How South Africa kept the C-word far, far away during WTC run chase

Ironically, it wasn’t their former batting giants that loomed on their legend. It was the Aussie Nos 9, 10, 11 that gave them a sign that it could be indeed their day.

Prince alongwith head coach Shukri Conrad has cloaked this Proteas team into positivity and viewing situations in the right perspective.

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When asked if SA were worried when Australia were ‘piling on runs’ in second innings, as the Kangaroo tail wagged, Prince said, “Australia on Day 3 morning were going about their business comfortably but I certainly wouldn’t say they were piling it on. Because there were a lot of maidens, lot of tight overs. They were comfortable and we tried to take the positives out of that if their Nos 9, 10, 11 can be that comfortable and surely if stats suggest the pitch plays its best on Day 3, perhaps that’s what happening. And when you add the sunshine to that that’s exactly what happened,” he told the press.

Even when things were running away from them, the Saffers saw more than a sliver of silver around the cloud. Prince called it “signs.” “There were signs starting Day 2 evening – there are certain signs when you sitting and watching the game that all those type of things might be positive for us,” he countered of an undaunted way of optimistic thinking. “Obviously in terms of trying to wrap up the Australian tail there’s a little bit of frustration in terms of the ball dropping a little bit short of the slip cordon. But if you reverse that…it might happen the same when we bat. So when Ryan Rickleton goes fairly hard at 1 early on and it drops short in the slip cordon…so you know that’s a little sign that that might be something in our favour. We were trying to stick to the positives as much as we can,” he said.

Prince added that the Proteas literally fed off their opponents’ smooth batting stay, to bulk up their own confidence. “And then again in the morning when you watch their tailenders sticking around, there are signs there that suggest that Day 3 might be the best for batting. And they were pretty comfortable, numbers 9, 10 and 11 up against a pretty good bowling attack and with the sun out. You look for positives, the sun’s out, the nicks aren’t carrying to the slip cordon. So can we feed off those type of things? And obviously big partnerships are important. You know Moldush (Wiaan Mulder) coming in early in a position that he is not really accustomed to having lost an early wicket to settle everything down and Aiden, I think that partnership was quite crucial. And the next partnership (Markram Bavuma) was obviously massive,” he said.

The massive Aiden Markram effort had come after what Prince let on was a very minor tweaks. “We certainly knew Aiden Markram is someone for the big occasion. Of that there’s no doubt. He’s done a little bit of technical work. Not a lot. I think in the last little while he’s had a little tendency of his hands sort of pushing away from his body, cutting across the ball sometimes. But it wasn’t a big fix. As soon as he saw a few videos of himself doing that it was quite a simple fix. When I talk about his ability to play, beginning with, be it in losing cause at Newlands, on a very very difficult pitch. He played an unbelievable innings there. When everybody else was really struggling. And he got a 100 on that surface..so we know what he’s capable of.”

When chasing 280+, the message had been consistent to the batting unity: To make them believe that they can do it, bolstering their belief, and then the coaches stepping out of the way “to allow them to go and do it.”

South Africa most crucially, avoided desperation and panic through their chase, second highest at Lord’s. “One of the things we said before the run chase is the game will finish when it finishes whether that is Day 4 lunchtime or whatever the time, the end of the match will take care of itself. For us the most important thing is to stay in the moment and that means play one ball at a time. Whenever the game finishes, that’s when it will finish,” he said, of an important mindset that hasn’t kicked in seeing former teams make a hash of it.

The management hadn’t wanted Temba to continue with a snapped hamstring, but the two protagonists had defied them all. “At tea time on Day 3 was a big call whether Temba will continue. How it will affect his strokeplay. How it might affect Aiden’s rhythm. If twos are being turned into one that they can’t sort of run twos and threes. And both Bavuma and Markram were adamant that he continues. Aiden was adamant that the partnership is the key. Had Stubbs gone in, we would still have Temba’s wicket intact but it would start a new partnership. They were feeling good so they wanted to continue. Aiden was well aware that he will have to curb his intensity just in terms of running between wickets to allow Temba to ease his way through it,” he said.

In the end it wasn’t the captain’s glutes but the glue that holds this team together and which gave them the belief they could achieve what much more vaunted batting units hadn’t. “Innings like Temba’s says a lot (“It’s not done yet,” on Friday). He’s had to fight throughout his career and this would be a defining moment for his career. It’s the biggest stage in terms of Test cricket. Temba is tough. Aiden has great respect for Temba. This team’s greatest strength is it’s unity in this camp. You only have to look at how Stubbs celebrated a wicket to understand that and they are well aware that South Africa have had much greater individual players but they’ve got something special going in that dressing room and that helps them drag each other along,” Prince said.

Perhaps the best thing the Saffers did was not waste energy trying to prove any point, even if the choke word follows them viciously. The team is too chilled to get provoked. “In terms of the build-up even before we got here there was no talk of proving anyone wrong. There was a lot of talk about our route here, and how we came here and people had their opinions. I can promise you we would love to play against everybody more often. Especially if there’s big money series and we can also make some money. It’s not about proving anybody wrong but the important thing from Shukri’s point of view is to make players aware how good they are. They are good players. If you take them lightly you might come short. Not Australia, but rest of the world watching and predicting what might have had that opinion. But there are some great players in there. KG Rabada took 5b on Day 1 and then again. There’s unbelievable players and if you put it together you can achieve great things.”

Protea batsmen are now looking at even their low scores objectively, without falling apart because of how had the first innings total looked. Bavuma wasn’t fazed that his first run didn’t come for 20 balls not were they bothered by talk of their batting being too defensive. It was simply giving respect to Aussie pace pack and conditions.

“What we try to do is always bring perspective. Having read a few things, lots said about our first innings – maybe negativity or too defensive. You had three of the world’s best fast bowlers who hardly missed length in that 22-23 over period. On conditions that suited the bowlers on Day 1. Perspective means let’s shoot straight. 212 all out could have been 140-150 if one or two decisions had been given or we had taken the right call on the review. So being bundled out for 138 was not far off what they achieved had 1-2 decisions gone out way,” he explained.

After all those heartbreaks and star crossed endings, were South Africa superstitious?

“During the partnership there was a bit of sense that everybody got to stay in the same seats. There’s no individual that’s particularly superstitious in South Africa team but when you have rhythm going you want to maintain it. So everybody got their chance to go to bathroom in the drinks break or when Temba had to get treatment, we could stand up and go to the bathroom. The team is really tight, they were just cheering every ball, loving every shot,” he said.

Then they won. The job was done.