Proteas coach in a quandary over bowling unit

Shukri Conrad unsurprisingly wants to assess conditions at the Bay Oval in Mount Maunganui, before finalising his playing 11, with the starting team’s balance and especially the composition of the bowling unit cause for head-scratching before Sunday’s first Test.

The Proteas arrived in Mount Maunganui on Thursday, with two training sessions planned for Friday and Saturday. Conrad has offered few clues about the makeup of the starting XI. The first element he will have looked at is the weather, which looks set to be fair for all five days.

If history repeats itself, Bay Oval, which has hosted four Tests, is a venue that usually suits an old-fashioned style of Test match play. It is good for batting over the first three days, before breaking up, getting slower and bringing the spinners into play.

The first of the three Tests played there all went into the fifth day. New Zealand won the first two of those, against England in 2019 and Pakistan the next year.

Bangladesh — coached at the time by Russell Domingo — caused a major upset in 2022, winning by eight wickets.

Only in 2023 did a match not reach fifth day. That was when England “bazballed” their way to a 267-run win, with Ben Stokes’ team scoring at more than five runs an over in both innings, ensuring a four-day finish.

Test records for Bay Oval indicate seam bowlers are the most successful. New Zealand’s left-arm spinner Mitchell Santner is the only spinner among the leading 10 wicket-takers at the ground, with Neil Wagner’s bouncer ploy having netted him 21 wickets there in four Tests.

Those statistics could tempt Conrad into playing four seamers, and relying on captain Neil Brand to provide spin. Though Brand is a reluctant bowler, Conrad has been encouraging him to refine his left-arm spin bowling. If the West Indies A series in 2023 is to be a guide, Brand, who bowled 29 overs and took two wickets, will have a big role to play. The other likelier option is to start off-spinner Dane Piedt as the front-line tweaker and go into the match with three seamers, led by Duanne Olivier and Dane Patterson, with the identity of the third demanding careful thinking.

Mihlali Mpongwana is a slight favourite for the position, given his performances in that West Indies series, where he took five wickets and his overall impact for Western Province in the past few seasons, which included his inspirational display in the final of the One-Day Cup where he scored a century and took three wickets.

Ruan de Swardt and Tshepo Moreki are the other candidates, but while De Swardt may hold the upper hand in batting, he hasn’t bowled as much as Mpongwana. Moreki hasn’t bowled with the sort of penetration he did for WP since making his move to Central Gauteng Lions at the start of the season.

Though Conrad wants his team to adopt a more positive mindset, given the lack of Test experience in the squad, he is perfectly entitled to pack the batting order, with Mpongwana possessing a solid technique that would make him a more than capable batter at No 8 in the order.

A batting line-up of Brand, Ed Moore, Raynard van Tonder, Zubayr Hamza, David Bedingham, Keegan Petersen and wicketkeeper Clyde Fortuin may lack Test experience, but all of them are excellent first-class players, and for the most part are in good form this season.