Batting our biggest weakness, says Elgar
JOHANNESBURG: The South African bowlers have been happy to bear the heavier load that is the product of their teammates’ shortcomings with the bat, but on the cusp of the new season they wouldn’t mind seeing some stability, big scoring and consistency from their batting brothers over the course of the 2017-18 summer.
“Ultimately,” the typically candid Dean Elgar remarked this week, “our batting has been our weakness. With the talent we have in the top six, even with our back-up batter, what we’ve been doing does not reflect the standards we set.”
He’s right. South Africa has scored over 400 runs in an innings just three times in the last 13 Tests – two of those occasions being against Sri Lanka last season. There’ve been just 12 individual hundreds – a third of those by one batsman, Elgar, while only three players have scored over 500 runs in 2017.
Without enough runs on the board, the bowlers face increasing pressure and it told in the series against England, whose lower order punished an often weary attack. There was a ridiculous stat in that series, where it was calculated that the Proteas bowlers were on the field for the last 11 consecutive days of the series.
In those circumstances, the injuries suffered by Vernon Philander and Chris Morris are understandable. Still, Philander, abiding by the long-held team ethos, did not condemn his batting brethren yesterday. “We don’t play the blame game. You’ve got to take 20 wickets and you’ve got to score as many runs as possible,” he said.
“As a unit, in all honesty, we weren’t at our best in England, there’s no shying away from that, but this series allows us to really nail down our basics, get big runs and obviously bowl Bangladesh out in two Tests, which will set us up for the rest of the summer.”
Philander was quick to point out that the Proteas would show the Bangladeshis the respect their recent performances merited. “Bangladesh has proven to be a really good side in the last 18 to 24 months,” Philander said, referring to home Test victories over England and Australia, while they also beat Sri Lanka away.
Last summer the South African team requested curators prepare greener tracks when Sri Lanka toured, which made life harder for the batsmen – and is partly responsible for the poor performance of the batsmen – but also played into the hands of South Africa’s major strength – its seamers.
Whether they will have quite as much grass on the Senwes Park pitch is unlikely, given the dry weather in Potchefstroom lately, which does leave an intriguing decision over the composition of the starting team for tomorrow.
In the last Test against England, South Africa played seven frontline batsmen – something they were forced into owing to the injuries to Philander and Morris. Theunis de Bruyn, the extra batsmen in that Test, showed excellent form for the Knights in the opening round of the Sunfoil Series last week scoring 195 against the Cobras, but could sit out if the selectors choose to bolster the bowling on what may be a slow and low surface.
That could mean a Test debut for Andile Phehlukwayo who impressed with the bat for the Dolphins against the Titans, but was less threatening with the ball conceding runs at too high a rate – 4.84 an over in the first innings and 6.57 in the second – while going wicketless.
The other all-rounder in the squad, Wayne Parnell, is under an injury cloud owing to a shoulder ailment, with young Lions player Wiaan Mulder called up as cover.
Whatever the direction the selectors take, the absence of Dale Steyn and Philander again places a heavy burden on new-ball pair Morne Morkel and Kagiso Rabada just as was the case in England. There Rabada wasn’t at his best, only occasionally finding the right rhythm. Morkel was South Africa’s best bowler picking up 19 wickets in the series and relished being the leader of the attack.
With Steyn still out Duanne Olivier will continue as the support seamer, while Keshav Maharaj, if conditions are slow and low as many in the Proteas squad believe, will have a major role to play, further underlining his rapidly growing importance to the side.