Johannesburg — South Africa remain mystified about their continuing batting woes, after another dismal first innings performance in the deciding match of their three-Test series with England on Saturday.
The Proteas were bowled out for 118 in just 36.2 overs, registering their third sub-180 total in a row and their fifth in a completed innings this year. “If we knew the answer to that, we probably wouldn’t find ourselves in this position,” the team’s batting consultant Justin Sammons, replied to a question about why the batting fails so regularly.
To be fair to Sammons, who took the role last summer, it’s an age old habit that goes back to Russell Domingo and then Ottis Gibson’s tenure, when there were better batters in the Proteas side. Sammons pointed out that just one of the top eight that are playing at The Oval — Dean Elgar — has batted in a Test match in England before. Inexperience is certainly one reason to explain the last three innings, but it isn’t the only one.
“The reality is we also have to give the opposition credit, they’ve bowled really well, got the ball in the right area probably 80% of the time, and continually asked questions of us,’ said Sammons. Ollie Robinson picked up five wickets and Stuart Broad four, with their control of length particularly impressive.
Turning to the Proteas, Sammons offered the following: “Today, if we’re hyper critical we could say our contact points and our bat angles could have been better. That’s not to say we wouldn’t have gotten out to those deliveries, but at least we are giving ourselves a chance. From that technical point of view is something that we’ve been working on and we will continue to focus on. We didn’t necessarily give our wickets away through mental errors, but it was execution, and on the day they were better than us.”
“What we’ve been missing is partnerships, that big partnership, that 100 plus partnership, but for that to happen individuals need to make their starts count which unfortunately hasn't happened on this tour.”
South Africa’s highest partnership came in the second innings in Manchester when Keegan Petersen and Rassie van der Dussen, added 87 runs for the fourth wicket — which ultimately was in vain.
At Lord’s Sarel Erwee and Dean Elgar shared an opening stand of 85, although the best batting by the Proteas in this series was the seventh wicket partnership between Marco Jansen and Keshav Maharaj in that first Test, when they added 72, and decisively grabbed the initiative for their team.
Those have been the only 50-plus partnerships in the series for the Proteas. “We own that we have not been good enough, we take that as a batting unit,” said Sammons. “But we are working hard to try and get better, to get to the standards that we need to get to.”
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