Much-needed breath of fresh air for this lot

Conditions in the sub-continent are often not easy and you obviously have to have your wits about you to handle the slow torture of the trial by spin that is the preferred method of attack in those parts, so it’s fair to say that the Proteas’ biggest failing in their dismal twoTest series against Sri Lanka was in the way they thought about the contest.

You can forgive coach Ottis Gibson for arriving on the island and talking about how his team wanted to be positive, but in the first Test they batted with an abandon that has not been so misplaced since the infamy of “Brave Cricket” and South Africa’s ignominious semifinal exit at the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies.

You can understand if Tabraiz Shamsi was not selected for the second Test as the second spinner if, having lost his father and travelled all the way to South Africa and back in the space of three days, he was not in the right mental state. But to not then select Shaun von Berg and have to use the likes of part-timer Aiden Markram during the first session on the first day, speaks to a gross misreading of the conditions. You can understand the Proteas wanting to back their pace-bowling strengths, but the complete absence of reverse-swing again meant the situation on the ground did not justify it, whatever past history suggested.

The Test series was characterised by the muddled thinking of the Proteas and allowing Sri Lanka to add 111 for the last two wickets in Galle and 74 for the last wicket in Colombo showed poor planning and execution, allowing the home side’s tail to add vital first-innings runs.

But disgruntled South African fans can at least take some comfort in the fact that the six fresh players who have arrived for the ODI series seem to have uncluttered minds judging by the performance against a useful Sri Lanka Board XI that included five members of the home side’s senior squad.

Reeza Hendricks, whose only previous limited-overs experience on the sub-continent was four innings for South Africa A at Chepauk in 2015, showed he can play spin even if he was shunted into the middle-order, helping to lift South Africa from a mediocre 125/5 to a winning total with his 59 off 54 balls.

David Miller scored a fluent 40 to show how important his experience will be, but the performance that was probably the most exciting was that of young Wiaan Mulder, who scored a run-a-ball 56 to shepherd the Proteas to 293.

The 20-year-old showed that he can really read the match situation as he added 60 for the last wicket with Junior Dala, who also deserves great credit for hanging around so sensibly to score 19 not out. Mulder showed clarity in his thinking by recognising that he had to just stay there until the end and you can always pick up the run-rate in the closing overs. The final winning margin was 63 runs, which shows just how crucial those runs were.

It was, of course, just a warmup match and I’m not saying Gibson should send all six new arrivals into battle in the first ODI in Dambulla tomorrow. But with the World Cup less than a year away, there are young players standing up and showing that they are pushing hard to make that squad.