After completing a Test win inside three days, the Proteas have taken a well-deserved break in New Zealand.
Some players went into the “big city”, Auckland, and others visited the adventure capital, Queenstown, while most took the scenic drive down to Wellington, where the third Test will be played from Friday. Coach Gary Kirsten is very mindful of the players needing to “switch off” and, with most of the partners here too, it has been a very relaxing last couple of days for his players.
Does this mean the Proteas have forgotten that they are only 1-0 up and still have a Test series to close out? Assistant coach Russell Domingo certainly doesn’t think so.
“The Test side is very mature,” he said yesterday. “There are a lot of experienced heads and guys who know what it takes to win a series. We’re trying to deal with successes and failures in a more mature way.”
The squad gather in Wellington this morning when preparations for the third Test will begin in earnest. And, despite the emphatic nine-wicket victory at Seddon Park, there are elements of the Proteas game that need to be fine-tuned.
In line with Test captain Graeme Smith’s view that the batting was “a bit soft at times”, Domingo too acknowledges that it was an issue. This is an area of the game the former Warriors coach is particularly passionate about as he spends hours throwing balls to the likes of Hashim Amla, AB de Villiers and others in order to work on improving their games.
“We weren’t happy with the way the first innings went,” Domingo said. “But we finished in a clinical way (scoring 103/1 in the second innings) and that was satisfying to see.”
But for all South Africa’s problems with their batting, it is nothing close to the confusion that reigns in the Black Caps’ camp at the moment – and specifically their batting unit. They have dropped opener Rob Nicol, but replaced him with a middle-order batsman in Daniel Flynn.
While Flynn has been the form batsman in New Zealand’s domestic first-class competition, he could be exposed at the top of the order, especially with Dale Steyn and Vernon Philander currently moving the ball at will either way.
A rare positive to emerge amid the Kiwis’ recent batting woes was the resolve Kane Williamson displayed on the third day at Seddon Park. Williamson, still only 21, showed his more experienced teammates the way with a fighting 77, which was the standout innings in New Zealand’s 168.
'“It was nice to spend some time in the middle, but it was kind of half-a-job,” he said.
Williamson, who rates the Proteas attack as “arguably the best in the world”, feels the key to being successful against them lies more between the ears than in technique.
“I feel you’ve got to be patient. That’s what I tried to do for as long as I could. You try and share ideas,” he said of the Kiwi batting group. “But everyone has his own gameplan, his own style, to an extent. But with their attack, there’s less balls to score off than a lot of attacks, so patience and good decision-making is the key in playing these bowlers.”
While Williamson is obviously referring to his teammates, the same message can be sent to the Proteas batsmen, although they have a vastly superior record of three centuries and five fifties to New Zealand’s three half-centuries thus far in the series.
“There’s been a lot of starts, forties and fifties, but we haven’t gone on and we’ve made that one mistake, because of the demanding bowling we’ve been up against. That’s the challenge, to get through that and get those big scores,” Williamson said. – Cape Times