Ashwell: Proteas must be tougher

England's bowler James Anderson, right, fields off own bowling as South Africa's batsman Morne Morkel, left, watches on the second day of the third test cricket match at Wanderers stadium in Johannesburg. AP Photo/Themba Hadebe

England's bowler James Anderson, right, fields off own bowling as South Africa's batsman Morne Morkel, left, watches on the second day of the third test cricket match at Wanderers stadium in Johannesburg. AP Photo/Themba Hadebe

Published Jan 18, 2016

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Cape Town - Proteas selector Ashwell Prince says the players need to take responsibility for the demoralising 2-0 Test series defeat to England, adding that “certain players will feel under pressure” for their places.

South Africa fell apart on the third afternoon of the third Test at the Wanderers on Saturday to be bowled out for 83 in the second innings, their second lowest since unity. England knocked off the target of 74 in a little more than 22 overs to win by seven wickets and clinch the four-match series with a game to spare.

The Proteas’ lowest score since they returned to Test cricket in 1992 was 79, and that occurred nearly two months ago against India in Nagpur, although it was on a substandard pitch heavily favouring spin bowlers.

It headlined a batting rut that began in Mohali at the start of the Indian tour, and which was thought to have ended at Newlands when the Proteas posted 627/7 declared.

But despite a first-innings 313 at the Wanderers, all those doubts came flooding back in the second stint at the crease as Stuart Broad ran through the South African line-up with a devastating spell of fast bowling with figures of 6/17.

Apart from the exception at Newlands, where Hashim Amla got a double-hundred, Temba Bavuma his maiden ton and fifties from Faf du Plessis, AB de Villiers and Chris Morris on the flattest pitch in years in Cape Town, only Dean Elgar has prospered against England with 118 not out and 40 in Durban, 44 at Newlands and a top score of 46 in the Johannesburg first innings.

“I feel that certain players will feel under pressure. As a batsman, bowler or whatever position that you occupy, you know when your position is under threat – when you haven’t put the numbers on the board, if you haven’t taken wickets with the ball. Whatever your job is, if you’re not doing that…” Prince said while working as an analyst for SuperSport in the aftermath of the Wanderers Test.

“I think in this particular game, at 110/1 (in the first innings), they should’ve got more than that and (AB) recognised that there were a few soft dismissals. And in the second innings, he was spot-on again – you have to give credit to Stuart Broad. We felt today that they were bowled out whereas in the first innings, they contributed to too many dismissals.

“As a player myself, I never liked to put blame on anybody else. If I performed, it’s down to me. If I didn’t perform, it’s down to me.”

Prince suggested that the Proteas coaching group of Russell Domingo, Adrian Birrell, Charl Langeveldt and Claude Henderson should be “tougher” on under-performing players.

But he said the only remedy to the Proteas’ ills is winning Test matches. “Yes, preparations and all these things… Look, if a guy goes out there and takes five or six wickets like Broad, he gets the credit – not so much the (England) bowling coach Ottis Gibson,” Prince said.

“And it’s the same with batting, the same thing happens. So yes, they (Proteas coaches) have to prepare the team. Where I would look at is, are we firm enough in saying to the guys ‘First innings, we were soft’. And those are the type of messages that I would be interested to know, are those messages coming across?

“When you need to be tough, you need to know that you need to be tougher. When you’ve under-performed, you need basically someone to say ‘Look, it wasn’t good enough’. And people, players in the dressing room should be able to take that responsibility and most of the time, like I say, you shouldn’t need to be told – you should know.

“The best that the management can do is prepare the team as well as they can. The only thing that brings a good environment is winning. It doesn’t matter how much preparation you do, doesn’t matter how good you think the coaches are and the pep talks, whatever the case may be…

“(It’s about players) winning matches and guys stepping up and going to deliver the performances, like Stuart Broad did.”

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