses in their defence as they came on strong at the breakdowns and the Springboks started to make soft mistakes to put themselves under pressure.

One minute after captain Siya Kolisi was yellow-carded for a tip-tackle, Australia took control of the game with the opening try. There was no danger involved in Kolisi’s tackle, but referee Luke Pearce was strict when it came to sending players to the cooler, dishing out four yellow-cards in all, two to each team.

The try came when Faf de Klerk rushed up in defence as usual, but missed the tackle and excellent centre Samu Kerevi sidestepped him, creating space out wide which was quickly spotted by the Wallabies, wing Andrew Kelleway then cutting back inside to finish well.

The Springboks struck back with Mbonambi’s maul try after Australian lock Matt Philip had been yellow-carded for collapsing the drive, but Pollard had a poor night with the boot, missing three kicks either side of halftime.

Pollard knocked his second penalty of the second half over to close the gap to 14-19 as the Springboks came out energised after the break. But the Wallabies continued to play the smarter rugby and replacement scrumhalf Nic White’s brilliant kick, making use of the new 50/22 trial law, put them on attack. From there, fullback Willie le Roux’s yellow card for a deliberate knock-on stalled the visitors’ momentum and cost three points as Quade Cooper slotted his sixth successive kick at goal.

Fortunately, Australia hooker Folau Fainga’a was yellow-carded six minutes later for a no-arms tackle and the Springboks were able to maul Marx over for their second try, getting them to within one point.

And with eight minutes left Marx went over from the lineout drive again. But Damian Willemse, on for Pollard, pushed the conversion well wide to complete a miserable night from the tee for South Africa – 10 points in all being wasted.

There were a couple of crucial scrums towards the end in which the Springboks clearly dominated but were not rewarded by the referee, and then Australia wheeled the last scrum of the game, isolating replacement eighthman Jasper Wiese, who conceded the turnover penalty.

Cooper did exactly what he was brought in to do, showing the coolest of heads as he knocked the tricky penalty straight over.

Scorers

Australia – Try: Andrew Kellaway. Conversion: Quade Cooper. Penalties: Cooper (7).

South Africa – Tries: Bongi Mbonambi, Malcolm Marx (2). Conversion: Handre Pollard. Penalties: Pollard (3).