Bowlers get shorter end of virus stick, says Boucher

“We’re having to think out the box continuously to try and get our workloads up.” - Mark Boucher on keeping players primed in the time of Covid.

Telford Vice | Centurion

MARK Boucher played 467 matches for South Africa from October 1997 to March 2012. His coach for 164 of them, from May 2005 to January 2009, was Mickey Arthur. Now they are in opposing dressingrooms: Boucher as South Africa’s coach and Arthur as Sri Lanka’s.

But that doesn’t mean they’re no longer friends. “I’ll probably have a coke with Mickey and find a couple of learnings,” Boucher said on Tuesday after his team won the first Test by an innings and 45 runs after lunch on the first day. “Maybe we’ll learn from them so we don’t get ourselves into a pickle as well. It’s about being extra cautious and having a bigger squad in order to make good decisions.”

Whether Boucher meant he would meet with Arthur literally or figuratively in these Covid times was unclear. But he certainly could learn from his counterpart how not to prepare a team for a Test match in these uncertain times.

That’s not meant as a slight on Arthur, who no doubt honed his squad as best he could given the constraints placed on players, coaches and support staff by regulations to control the spread of the pandemic. But while Sri Lanka reported five injuries during the match — three of them serious enough to rule the affected players out of the second Test at the Wanderers, which starts on Sunday — the South Africans came through the game without any obvious significant damage. What had they done differently in the build-up to the series?

“We’re having to think out the box continuously to try and get our workloads up in order for these guys to come out and bowl 20 overs in a day,” Boucher said. “All we’ve done, really, is recognise that we’re going to need a big squad in order to get through this season.

“Sometimes you just want to play a guy for the sake of playing him. Maybe he’s your top bowler. There needs to be a big consideration for the workload that he’s had. The mental side, the physical side; all that suff comes into play. You’ve got to take the emotion out of it and make a smart cricketing decision.”

A case in point is Kagiso Rabada, who was added to the squad on Tuesday after recovering from a groin injury. But that didn’t mean, fine bowler that he is, that he will walk into the XI for the second Test. “We really want to play ‘KG’,” Boucher said. “But he needs to get his workloads up so that he doesn’t go into a Test match where there’s a high risk of him getting injured. Then we’d be doing not only him but ourselves injustice.”

Boucher was mindful of the fact that Rabada last played a Test, which was also his last first-class match, in January: “‘KG’ has been out of it for quite some time. Because his name is Kagiso Rabada, you would want to play him, but you’ve got to manage his loads. He is coming back from injury so we will just monitor his progress.”

Batters, Boucher said, had the longer end of the stick when it came to dealing with challenges caused by the virus: “It’s easier for batters to work on their fitness — you can do shuttles. But it’s difficult to bowl 20 overs in your back garden. You have to try simulate a game situation. You might have to bowl 10 overs in the morning and then come back in the afternoon and bowl another 10 overs. And while you are busy waiting you walk around the field, and that is trying to simulate what you would do in a game.

“You can’t put guys in cotton wool and just have them bowl six overs and think they are ready for a Test match. You can’t just say to a guy rock up and bowl 20 overs now. You’ve got to build him up so if you do want to push him, his body can handle it.”

Either that means Sri Lanka won’t have to deal with Rabada at the Wanderers. Or that Boucher is trying to convince Arthur that he won’t.

First published by Cricbuzz.