Proteas must make ‘brave’ calls

If South Africa, as expected, took the field with three frontline spinners – Keshav Maharaj from KZN, Tabraiz Shamsi from Northern Gauteng and George Linde from the Cape – in the first Test against Pakistan early this morning then it would have marked a change in mindset for South African cricket which coach Mark Boucher is eager to push.

With Pakistan understandably going the dry and slow route in terms of the Karachi pitch, South Africa playing two spinners might have surprised a few people.

For the Proteas’ attack to comprise three spinners and just two pacemen would be considered downright outrageous by many people used to “the South African way” of doing things.

But Boucher firmly believes that is their best chance of taking 20 wickets and, just like he was as a player, he wants the current Proteas to be bold.

“The weather is a lot cooler than normal on the sub-continent and there’s a lush green outfield. So conditions are completely different to in the past. In South Africa, colder weather means the pitch is a lot slower and with a quite moist outfield, I don’t know how big a weapon reverse-swing is going to be. But the pitch is really bare and there will definitely be turn.

“We are definitely not scared to go out and try something different. If you want to win away from home, you have to make brave calls. We’re not going to die wondering, you don’t want to go 1-0 down in a two-match series and then regret not playing the extra spinner.

“We’ve spoken about our mentality and the South African mindset has always been to revert back to seam. But I’ve said to the team I don’t want them to be scared of trying different options, if it looks like it’s going to turn then we must make good cricket calls. I’ve encouraged an open mindset instead of just going back to the norm,” Boucher said on Monday.

“A lot of thought has gone into how we’re going to pick up 20 wickets on pitches that are generally good for the first three days. We’re not going to go in thinking about containing.

So it should have come as no surprise if we saw two seamers and three spinners in Karachi.