Africa-Press – South-Africa. Proteas stand-in coach Malibongwe Maketa said they’ll have to be an all-round side with an ability to play on all surfaces after they were found out on placid pitches in the Test series against Australia.
After being duffed in two days on a spitting rainforest of a pitch at the Gabba in Brisbane, the Proteas were roundly beaten on an even surface at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
On a slow Sydney Cricket Ground track, they needed to dig deep and got an intervention from the weather to escape with the draw.
Maketa admitted that batting in South Africa has been proven to be a tough ask, something that left him wondering whether they should be lions at home and kittens on the road.
However, he was quick to realise the approach can and will undermine the confidence of their batters. In the 2-0 home loss against Sri Lanka in 2019 he witnessed it first-hand as Ottis Gibson’s assistant.
“It’s a tough one in the sense that pitches in India are foreign to us and they’re difficult to bat on, but the stats do say that batting in SA is also very difficult,” Maketa said.
“However, we’ve found a way of making that work for us, but the question is now that with the younger batters, do we expose them to better wickets to build confidence to make enough runs to perform at this level.
“Or, do we say we’re the team that’s going to win at home and make it hard for travelling teams? Probably, that’s the way we need to look at things.
“We’ve come here and played on good wickets, but also looked at how our control [with the ball] will be challenged.
“Those are the things we need to address and if we’re comfortable with winning at home, then we can leave things the way they are.
“Teams will know how difficult it is to play in South Africa and we’ll be dealing with our own conditions, so it’ll be a catch-22 in terms of growing our players.
“However, we want to be successful around the world because you have to win everywhere in the world.”
Maketa though admitted the lack of first innings runs hamstrung them across the series. The first use of the wildly contrasting pitches at the Gabba and the MCG saw the Proteas fail to make 200.
It came as no surprise that those games were lost heavily by the Proteas, with Maketa admitting that the measly batting returns undermined their bowlers’ efforts.
“Looking back at the tour, it was clear that first innings runs were always going to be important to get our bowling attack operating,” Maketa said.
“We believed we could get 20 wickets, but unfortunately, we didn’t get the right side, especially in the first Test.
“As much as we were challenged in the batting averages, the batting conditions here were better than what we’ve played in through the past 12 months.
“I was quite encouraged in that we’d be able to get the 350.”
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