Gqeberha — A lot happened in the Proteas Test camp during the 2021-23 World Test Championship and IOL Sport’s Ongama Gcwabe highlights a few events that may have led to South Africa not being in London for the final.
The World Test Championship final is currently underway at The Oval in London where the two top teams (India and Australia) in this cycle are in action.
How did South Africa’s WTC campaign go?
SA were sitting at the top of the WTC standings for most of the cycle following their series victory against India at home in January 2022. But somehow the Proteas let it slip.
They followed that series up with a well-deserved draw away in New Zealand a month later and all seemed well for Dean Elgar’s team in the WTC campaign.
The 2-0 series thrashing of Bangladesh in the absence of key Proteas due to the IPL further strengthened SA’s hold on top spot on the WTC table.
If they stayed at the top of the WTC table for such a long time, where did it go wrong for the Proteas?
Well, the red flags were visible in the first match of the championship in Pretoria where SA lost a series opener to a Virat Kohli-led Indian team during the Boxing Day Test.
KL Rahul scored a century in that game, but the Proteas bowlers still did a good job whereas the batting on the other hand painted a vivid picture of what was to come for the rest of the championship.
The batting group failed to get past the 200-run mark in both innings of that Boxing Day Test and that was the first sign of what was to come from SA batters for a big part of the championship.
In New Zealand, the red flags appeared once more in the very first match of the series when South Africa were bowled out for 95 & 111 respectively and were handed one of SA’s biggest Test defeats since readmission.
In the second match however, Sarel Erwee and Kyle Verreynne scored maiden Test centuries, and Kagiso Rabada did the rest to win the match and draw the series for the South Africans.
A huge relief for then captain Elgar, but the warning signs still lingered over the Test team as none of the senior batters put on decent scores on the board.
Even in the 2-0 series victory over Bangladesh towards the end of the 2021-22 season, there wasn’t even a single century from the SA batters. Instead, the bowlers did the job like they had been doing leading up to that series.
Perhaps the only difference was that it was not Rabada, Anrich Nortje, Lungi Ngidi or Marco Jansen doing the damage with the ball. Instead it was the spin duo of Simon Harmer and Keshav Maharaj who did the business for SA in that Bangladesh series.
So many “excuses” were made for the New Zealand series in that Keegan Petersen, who was top scorer and man of the series against India, was injured and not on tour.
Also, the intense Covid-19 rules the players had to adhere to having arrived in New Zealand were thrown into the conversation as a defence to the team’s glaring batting woes.
It reached an extent where acclimatisation, which is also a valid reason, was thrown into the picture in defence of the batting group.
Playing conditions and the Test team’s lack of experience were also often used as reasons for the low scores.
"It was tough conditions for myself and I've got a decent amount of experience, so I can only imagine how the guys who've played one or two Tests feel. It was tough all around." said Elgar after losing 2-1 to England in September 2022.
“Tough conditions” and “lack of experience” were the most frequent phrases used by Elgar and the then batting coach Justin Sammons in the press-conferences when the batters failed to score big time and again.
The first action was taken during that England series when Aiden Markram was dropped in the third and last match. But that did not help as SA went on to lose inside three days.
While the batting conditions were “tough” for the Proteas batters, opposition batters were scoring centuries in the same conditions and that was not only because of the very few off-days the bowling attack was having, it was because the opposition batters simply applied themselves to the task and got the job done despite the conditions.
In Australia, the same script played out and SA got a 2-0 thrashing of note.
And just like that, the reputation of not having lost a Test series in Australia since 2008-09 was out the window.
By the time the Proteas arrived in Australia, Mark Boucher had ditched the Proteas for Mumbai Indians and did so after telling the media on the day SA lost the England series that, “I’m a purist. I love Test cricket to bits. It’s the purest form of the game and one that we really need to look after.”
Plenty happened during this WTC cycle and this is only a small part of it. Without a doubt, all of it played a role in SA not being at The Oval competing for the championship at the moment.
IOL Sport